People who only know the real estate industry from movies and TV shows believe that all they do is take people on house tours and sell them properties. People think that’s great so they say “Yes!” right away hoping for that big commission check. But in real life, it’s not like that. There are big portions of a real estate professional’s job that aren’t super fun. Thus, they might become outsourced services in real estate.
Real life is quite often different from what you see on TV. By the time a buyer comes to see a property, the agent (or his team) has already put in some work. Some of these other tasks work the same way. Let’s dive into the top four most outsourced services in real estate.
1. Market Research and Data Entry
Your real estate business depends on information. This means that you need someone skilled at gathering this information and someone who knows how to handle this data afterward.
Market research in real estate is how you get ahead. Everything you need is online (there are virtually no offline sales anymore), which is why you need to work extra hard for this market research and data entry to make them work.
While you can put someone from your team to handle these tasks, specialists will be a lot quicker and a lot more efficient at the task at hand. Most importantly, when you take people away from their key responsibilities and put them in charge of something they’re not quite as skilled at, their job satisfaction will sharply drop.
Data entry is also important. While not as difficult as research, it’s as vital, and it’s one of those things that your employees just hate doing. By outsourcing this, you’ll have this handled while minimizing the number of tasks your staff members see as either too difficult or not enjoyable.
2. Marketing
Real estate is a competitive market, and while some people can’t seem to find the house of their dreams, if they look long enough, they’re bound to find a dozen properties that fit a profile. Your problem here is that it might not be the property that you’re selling.
Real estate is an incredibly competitive market, and you need a specialist to handle it 24/7. Ideally, that person is someone who has great real estate marketing ideas.
First, you just need that real estate blog. There’s so much great content that you can produce that will help you establish a better relationship with your target audience. This is a great way to provide them with value, but content creation and curation take much more than you would expect.
Social media marketing is incredibly important, especially with platforms like Instagram and TikTok that allow you to showcase your properties (with their real-estate-friendly content formats). Still, running a personal account and a business account are not the same.
Email marketing and outreach are still the main forms of communication in the business world. Even with the automation, the people you put in charge can really make a difference.
Lastly, SEO can help get your website to one of the top SERPs and increase your traffic and online visibility.
Outsourcing any or all of these is a good idea.
3. Accounting
As a real estate business, you have so many expenses, ranging from managing your payroll to handling invoices between tenants and property managers. This means that you could benefit from having great accounting at your disposal, and this is why a lot of people prefer to outsource accounting and bookkeeping services.
However, even making your in-house team can be a lot easier when you get just one accountant and hire a few bookkeeping virtual assistants to help them out. Modern accounting software already makes a world of difference in proficiency and efficiency, so all that you need now is some actual manpower behind these tasks.
The bottom line is that, with modern software, even a layman could handle these tasks. The problem is that it would take them so much time. This time would be better spent on core real estate business tasks – tasks that actually make money for your business.
Accounting was one of the first things that businesses outsourced decades ago. Now, with the existence of the Internet, this is easier and more efficient than ever. With cloud-based software, you can get real-time insights and analytics, and sharing (and restricting access) is more dependable than ever.
Modern cybersecurity ensures that you can share even some of the most sensitive details this way.
Just keep in mind one thing, understanding property taxes as a homeowner doesn’t mean that you know how to handle accounting for a real estate firm.
4. Property Management
A lot of real estate agencies also handle property management, and while this sounds related, the reality is that the correlation is far lower than you would expect. This is why it’s so important that you understand the conditions of property management and why so many real estate businesses choose to outsource.
First, this saves so much time and money. You see, property management firms have more than just manpower. They understand the smart strategies of property management inside and out. That means that they’ll be more effective at the task at hand.
They handle things like rent collection, tenant negotiations, property maintenance, and record-keeping on their own, ensuring that everything runs as smoothly as possible.
It’s also worth mentioning that they’re the ones directly responsible for the reputation of your firm. Let’s face it: landlords already (mostly unjustly) don’t have a great reputation. Well, since property managers are the ones directly in contact with the customer, they’ll be mostly responsible for how you’re seen in public.
Also, this is one of the fields where there are so many risks and liabilities. Many real estate businesses already have a fair share of their problems, so if they can delegate even a portion of this to someone else, they’ll embrace the opportunity.
Conclusion
Ultimately, it all comes down to whether you want to simplify things or keep more control. If you’re not afraid of more administration and have a manpower pool that is big enough, there’s nothing wrong with handling things in-house. Still, even then, it might be best just to take the path of least resistance.
