Real estate is a good business model if you are looking for a lucrative line of work. However, every promising field attracts a high volume of interest. Many entrepreneurs are interested in getting into the residential real estate market, but how can they outlast the competition and – more importantly – turn their venture into a sustainable success?
What does it take to succeed in real estate? A wide range of things, but you’ll get off to a good start if you learn how to avoid foreseeable errors, build a creative team to develop the business, and calculate your carrying costs to avoid running out of cash to cover business expenses.
Let’s take a closer look at the core aspects of launching a successful real estate business:
Create a Business Plan
While your plans won’t always work out, having a goal and a plan will give you a sense of direction. A solid plan will also boost your confidence. Ideally, create a formal business plan, one so meticulously conceived that you could take it to the bank to get financing if you need a loan.
This is also a good time to talk about your business model. Do you want to be a traditional buyer’s agent or seller’s agent? Do you want to lead a branded team of other agents who cut you in on a percentage of their sales? Would you rather start a brokerage, or potentially go into virtual wholesaling as an investor? (Here’s an excellent article on how to wholesale real estate.) The answer to those questions will help determine everything else.
It is at this point that you need to decide what you will be delegating to others, and what you will be taking care of yourself. Perhaps you will want to oversee and micromanage every aspect at first, but you may soon find you don’t have time for it all. There will be plenty of aspects of your business you will be able to hire others to handle for you. You could consider hiring a property management solutions company for example. They will be able to take care of collecting rent and looking after any rental properties you assign to them. This will free up time so you can take care of the big things. The kind of things only you can do, and that will keep the business afloat. Many services like this exist, and you can hire the correct personnel as well, so keep that in mind.
In addition to office rent, furniture, and overhead expenses, you should itemize all the marketing resources you must invest in to grow your real estate business. This not only demonstrates an eye for detail, it provides a more comprehensive roadmap going forward. B2B services will help you guide your small business to success. For example, it may be wise to use a legal services instead of hiring a full time lawyer. Another common B2B service a new company may need is with finances. A more creative and differentiating service could be professional drone photography while marketing and advertising properties. You don’t only need to use services to run the boring parts of your business like payroll and litigation, but you can also spend some of that money on creative marketing tests to try and stand out while building your brand, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have to manage them in the future, you should always have commercial litigation lawyers nearby so you are ready to contact one if you ever need their assistance.
You can always get guidance on how to create your business plan from a Small Business Development Center associated with the U.S. Small Business Administration. Also, rather than using a word processor to outline your business plan, it might be easier to use a software template to structure your ideas in a more coherent and cohesive manner.
Assemble a Creative Crew
When it comes to building a real estate business, you don’t have to do it alone. Consider partnering with other progressive thinkers. Building a creative team will not only fortify your courage when you need to step out of your comfort zone to get a new client or close a deal, but it will also stimulate strategic ideas on how to grow your business. Imagine how much faster your business will grow if you can outsmart the competition, come up with clever ideas when you get stuck on a project, and consistently maintain a positive attitude.
Understand Your Customers
You learned about your customers’ proclivities before you created your business plan because you needed to figure out if your product would sell and if you had chosen a profitable business niche. While you won’t need to do the same level of extensive research again, continuing to understand your customer’s interests pays off in spades. Make an effort to keep on learning more about your target market’s needs and wants. This effort will prove invaluable when you’re advertising and promoting your business. You’ll also be able to close more sales because you’ll have an intuitive feel for what people need, want, and desire. You are also going to need to a place where your customers can find you to set up a face to face meeting to make it easier for them. If you want to find a place fast, then visit the Swiftlease Homepage for many options. Once you have everything settled and are ready to start renting, then make sure that you do a proper tenant screening so you are sure of who is renting your property.
Calculate Your Carrying Cost
While you could start your company for less than $5,000, this will only cover your carrying costs. Don’t naively assume that if you hustle every single business day that you’ll always have more than enough cash flow to cover all your business expenses. Despite your best efforts, there will be some downtime. Estimate your carrying costs, then work with investors to fund your business. If you have ever wanted to start working for yourself, you may want to look into a mattress store business opportunity. A mattress store can be setup with fairly low up front costs. You should also save your initial profits to build a financial cushion.
In closing, you have to remember that real estate is not a get-rich-quick business. While you might hit a financial windfall now and then, don’t expect to always go from one large commission to another. Instead, think of real estate as a long game and build your business with patience and integrity.
