It isn’t easy scheduling your time as a real estate agent. I understand you have to make time for vendors, owners, and clients. Then you have to coordinate your time for viewings and contract signing. It goes even further if you also do property management and leasing. So how do you manage scheduling for real estate agencies?
Most real estate agencies are distinctly ad hoc when scheduling their time. They could get a call from anyone to view and list a house for sale or rent at any time. Then, the renters or buyers want to look around those properties. Real estate agencies can’t waste time checking against calendars, they need to get the clients, or they will go to someone else. The competition is harsh when the profit comes from listing a property and finding someone to pay for it.
So how could you streamline the process for everyone? You, your clients and your vendors.
Maybe it’s time to start thinking about automated scheduling for your real estate agency.
The Difficulties of Scheduling for Real Estate Agencies
It’s not easy to ensure quick and simple scheduling for real estate, In most cases, you need at least an agent and the end client, and maybe you even need the renter or vendor present if you don’t have access to the property by your self.
There is almost always a conflict, and it takes a lot of back and forth between different people to find a good time that works for everyone.
Now imagine that you didn’t have to do that. How much easier would it be if your vendors could give you a window of availability, you set your available time, and the clients could choose a viewing appointment that is available for both of you?
It almost sounds too good to be true, but it’s not.
How SimplyMeet.me Can Help Your Real Estate Agency
SimplyMeet.me is a straightforward meeting scheduler which enables the cross-checking of multiple calendars to ensure smooth meeting booking with multiple attendees – or even just two.
When you have to arrange meetings and appointments with multiple parties, you need a tool that can eliminate the stress of back and for emails and phone calls.
“What time is good for you? I can do this time.”
“I can’t do that time. What about this time?”
“I can do that time, but the owner can’t.”
And so on…
It can do round and round until you’ve spent so much time deciding a meeting time that you could have shown the property, secured a sale and gone on to the next one.
SimplyMeet.me enables you to set availability for your time. The owner or vendor can define their availability (or availability of the house for showing), and clients choose from a selection of available times.
What kind of meetings do you need as a real estate agent?
Your meeting types will probably fall into three main categories:
- Meeting with new vendors/owners for selling or renting their property.
- Meeting with renters or buyers looking for a property.
- Showings to potential buyers or renters.
Meetings with vendors and new clients are slightly different from when you need to show people around a site. In most cases, it is a one-to-one meeting where you find out what the vendor needs you to do to sell or rent their property or what the potential buyer or tenant needs in a property.
However, when you are showing people around properties, you need to have a method of correlating availability.
Setting up Meeting types with SimplyMeet.me
It is pretty simple for you to arrange a meeting for your one-to-one meetings with new clients or vendors/owners. You set your availability in your default calendar and synchronise it with other required calendars. You might need the use of a company vehicle, a meeting room or even a digital measuring device for extensive properties. However, once you have set up the calendars required to make an appointment available, your vendors and clients can book time with you to discuss their needs.
To make your meetings more efficient and allow you to prepare, you can even ask some questions on the booking page. If you are talking to a vendor or owner, you might need to know whether they are selling or renting and what kind of property they need your help to sell or rent. If you know these two things before your meeting, you can already have the options ready for your property owner. And that saves everyone time.
Time is money, people!
The Set-Up!
If you don’t already use automated and self-scheduling for your real estate agency, it really isn’t difficult. SimplyMeet.me is a super-simple solution for streamlining client meetings with minimal fuss and cyclic calls and emails.
If you need a walkthrough of how to set up appointments for simple one-to-one meetings, you can see it here.
However, keep reading to see how it might work for your real estate agency.
So, for simplicity, I have created three meeting types in the SimplyMeet.me meeting scheduler.
There is an initial meeting for a buyer or renter and an initial meeting for a vendor or property owner.
There is also a meeting for viewing a property with an ID number.
So let look at the Initial Buy/Rent meeting first. This only requires checking your calendar availability and the client choosing time that suits them.
Initial Buy/Rent & Initial Vendor Meetings
They will click on the Initial Buy/Rent meeting. They will select a date and an an appropriate time. Here’s the cool bit, if you aren’t available they can’t book a time with you.
So when they have selected their date and time, they will need to give their name, email address, and a phone number. You might also find it useful to ask a couple of questions so you can be better prepared for your meeting. So do they want to buy or rent? What type of property do they want? If you want to add more questions, you could ask for size (sqm), number bedrooms, floors, or even a specific industry type.
When they are done with booking the meeting, and answering any questions you have asked, they will click on the Schedule Meeting button and get their confirmation.
Voilá!
Meeting confirmed and the option to add this meeting to their calendar – whatever type it may be.
Now, the Initial Vendor Meeting goes the same way. They chose their date and time and answer any questions that will make the meeting run smoothly.
The Viewing Property Meeting is a little different.
Property Viewing Meeting
Often you will need to coordinate viewing with buyers and vendors ( as well as yourself) – no one likes the idea of someone wandering through their property without being there – especially if they’re selling a home.
The easy think about this is that you can set up the meeting availability time with hours and days when the vendor can be available. If they work regular hours or have specific outside responsibilities they can tell you when they are available for you and your client to view the property. It might be that on specific dates this availability is different. You can set those too.
When you set up your property ID on your website, you usually have a few photographs and a contact link for making an appointment top view the property. I know from experience that contact links disappear into the ether (otherwise known as spam or junk folders).
Rather than having a contact form, isn’t it better to have a direct link to a meeting scheduler that will automatically show up in your calendar?
You can add the meeting link to your property website and anywhere else you decide to advertise your properties, such as marketplaces or Facebook.
Do you need to travel from place to place to meet your clients at the property address?
To ensure you have enough time before property viewings to get there on time, you can add buffer time before hand. How long does it take to get between properties in the location you cover? Then perhaps that should be your buffer time.
In the limits tab you can also cap the number of property viewings per day and allow people to invite others along. Let’s be fair. If people are looking for a home or premises for a joint business venture, all interested parties should be there to see it.
Is Automated Scheduling a Good Fit for Real Estate?
It definitely is! How much time would you save if you could arrange viewings and meetings without calling or emailing back and forth? If you could pin your vendors down to the times they will be available, and let clients schedule a time, you could maximise your new client meetings and viewings for the best possible outcome.
If your calendar autofilled with meetings and viewing appointments regardless of the source – whether it came from Facebook, RightMove, or link from your website. You wouldn’t have to check messenger, email and your spam folders for people that might have been waiting three days for you to get back to them.
When you have sold or rented the property, simply disable the meeting type and no one can book a viewing.
And one more thing, it could even be a selling point for vendors. If you can automate your viewing appointments, you can fit in more viewings for their property with less effort and time involved.