5 Real Estate Tasks You Should Delegate
By JD Esajian on January 4, 2019
As a successful real estate investor, you will wear many hats. One day you are running comps and scouring through the MLS. The next day you are on a project site delegating tasks and coordinating schedules. Your ability to delicately manage everything directly impacts your bottom line. There is a natural tendency in real estate to want to do everything yourself. Even if deep down you know someone else can do it as good, or better, you still want to control the action. This thinking may help in the short term but over the course of your business will stifle your growth. Your time will be consumed by actions that are short-sighted and will eventually leave you burnt out. As with other business, you need to pick and choose your time management battles carefully. Here are five tasks that you may be better off delegating.
Property management. Every landlord should at least consider property management. There is the thought that even if you just own one rental property you should management it yourself. In reality, the opposite is often the case. Just one property can eat up significant time dealing with minor maintenance issues, tenant problems and legal concerns. You don’t need to have a major portfolio to hire a property manager. As great as rental properties are, they can be a handful at times. Most of the problems are minor in nature, but still take up time. Finding a plumber to fix a leak may take several phone calls and before you know it your morning is shot. If these problems pop up a few times a month you will essentially throw hours of lost productivity out the window. Property management comes at a cost, but you will make it tenfold in the long run.
Marketing. One of the truly great changes in business over the past decade is in how we are able to market. It is easier to reach a mass amount of people today than ever before. As great as the marketing opportunities are, they require time and diligence. Facebook and social media advertising alone can reap many benefits, but can take hours, even weeks to master. With any task you need to ask yourself if it is truly the best use of your time. You don’t need to bury your head in the sand when it comes to marketing, but you can’t waste too much time on it either. You should have someone that knows what they are doing take the lead, giving your updates along the way. Eventually they can pass off the baton to you, so you can do it yourself, but until you get to that point you need to take a step back. By trying to do it yourself you will end up wasting time, and money, not getting the results you anticipated. This will leave you timid about marketing in the future, causing you to lose out on valuable marketing opportunities.
Accounting. Everyone has their own unique way of accounting. If you are running a business, it is essential to stay on top of the numbers. Not knowing the expenses on a project or a property down to the dollar can quickly leave you in trouble. This underscores the importance of having a good accountant on your team. Not only can they offer suggestions on specific transactions, but they know tax incentives and ways to protect your business. You may be sharp with numbers, but accounting is a different animal. All it takes is one omission or oversight to throw everything out of whack. At that point you are forced to play catch up with no guarantee you can solve the issue. This will pull your time from other areas and become your sole focus. Relying on excel spreadsheets and tax software can be a way to save money, but it can also open up a can of worms that you may not be ready to handle.
Deal evaluation. Evaluating properties and deals as they come your way is the backbone of the real estate business. Unfortunately, this also takes time. Sure, it is much easier today to hop online and get the preliminary due diligence out of the way, but this is just part of the process. It is always a good idea to drive the neighborhood, if possible, to get a real idea of what you are looking at. If you look at ten properties, you may make an offer on three of which one will get accepted. This is a lot of work, and wasted time, on every deal. You should find someone that can help in this area. Taking pictures of the neighborhood and giving some feedback on a property can save you a trip. This doesn’t work on every property, but for those that are a good drive away this is essential.
Babysitting. The team you surround yourself with should always work for and with you as opposed to against you. There are many minor brushfires that happen in business from time to time. You don’t want to waste your whole day putting them out. You are better off taking the time to hire a good team that you can trust to do this for you. Your real estate agent, attorney, contractor and property manager should all have the confidence and authority to handle minor issues, without constantly calling and texting you. By empowering your team, you won’t have to waste your day on tasks that don’t help grow your business.
Time management is an essential part of any business. We all have the same twenty-four hours in a day. How we use them determines our success.