Real estate Agents often operate in a highly regulated and structured environment
This makes it mandatory for the players to comply with a number of guidelines issued by the concerned authorities. Flouting of laws or norms, in any manner or to any extent can severely hamper the organizational operations.
Moving ahead, it is generally seen that people adopt a very cautious behaviour when buying or selling properties. The credibility and transparency in the workings of the company are important factors real estate agents are judged on. So, every attempt should be made to be ready in providing "proofs to claims done".
Another entrant to the list of challenges is the mushrooming of companies in this domain. Leave alone the increasing of market share, even sustaining the one already acquired has become a tough struggle. This rise in the level of competition lands the participants in a "market share grabbing fight".
Customization of solution poses yet another "slippery patch". There can be innumerable sites to decide among. In this scenario, matching the "requirements of client" with "what is available" can be a truly gruelling and mind-boggling task, at times. This however, can be done by establishing an expanded and vast network to keep the knowledge about the "prospective sites".
Moreover, the place held by "trends in the industry" and "effect of economic conditions on the well-being of this sector" too cannot be understated. The fluctuation in "prices of locations" and "spending patterns of people" have a direct, noticeable and visible bearing on the profitability of real estate agents.
All these aspects can be taken care of and pulled together by incorporating a "tracking mechanism". One of the means to do this is by designing a balanced scorecard on own or get it designed by performance management solution providers. This will comprise placing the relevant, connected and specific indicators under "manageable number of perspectives". This goes in ensuring that improvement in "balance sheets and accounts" is not occurring at cost of other aspects that count; some of which are "Financial", "Internal Operations", "Workforce Potential" and "Growth".
Financial evaluation is possible with metrics like operating profit, % increase in advertising budget, % increase in average per agent revenue and % increase in operating expenses. Internal Operations can be obtained with parameters such as number of services offered, number of financing options, number of listing methods and time for which website has been in place. Workforce potential is to quantify the strength of employees and can be done with indicators like number of employees, mean experience, average associated time and number of transaction sides per agent. Next category of KPIs is "Growth", which can be known with parameters "% rise in number of successful deals", "rise in the territory index", "% rise in amount of commission" and "% contribution from referrals".
By adopting a BSC approach, teams can eliminate the instances of "missing targets" or that of "misunderstanding information" as values bring with them objectivity in views and people agree more often with each other.