New Real Estate Agent? Here's How to Schedule Your Day

As a real estate agent, how should you schedule your day for maximum success?

There are several flat out myths when it comes to the daily life of a real estate agent. The most persistent myth is that you have no set schedule. You’re the boss, and you can barely work and still make a bunch of money. You can show up to work at 3pm and leave at 4pm. You can take extended holidays whenever you feel like it. You don't have to be organized or disciplined with your time.

Here’s the real deal: while you may work as an independent contractor, and you can set your own schedule, you do have a boss. Your boss is the client. The client sets your schedule, and if you want to be successful at real estate, you’ll structure your day around your clients, both current and prospective.

In this post, we’ll discuss the most important things to consider when making a daily schedule as a new real estate agent so that you can be successful.

Structuring Your Day as a Real Estate Agent

Your day can be divided into two sections:

1. Lead Generation
2. Business Servicing

As a new real estate agent, you’ll need to focus on both. However, you’ll likely invest more of your time into generating leads. It makes sense: Leads are the fuel of your business. Without a lead, you can’t make a sale. And without a sale, you can’t make dinner. So, lead generation is hugely important.

But don’t forget to service your business, too. You’re in business for yourself and often by yourself. You may get some support from your brokerage and your professional network, but your success or failure is greatly determined by your ability to run a solid and solvent business. From researching the neighborhood to networking with key players in the industry, you’ll need to spend a good amount of time each day investing in yourself and your business.

Your tasks will differ depending on whether you’re primarily a seller’s agent or a buyer’s agent (and remember, you can be both for different clients).

As a seller’s agent, your tasks may include:

• Preparing a comparative marketing analysis (CMA) report to research listings that are active, pending, or recently sold
• Determine the right listing price for the property
• Preparing a listing presentation
• Taking photos of the property
• Coordinating with stagers
• Listing properties for sale
• Hosting open houses
• Presenting offers to your seller
• Negotiating for the seller
• Reviewing the offer to purchase contract presented by a buyer or buyer’s agent
• Representing the seller during a buyer's walk-through inspection

As a buyer’s agent, your tasks may include:

• Browsing the MLS for new and appropriate listings
• Touring new listings every week or at least once a month so that you can find the right properties for the buyer
• Sending new listing to clients
• Showing the property
• Coming up with a counter-offer strategy
• Preparing an offer to purchase contract
• Walking through inspections
• Providing the buyer with important contacts (real estate attorney, lender, movers, etc.)
• Meeting with other agents in your brokerage to discuss listings (what’s new, recent reductions, etc.)
• Meeting with loan officers to expand your network and establish a referral source

Regardless of your specialty, a big chunk of your administrative tasks will include the following:

• Completing and submitting real estate documents (such as agreements or contracts)
• Creating promotional marketing materials for yourself (buyer’s agent) or for your properties (seller’s agent), such as flyers and newsletters
• Networking with potential clients and referral sources
• Brushing up on any new real estate regulations
• Creating and sticking to a monthly budget
• Logging on to your social media accounts and making new updates (post new listings, share neighborhood news, offer real estate advice, etc.)
• Responding to emails, text messages, and phone calls

It may be beneficial to hire an assistant to help with your daily schedule. Sometimes, getting help with light administrative tasks (such as scheduling your meetings) can be worth the rate that you’ll pay, since it may free you up to do the important tasks that actually drive your business.

Scheduling Best Practices

Let’s take a look at the best things you can do every single day as a real estate agent:

Do the Most Important Thing First

Whether your most important task is filing closing paperwork or scheduling a meeting with an excellent referral source, you know your top priority for the day. Instead of procrastinating, take on that task first thing in the morning, before you’re distracted by something else.

By handling the most important task first, you’ll have a sense of accomplishment that will carry you through the day. It’s amazing how accomplishing one task can positively impact the rest of your day.

Prospect Every Day

You may not love it, but you can’t escape it. What are we talking about here? Cold calling, networking, and reaching out to past clients. You’ll need to spend some time each day calling on prospects, referrals, and previous clients to generate new business. It’s a good idea to have a script ready so that you’re prepared to answer questions, power through hesitations, and leave a winning impression.

Block Schedule Your Time

It can be tempting to go from one task to another, but it’s much more effective to do similar things within the same block of time. For example, if possible, schedule your meetings to occur one after the other. This way, you don’t have to worry about squeezing in smaller tasks in between meetings.

The same goes for marketing efforts. Who wants to shift back and forth from creating a marketing campaign to answering emails and phone calls? It can be difficult to get back on track. Therefore, it’s a better use of your time to focus on one type of task at a time.

Set a Schedule

Flying by the seat of your pants doesn’t work very well when you have a ton of different tasks to attend to. As a new real estate agent, it’s a good idea to create a schedule so that you include everything in your day that’s important to get done.

Make Room for Networking

Ever heard the phrase, “Everyone is a potential client”? It’s not just cute, it’s true. Just about everyone you meet will need to buy a house, sell a house, rent an apartment, buy or sell land, or all of the above. And if they don’t need your services at the moment, they know someone who does.

Real estate is all about making connections and staying top of mind whenever someone needs your services. Networking must take up a substantial part of your day every day.

Create a Morning Ritual

Start your day with some mindful ritual. Whether that’s practicing meditation, enjoying a cup of tea, taking the dog for an early morning walk, or scrolling through Instagram, you need a ritual that keeps you grounded and sets your day off right.

Final Thoughts

Let's face it, a lot of people think that a job in real estate is an easy profession. They think you can clock in and out whenever you want, without worrying about getting any work done. While it's true that you don't have a 9 to 5 schedule, you have to work on the client's demand, or you won't make money as an agent.

However, the above tips will help you find a balance and develop a certain rhythm for your day. Set up your schedule right, stick to it, and you'll get your business in a productive groove soon enough!