Does Million Dollar Listing have you dreaming of life as a Realtor? If you’re inspired to consider a career in real estate, you might consider a job as a real estate assistant as a way to prepare yourself. Many members of top-producing real estate teams began as the team’s assistant; with time, they sat for their license and began working with clients full-time. Here’s what a day in the life of a real estate assistant in San Diego, California, might look like.
Coffee and Emails
As the assistant, you stop on the way into work to pick up coffee and pastries on the team’s credit card. You arrive at the office ahead of the rest of the team, who will start trickling in after 9 or 10 a.m. The agents often stop on errands along the way; an active real estate agent is seldomly in the office for long. You fire up your computer and start checking emails while you sip your morning coffee.
Listing Coordination
Two of the agents emailed you about new listings. The listings aren’t in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) yet, which means that they aren’t quite on the market. However, this pre-MLS time is when you’ll prepare all of the marketing materials. The agents gave you a few time slots over the next week when they’re available to let a professional photographer onto the properties, so your first call is to the photographer your team uses. Afterward, you schedule the times on the calendars for those agents. They’ll email you property details over the next day or so, and you’ll need to prepare flyers, “just listed” postcards, and blog and social media posts. Once the photos come in, you’ll plug them in; that way, you can launch the campaign as soon as you get the go-ahead.
Incidentally, one of the listings is a high-end single-family home in La Jolla, which means that the listing agent might want to pitch a story about the listing to magazines like Better Homes & Gardens. You look up the contact information for a few bloggers and magazines and forward those details to the agent.
Transaction Coordinating
Another major part of your job is transaction coordinating. This is where you help guide all of the inspections, papers that need to be signed, and other matters related to properties that are in escrow. There’s a strict timeline for the many processes, and it’s your job to make sure that everything goes smoothly. You have to make a few phone calls each for a few different transactions, and you spend some time reviewing your timelines to make sure you haven’t missed anything.
Website Maintenance & Social Media Marketing
Another part of your job is to manage your team’s real estate website. This goes hand-in-hand with posting regular updates to social media accounts. The head Realtor on the team sent you the text for an article on current market conditions, so you’ll post that onto the blog. You select, purchase, and add a few stock photos to add some pizazz to the blog post, and then you post on the team’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts about the article. While you’re working on the website, there are a few other changes you’ve been asked to make. One of the agents on the team recently received a new certification, so you’ll add information about that to her bio. And you’ll want to add some teaser information about the two “coming soon” listings that you worked on earlier during the day.
What About Downtime?
A real estate assistant for a busy team in San Diego isn’t going to have much downtime, but you might be allowed to schedule a few study sessions a week during office hours to help you pursue getting a license. Once you’re licensed, you’ll be legally able to receive bonuses based on real estate sales made by the team, so you’re highly motivated to study. Thankfully, you’re able to study for your real estate license in California online, so you don’t even have to leave the office to do this–which can be extremely helpful when you need to switch gears suddenly.
