September is Marketing and Branding Month at Inman. Tips for better branding and in-depth features on how to take advantage of marketing tools provided by Zillow, Redfin and other platforms are all in the works in addition to insights from experts. You’ll find it all at Inman, as well as our two-day virtual, flagship event, Your Playbook for the Fall Market, in October.
The real estate industry has enjoyed an incredible run of robust pricing, high demand and, consequently, happy sellers and agents. But there’s little doubt the market is showing signs of cooling. That will ultimately be a good thing; unbalanced markets like the one we’ve seen recently aren’t sustainable.
However, it presents an immediate risk to teams unprepared to adjust their approach. In market slowdowns, my team focuses on five actions to not only allow us to survive lower prices and slower sales but to thrive.
Get rid of debt
When you see income reductions on the horizon, that’s a great time to make sure your debt load is as low as possible. You don’t want to be making hefty payments while watching revenue decline. Focus on paying off debt as fast as possible.
One fruitful approach is cost-cutting. See where you can reduce expenditures to do more with less. Look for redundancies in your overall team processes. If you have two subscription-based systems that overlap in functionality, explore options to consolidate. Check for system updates that might make it possible to use just one. If that doesn’t pan out, look for other systems that could take their place.
For example, my team used to have separate broker management software. We transferred everything it tracked to Sisu and canceled our subscription to the redundant software. That saved us money by not having to pay for a second system without us having to give up the functionality we rely on.
Don’t just focus on “business” expenses. Go through your credit card bill; are there subscriptions on auto-pay you don’t…