It doesn’t happen so much lately since I guess they’ve all gotten with the programme, but in the very beginning of this journey when I started to go my own way in the real estate business, many of my friends and family would pop in for a visit at all hours of the working day. Sometimes we work Saturdays or Sundays of course, mainly doing property viewings with prospective buyers, so the frequent visitors in the form of the friends and family soon realised that actually we’re pretty much always busy.
They realised that being in the real estate business isn’t a matter of just sitting around and waiting for a prospective buyer to make contact about a listing or an open house viewing. There is a lot more work which goes into it, lots of which is administrative work. In fact, a little cousin of mine actually came out with it outright and asked just exactly what is it myself and my staff do when we’re typing away at our computers, THE WHOLE TIME!
The truth is there’s a lot of admin work and so I’d like to discuss this administrative side of the real estate business.
Operational record-keeping
This is more like writing a journal or a log-book entry of any and all info you deem to be of value with regards to the operation of the business. This is especially true of information which may come in handy in the future, such as perhaps when the most active time for buyers is in the market, in a specific area or overall.
Accounting and bookkeeping
Unless you’re the officially appointed accounting officer then the accounting and bookkeeping you’d be occupying yourself with would probably just take the form of some basic financial records keeping.
Following up on leads & generating new leads
Normally you’d find real estate agency business staff occupying themselves with that admin work around leads generation and following-up when things seem to be a little slow or indeed if they just want to bump up their commissions by meeting and exceeding sales targets. This can include sending out emails and responding to others, picking up the phone, placing ads, etc.
Process planning and refinement
In the same way that the generation of new leads means that the work within a real estate business can never truly be finished, the operational process always but always has room for improvement. Sometimes that’s what we’re busy with – improving how the whole business operates, whether you’re searching for some automobile accident lawyers to consult with in relation to formulating better policies around something like taking prospective buyers on property viewings (covering your legal bases) or indeed if you’re looking for a better, more efficient way for prospective sellers to get in touch with you should they want to list their properties for sale.
Either way the admin work of a real estate agent or any other staff in the real estate industry is never complete. There is always something to do.
