If you’re reading this, you might be interested in a career in real estate and are wondering if this might be a good time to get into the field. Maybe you’re already in school, or already have a full-time job and want to know if you can be a real estate agent before really committing to the gig. Well, did you know you can actually work as an agent part-time? If you already have your average 9-5, working in real estate is the perfect way to make some extra money by only working a couple of hours a week! Let’s look at how it can be done.
Lead Generation
Many people are surprised to learn how much time agents devote to finding new clients. But this is a fact of the business. Clients aren’t typically given to you; you have to go out and find them through a process called lead generation.
Building and growing a network is a career-long effort. A real estate agent should continue to add to their lead files while remembering to nourish the contacts already gained. This is done with follow-up phone calls, emails, texts, newsletters, etc. — all done with the goal of keeping the agent’s name top of mind.
It would be rare for an agent to spend a whole day doing this, but it would also be rare for the agent not to dedicate some time to it almost every day.
Client Meetings
Quite often, your buyers and sellers keep a 9-5. So they can only be available for showings or listing appointments in the early evening. This is extremely convenient for someone like you, who might also have a traditional working day!
The length of these meetings will depend on where the client is on the transaction timeline. Are they a prospect wondering if you’re the right agent to be representing them in the sale of their home? If so, the meeting is likely a listing presentation where you lay out your sales strategy and describe where their home fits in the current market.
After you win them over, you’ll have another meeting to stage their home, take photos and video, and prepare for the marketing of the property. That meeting, hopefully, will be followed by more meetings to discuss offers from buyers, culminating in one last series of meetings that are all associated with completing a sales transaction.
If you’re working on the buyer side of things, the meetings you can expect to take will also travel along a transaction timeline.
First, you’ll meet to sell yourself to the buyer, explaining how you will make sure their best interests are represented throughout any transaction they enter into. Then, once that agency relationship has been established, your meetings will move to those involving educating the buyer on the market in general and accompanying them on tours of specific properties that might be of interest. Those events will be followed by meetings centered around the crafting of offers on a property, which, if successful, will lead to meetings associated with closing a sale.
Additional Duties
While generating leads and client meetings will most likely take up the majority of your average day working as a part-time real estate agent, there are some additional responsibilities you’ll need to take care of somewhere in between, or even on the weekends. This might come in the form of administrative duties such as data entry, budgeting, scheduling, marketing, and paperwork, meetings with your brokerage to discuss new listings, changes in existing listing prices, or the needs of your clients, or continuing education which are required to keep your license active!
The Perks of Flexibility
While you might be anxious about a potential trial run as a real estate agent, choosing to work part-time is a great place to start. Many newcomers are choosing to enter the field as a part-timer, using real estate as a side hustle while working a day job, and transitioning to full time when they’re ready. There are also plenty of agents who choose to work part-time so they can be home when the kids get home from school. With real estate sales, you have the power and flexibility to start part-time and increase your hours when it makes sense for your lifestyle.
A whopping 93% of nearly 1,000 real estate agents surveyed agree that a career in real estate offers exceptional flexibility. Not only can you choose among dozens of career paths in the real estate industry, but when you work in real estate sales, you get to decide how much you’ll work and when. You can get started in real estate part-time as a side hustle or you can launch a new full-time career. You can even choose which tasks you’ll do and which you’ll outsource.
All of this flexibility and control also means you get to decide how much money you make.
While we’ve given you a few examples of what you could do in a day as a part-time real estate agent, it’s important to note that no two days on the job might be exactly alike. In fact, your plans can change at a moment’s notice depending on the needs of your clients. Most agents understand this and are agile enough to respond as necessary.
Nevertheless, they usually do have some sense of a plan for how the day will go.
Here’s but one example of a day working part-time as a real estate agent.
So, that’s the day in the life of a real estate agent. Is today your day to make that your life?