On the surface, becoming a real estate agent appears to be a glamorous career and lifestyle—from selling mansions in affluent neighborhoods to rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous.
But let’s look at the agent’s job more comprehensively so that you know that career that this career path is right for you.
Overview of What Real Estate Agents Does
The real estate agent is knowledgeable, well-trained and licensed in real estate market conditions, the regulations around Real property in the state they are licensed, and the standard legal contract requirements to help buyers and sellers negotiate and close real estate dealings.
Although an advanced degree is not required to be a real estate agent, there is a gravitas of importance in the role. A real estate agent is responsible for facilitating society’s commonly most expensive transactions.
For that reason, developing professionalism and market expertise is so important, so that one can exercise competence when representing buyers and sellers’ financial and legal interests.
What Does a Real Estate Agent Do Daily?
When you ask yourself “Should I become a real estate agent?”, you should understand the job description and here’s what an agent does daily:
Real Estate Agents Help Their Clients To Buy, Sell Or Rent Properties
As a real estate agent, you must help clients to buy, sell or rent properties in your local market. However, these transactions are not simply an exchange of money for residency.
When you meet a client that is looking to buy a home, it is important to educate the client on the steps in the purchase process guiding them through the complicated options in legal contracts and advising them on issues that may affect the present value, future appreciation, and neighborhood desirability of their largest investment.
You will act as a liaison – connecting your client with the best financing options, inspectors and contractors necessary for them to comprehensively assess the condition of this property before the purchase is complete.
Most importantly, you will guide and support your clients in selecting the right home for their lifestyle and their family’s needs
A standard business practice that agents often use is creating digital presentations to guide clients through the buying or selling process. You can use a design software like Canva to create flipbooks for print, but a more innovative software for real estate presentations and client consultations is Highnote. Highnote helps you create digital presentations than incorporate of all of your individual design assets in one landing page.
When you become a real estate agent, you begin each transaction by qualifying potential clients to see if they are ready to buy or rent.
That may include a consultation about the purchase or rental process.
Qualifying Clients
You will also ensure that your potential Clients, or Leads, are credit worthy and purchase ready with cash for all Upfront Costs (such as Down Payments or Security Deposits). If they qualify, you will Refer the Lead to one of your Preferred Lending Partners so that you know how much of a Mortgage they will be able to use to make their purchase.
Once you have a Mortgage Pre-Approval, you have your Budget for Homes to Search.
As an agent, you have the expressed responsibility to escort ready and willing buyers (or renters) into the seller’s property as your clients shop for the home they desire.
This role is one that sometimes gets minimized and seen as the fun part. But understand, as a real estate agent, you will have a background check to gain your license and clearance to go into these properties on the market. Take your access seriously and ensure that you understand your professional responsibility and value.
Once your client has selected a property they would like, your job as a real estate agent is to pull together the applicable forms and contracts necessary for the buyer to make an Offer to Purchase or Rent that Property.
Real Estate Agents Network, Market and Manage Listings
When you’re representing a Seller, your role is to get the property market-ready so that you can network, market and manage the sale of that listing.
This is another fun part. Representing sellers can be so gratifying because you get the opportunity to market beautiful homes to the public with Professional Staging, Photography and Videography.
The best way to present a listing to the market is to have a Home Stager create an Interior Design Plan for the house.
These can be as minimal or fully integrated as the seller decides based on whether the property is lived in or vacant when they sell.
You want the home staged so that buyers can imagine the space as they would live there.
After staging, you should schedule a professional Photographer to accentuate the features and highlights of your property listing. Most professional photographers will take 24-48 to edit the photos and may offer to create a walk-through video from the stills. Some photographers will even offer virtual staging as a cost effective option, this works best if the property is empty of course.
Many buyers today prefer to spend as much time experiencing the property online as possible when they are browsing before wasting any time visiting. Often, today’s buyers only want to spend time visiting “The One” after they have already decided it’s “The One” before even seeing it in person.
Highnote.io is an excellent tool to create Property Listing Marketing Presentations using your Still Photos, Videography, Floorplans, Drone Photography and more.
The Highnote.io format organizes all your property marketing in a seamless Landing page stack that speaks volumes to your professionalism and distinguishes business information from the consumer information available on public sites.
Use your Highnote.io Property Listing Presentations to connect with serious buyers after they schedule showings or as a promotional link in your Email Signature.
The goal is to find the most effective placement for your Listing – whether that is on your state’s Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and through syndication with all the other sources that your MLS partners with or if you must, add some strategy to your marketing plan.
Marketing strategy can be as adventurous or creative as you like.
For example, if you’re looking for affluent buyers, you may need to place your listing in a luxury magazine that is readily accessible to that buyer’s pool. Or if you want to reach relocation clients, you may want to produce a creative commercial with a colorful thumbnail on YouTube to attract relocation clients. Then, you could run digital ads campaigns in different markets to intrigue buyers that may work for Fortune 500 companies.
Just like your real estate license gives you clearance and access to escort buyers into listings when you’re representing a buyer client, it is your responsibility to manage open house events and visitor traffic when you’re working for the seller as well. You are also going to manage all incoming offers and start negotiations on behalf of your Seller clients as well.
Real Estate Agents Navigate Contracts & Transaction Legal Requirements
Negotiating contracts is another highlight of becoming a real estate agent. This is where many say, ‘Real Estate is a Contact Sport.” Sometimes negotiating can become heated. Protecting your clients interests requires expertise, boldness, and problem solving skills.
Real estate agents must be knowledgeable about the protections that your state contracts offer to your client. For the most part, when a seller enters a contract for the sale of real property, they cannot stop the sale of the property unless they do not have marketable title or they cannot perform for some other reason, such as title liens, code violations, unpaid personal taxes, personal collection debts, and/or legal settlements. All of which are reasons that may hinder a sale. It’s your job to mitigate those problems on behalf of your seller.
Otherwise, representing the buyer, your client has the right to take time to inspect the property to ensure the value and the condition of their purchase. The buyer may also negotiate the price against any hidden defects, or lender required improvements. Reading and understanding your State’s Contract, its inherent protections, and the sequence of your transaction, is crucial to defining your value as a professional.
You can introduce these steps to the buying selling process through a well-designed buyer presentation as well. When you construct your presentations from the easy-to-use real estate presentation templates in Highnote, you can include sample contracts to review with your clients so that they are pre-approved and ready to sign when the right property becomes available.
Real Estate Agents are Continually Prospecting for New Leads
Prospecting is a daily task that real estate agents undertake to always cultivate new clients for their business. Real estate lead generation includes calls and texting, mass and focused emailing, digital and print marketing, pop-by/ promotional marketing, workshops and seminars, and more.
To be successful, one key tool all real estate agents need is your Customer Relationship Management system (or CRM). Your CRM is usually a software tool that monitors progress in your Book of Business as you develop relationships and prepare your clients for their respective transactions.
Your CRM is a place where you can log calls, send texts and emails, record notes, and often you can upload documents regarding everyone’s progress through their transaction.
Most CRMs offer a website which will allow you to collect contact information to grow your database; and that usually includes landing pages for your listings, as well. This feature is invaluable to connect you with the public. You can use these websites (and landing pages) when you’re marketing through all your social media and digital channels.
As a part of maintaining excellence and preparedness, when prospecting, many agents practice call scripts. Scripting allows a real estate agent to stay ready for interactions with buyers and sellers in a variety of situations and challenges. Much like in any other sales careers, call scripts offer an agent solutions to objections, answers to provide value, and methods to approach differing clients’ scenarios.
Most successful agents plan events, such as workshops, seminars, webinars, or vendor events to gain brand exposure and interface with potential customers in the community.
Workshops are opportunities to educate and demonstrate expertise in the local market. Most agents do an event once or twice a monthly- sometimes even quarterly to gain new connections and gather new leads.
One of the best ways to collect new leads at events is through a Digital Feedback Form or Sign-in Sheet. Highnote offers templates to easily collect contact information at any event.
To find new leads, some real estate agents focus time on mastering their Digital and Print Marketing techniques. Digital marketing includes social media marketing, paid advertising, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Most professionals will spend at least 30 mins to 1 hour per day creating content and scheduling posts to keep momentum, providing educational value, and social proof surrounding what they are accomplishing in the market on a daily and weekly basis.
Many agents neglect print marketing – but postcards can be one of many highly effective ways to interface with neighborhoods where you have had previously closed business.
Postcards are a method of prospecting that we call “geographic farming.”
Geographic farming with postcards is an excellent way to keep your face front of mind in the same neighborhoods in which you are driving home values with your sales. It’s so important that real estate agents master their digital and print marketing routine to become successful.
Real Estate Agents Must Establish Themselves as Local Market Experts
As a real estate agent, it is your job to be a resource for up-to-date information on the local market you serve.
Your business marketing should always keep an undercurrent of educational and informational material that shows how involved and aware you are of the current developments in your local market.
Many agents use a monthly newsletter, monthly Market Reports, and/ or Neighborhood Development memos. Monthly Newsletter will include a National Outlook on the real estate market and relevant news, an ice-breaker such as Seasonal Home Maintenance suggestions or a recipe, and your current Listings or Testimonials.
A market report will give valuable insight on the way that property values in specific neighborhoods are changing based on sales activity, and other data points such as average price, days on market, and the change in averages month over month.
Finally, a Neighborhood memo talks about the New Construction, Business Highlights, and upcoming community events in a particular neighborhood.
All these pieces can be created with Highnote.io as individual pieces or a stacked as a Monthly Market Expert Guide to your City.
When you communicate Weekly or Monthly Insights to your Database, you will remain front of mind when its time to Buy or Sell a Home. People will begin to trust how knowledgeable you are and do business with you when you establish your reputation as an Expert in your Market.
AN EXAMPLE OF A REAL ESTATE AGENT’S DAILY SCHEDULE
Time | Activities |
9:00am – 9:30am | – Script Practice |
9:30am – 10:00am | – Follow-up Emails – Marketing (Social Media Posting & Scheduling) |
10:00am – 11:00am | – Sales/Training Meetings (usually once weekly) – Contract & Transaction Management |
11:00am – 12:00pm | – Preparing CMAs & Pricing Strategy for Pre-Listing Appointments – Send Pocket Listings to Investors for Cash Offers |
12:00pm – 12:45pm | – Lunch |
1:00pm – 2:00pm | – Prospecting Calls – CRM Management – Lender Follow-up |
2:00pm – 4:00pm | – Buyer Consultations (In-Person/Zoom) or Pre-Approved Buyers Tour |
4:00pm – 5:00pm | – Pre-Listing Packages Hand Delivery – Photography Appointment – Staging or Sign Installation |
6:00pm – 8:00pm | – Listing Appointment (Once or Twice Weekly) – Offer Drafting and Negotiations |
Key Skills and Traits for Success
Becoming a real estate agent has a low barrier of entry for those seeking a new career. However, an effective real estate agent requires the capacity to perform a variety of business administration tasks which include marketing duties, accounting oversight, time management, data analysis, and project management.
If you possess clear professional communication skills, understand marketing, are confident with research and negotiations, you would be an excellent real estate agent. Because real estate is an independent contractor position, you must organize your daily tasks as if you were totally self-employed and still follow management regarding your professional compliance and contract management. If you exemplify the discipline required, time management skills, and are attentive to details and systems, you will excel when you become a real estate agent.
FAQs About Real Estate Agent’s Daily Tasks
What is the job description of an estate agent?
A real estate agent helps clients buy, sell, or rent properties by providing market expertise, negotiating deals, and managing the transaction process from start to finish.
Where do real estate agents make the most money?
Agents typically earn the most in high-demand markets with expensive properties, such as major metropolitan areas like New York City, Los Angeles, or San Francisco.
What is the meaning of a real estate agent?
A real estate agent is a licensed professional who represents buyers, sellers, or renters in real estate transactions, offering guidance and expertise throughout the process.
What is a day in the life of a real estate agent?
A typical day involves client meetings, property showings, market research, marketing activities, and managing paperwork to ensure transactions move smoothly.
What services do real estate agents offer to sellers?
Agents help sellers by pricing homes competitively, marketing them to attract buyers, managing showings, negotiating offers, and guiding the transaction to closing.
How do real estate agents get paid?
Agents earn commissions, typically a percentage of the property’s sale price, which is paid after the transaction is completed.
