An average day for a real estate agent

For the sceptics. For the outdated. For the undecided. This is the start of a normal Monday for a normal real estate agent, which is no small thing...

Read this post if:

• You think that estate agents are "good for nothing".
• If you are interested in the real estate sector and are considering a career in real estate.
• If you are a medieval estate agent and you want to know what is being done today.
• If you are an agent today and want to contribute your experience of a typical day, adding, subtracting, confirming or denying any of the things I say in this post.

MONDAY

8:30

You read the e-mails and listen to the answering machine messages received over the weekend requesting visits to different properties. You call the people one by one, you describe the properties to them, first telling them about the negative aspects and ending with the positive ones - you want to save yourself and your owner client any unnecessary visits -, you filter and schedule a date and time for their visit. You insert the information from the conversation and schedule the appointments in the CRM (Customer Relationship Manager).

9:15

You call a person who has contacted you to sell their property. You carry out the questionnaire that will allow you to better understand the motivations, needs and commitment of this potential client. Everything points to the fact that you can help them to sell their property and you make an appointment for the following Wednesday at six o'clock in the evening at their home.

9:35

Your CRM notifications alert you that you have to make several calls to people in your network: former customers, partners, friends and acquaintances who often recommend you to others. You know that keeping in touch and genuinely caring about them is an essential part of your job and a guarantee of future business. Most people you call, some you simply write a brief follow-up email to, and another you meet for lunch the following Friday.

10:30

You start the daily hour - often interrupted by phone calls - that you dedicate every Monday and Wednesday to keep up to date with the real estate market in your area, the latest real estate news and developments in your sector. You read the articles by Sandra López Letón (@slopezleton) in El País, a Fernando García Erviti in Inmobiliarios 2.0, to César Villasante (@cesvillas) in Inmoblog and Dionisio Escarbajal (@dionisioescara) in InmoTools. You can also take the opportunity to read the weekly newsletter from Inman Newswhich keeps you in touch with the latest real estate news in the United States. In that hour you receive two calls which you take briefly to say that you will call back from 11:30am or the next day from 8:30am.

11:30

You make the calls you have committed yourself to: The first one to the manager of your bank office to arrange a meeting to ask for a loan to refurbish your office and adapt it to the tastes of the type of client you have specialised in and which you have worked so hard to get. The other is to reschedule a meeting with a German client interested in renting a house with a garden who has had a setback.

11:45

You write a brief update on Linked-in about one of the news items you read a while ago that you think is relevant and useful for homeowners who want to sell before the end of the year. All your contributions to Linked-in also appear on Facebook and Twitter, and although you know that it is not optimal to do it this way, at the moment you do not have the time to dedicate daily attention to each of the social networks in which it is not an option not to be active.

12:00

You have an hour and a half left before lunch:

1. Finish preparing the Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) that you have to present at your 3pm recruitment visit.
2. Prepare the paper materials for this presentation: sales dossier, folder, ACM, business card and merchandising pieces.
3. Check the social profiles - LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram - of your 3pm visitor to find out a bit more about her and see if you have people you know in common; if you do, they are worth their weight in gold.
4. Write the descriptive text of a property that tomorrow you will have to activate in the CRM, upload to your website and publish on all the portals you work with. As you also place your properties on foreign portals, you will have to translate the description into English.

13:30

You have a light meal with your partner. You take a short break because you don't want to get home late and you make the most of the day.

14:30

You set off on your visit but not before making a call to the owner reminding her of your appointment after 30 minutes and asking her if she has visited your company's website as you suggested she do. The fact that she was aware of your appointment and that she had indeed taken the time to visit your website gives you confidence that this is a person who is really motivated to sell and who takes your meeting seriously. You think: if only it were always like that...

15:00

You arrive on time, are greeted by the owner of the house and meet at the kitchen table.

You ask him some questions about issues you need to clarify regarding the outstanding amount of the mortgage and the time frame in which you would like to sell.

He asks you to tell him about your company and the services you offer, which you do thanks to the printed material you have prepared and a digital presentation on your tablet. He has doubts about what you stand for working exclusively and she asks you to explain to her what the advantages are for her and why she should commit herself to you without you having been able to prove that you deserve her trust. You explain - how many times have you done this already - and you get the feeling that they understand and think it is sensible and fair, although you take nothing for granted because nothing is certain until it is signed - which she and her husband will have to do at the next meeting, if there is one, in your office when you present them with the valuation* - and even then.

Before you leave, you review together the documentation that you asked to have ready (deed of sale, floor plan, last IBI receipt) and you ask to see the property and take some photos for internal use to help you in the valuation.

As you walk around the house, you realise that they have read books that you have read and that they have the same Ikea wardrobe as you, the one where the shoe rails always break. You take the opportunity to share reflections on those (small) things that unite you and you tell him that - what a coincidence - you know his brother because he's a dad at your children's school.

You say goodbye, reminding her that you are waiting for her to call you the next day to decide which evening she can spend with her husband so that you can present the valuation to them.

(*) Unfortunately you still don't dare to do like Tito Beltrán (@vicentebeltran), which carries out the valuation after the owners have signed the exclusiveWhat a guy!

16:10

At 16:30 you have a meeting with a couple interested in booking a property for sale. The property is being offered at 380,000 euros, but they want to negotiate their price.

You prepare the Reservation Document and gather them in your office to receive the cheque confirming the reservation and help them make an offer that you think is fair and that the sellers - your clients - can accept. You use the time between now and the meeting to analyse the performance indicators of the junior salesperson you hired to take some work off your hands with the rents: leads generated, recruitment visits carried out, recruitments signed, operations closed, number of follow-ups carried out.

17:15

The meeting was cordial and there was a willingness to understand. You call the sellers to explain the meeting and the offer made. You discuss with them the strategy to follow to ensure the best sale without jeopardising an operation that seems quite secure.

17:35

You have to leave the conversation because you have to review the final version of a lease that has already been agreed. You talk to your assistant and ask him to print out the second copy of the contract and to prepare the gifts you give to each party after the signing. You prepare the room while you ask your assistant to bring glasses and a pitcher of water.

18:00

You welcome the parties - landlord and tenant - into your office. You want them to feel at home. You go over and explain the latest changes to the contract. They sign, you collect your fee, hand over the keys, have a chat and give them an unexpected gift for which they are grateful. Photo for Instagram. You remind them that you'd love a recommendation on Linked-in or Google. You apologise for having to leave because you have a house visit to attend to and you have to leave now. You ask your assistant to "close" the meeting.

18:30

You print the file of a property you have for sale and you have to show it in 30'. You call the interested party to confirm the visit. You call the owner to remind him/her that he/she must be outside the property when you arrive with the interested party. 

18:55

Having arrived 5 minutes early and having prepared the house - airing rooms, switching on lights, checking everything - you wait at the gate. It's the end of May, it's a beautiful day, the sun is setting. You know that the inside of the house will be a beautiful, unbeatable orange colour and you are happy when the visitor arrives and you have the secret hope that "this one will get it, this one will get it". You make the visit following the protocol of home visitbeing attentive to the questions of the partner, but without escort them on the floor giving them unnecessary explanations.

19:30

On your way home, you schedule a couple of quiet hours for the next day: You have to start preparing the documentation for a notarised signing of a purchase contract, whose arras you signed 5 weeks ago. The sale and purchase is to be signed on Thursday morning.

19:45

You call the owner of the property you have just visited to explain how the visit went and to suggest a price adjustment for the property. As you agreed, you have invested in several online actions (featured on portals, Facebook Ads...) and yet, for weeks now, the visits have been spaced too far apart for you to be sure that it will sell in the timeframe you need.

20:00

You get home, take off your heels, kiss your partner (long and hard), put on some music and pour yourself a whisky, maybe a double.