Starting a Real Estate Management Company – Sample Business Plan Template
Step 1: How to Become a Real Estate Manager
Real estate management is not a new business. It’s a business that has been helping people pay the bills for several years. Real estate management business is easy to start and doesn’t require a lot of capital compared to other businesses.
The most important thing is to have good interpersonal skills and be able to communicate with people easily. You would also need to know how to build connections with people quickly because most times, the real estate management business is about how fast you can get buyers to purchase a property before your competitors do.
To succeed in this business, you must build a good reputation for yourself and show people that you are honest and can be trusted. You must also know about all housing laws, federal, local and state.
Step 2: Where do I start from?
You should start by registering your business and maybe even incorporating it, so that it becomes a separate legal entity. You can easily get a lawyer or an accountant to do that for you.
Next, you should search for an office space that is very accessible to your clients. As a real estate manager, it’s very possible to work from a home office but you must first consider accessibility before you adopt this approach. You should equip your office with all the items needed like a telephone, a computer, internet connection, a fax machine and all other office supplies. You should also create an official website for your business.
Step 3: How to Get Prospective Clients
As a real estate manager, you will have two categories of clients. First is the property owner and in the second category is the tenant. You will need to do some work to be able to find both clients.
You can get links to property owners by visiting building sites to find out who owns the property. You can now take it up from there and write professional letters to the property owner introducing yourself and your business, and then stating that you would love to become their real estate manager.
You can also get jobs by forming an alliance with people who work on new building like architects, engineers and construction supervisors. They may be able to recommend you to property owners who may need such services.
To get tenants, you will need to do a lot of advertising both online and offline. You can advertise your business through social media such as Facebook and twitter. One more way to advertise your business online is by buying leads.
There are many searches for property on the internet on a daily basis. When you get a list of positive leads, you can follow up by launching an e-mail marketing campaign or making marketing phone calls.
For offline advertisement, you would need to print flyers, banners, business cards and employ all other means of advertisement that would create awareness for your business. This takes us to the next point:
Step 4: How to Charge for your Services
Your charges as real estate manager would depend on two things;
- The rules and regulations relating to real estate charges in your state
- The expenses you incur on closing each deal
You won’t need to incur too many expenses though. The bulk of your expenses would be on advertisement, transportation and phone bills, but you would still have to consider that when you want to charge your clients.
Your charges would also depend on the rules in your area. For instance, in some places, you are not allowed to charge both property owner and prospective tenants in the same transaction, while in some other areas; it is allowed. Finding out which rules apply in your local area is needed before you start handing out bills to your clients.
Most estate managers charge on a percentage basis. This means, they charge a certain percentage on the value of a sale or lease. And on each rent you help to collect, you would also be entitled to a certain percentage from it as a property manager.
Step 5: How much money will I make as a real estate manager?
As a beginner, you may be able to make an average of $55,000 yearly but as you continue to grow in the business, this amount could shoot right up to an average of $100,000 monthly.
Step 6: Do I need staffs to assist me?
Whether you will need extra help or not depends on your mode of operation. If you want to start a small home based Real Estate Management Company, you may be just fine doing your thing alone; but if you want to start out as a medium sized or very big company, you will definitely need a few people to handle different aspects of the business.
You wouldn’t want a situation where you will be out on an inspection tour with clients and your office telephone is ringing out endlessly with no one to pick the calls and attend to other potential clients.
Conclusively, you must ensure that you properly manage any property assigned to you. Take inspection tours regularly and maintain a list of people who can help with maintenance and repairs like painters and handymen.
You should also be very honest and straightforward in your dealings as this would keep the clients coming back and would earn you referrals.
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