Starting real estate business is a good carrier option if you are planning to start it with a vision of making a name for yourself. But there is always tough competition from numerous new and established players.

This stiff competition comes from everywhere.  The U.S had 86,004 real estate brokerage as reported in the 2012 Economic Census. Studies have shown that the market for real estate companies or individual entrepreneurs in the U.S is vast comprising of about of 5.6 million commercial buildings and 87.4 billion square feet of floor space. Also, the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO) says that more than 2 million active real estate licensees are active in the U.S.

However, you do not have to be intimidated by the competition. When starting a real estate business, your main focus should be on a good planning. The initial phase of a business is its foundation. Make sure that the foundation is solid so that you can handle the harsh market environment successfully later on.

So, to be successful in the real estate business, you must be ready to face the challenges. At personal level, and as a business owner, nurture your ambitions and become goal-oriented and an organized person. Keep in mind that real estate sector is not about achieving instant success. Instead, it is a long term game, which entails that you have to exercise lot of patience.

See Top 6 Steps To Start Your Own Real Estate Business

1. Make a good plan for everything

Like every other business, real estate business also is a very extensive field with numerous offshoots. So, find out your business plan before proceeding further into the business. Write a business plan to have a clear road map of the proceedings. Remember that what ever that is worth doing is worth doing well.

The reason for a real estate business plan is to set goals and a direction for yourself. But more importantly, you can take the plan as a document to investors or lenders for financial assistance. Planning is also the best way to get you involved directly in the real estate projects.

2. Do An Extensive Market Research

Market research is of great importance to ascertain if your business idea is feasible, and which niche in the real estate market will be good for you. The research will also give you some idea of the ways to position yourself within the niche. Here are some points you may need to consider.

1. Ensure that you make a research of the market early enough to save time and money

2. Find out if you possess the right skills by researching the market

3. The research will give you some real world experience

4. After you know more about your niche, you may need to get a mentor to guide you, especially that has been successful

3. Get Your Branding Right

Branding is one of the most essential ways to build credibility for your business. With this, you can get your business look bigger than its size to the potential and target consumers. Branding is all about creating and selling out a perception about your business in the minds of people.

If you want to turn your real estate business into a trustworthy brand, you need a great real estate logo design, social media ad campaign, press releases and other such marketing strategies.

4. Get Funding

Real estate businesses can be started with little funds.  Studies have proved many entrepreneurs started their real estate business for less than $1,000. But avoid making the usual mistake many real estate starts up make by calculating the startup cost only. It is better to instead calculate ‘carrying cost’, which lets you know the amount you need to survive for next few months before getting your first payments from clients.

At the time of putting together your business plan, know about the lenders whom you would be approaching for a loan. If you have not much money from own sources, then find the ways to get the investors in your side.

5. Setup Your Contact Point

Many real estate business startups start from own homes. So, depending on the funds available to you at the startup level, look around for a suitable location for your real estate business. In fact, at the startup stage, you should focus on choosing a target market than to find out a location for your storefront.

At startup stage, if there are constraint due to your budget, leverage on  other ways of working without having necessarily having a proper storefront and work without hiring employees. You will have to really consider the funds available to you to decide the things you spend money for.

Managing your customer relationship can be made easy by a using Customer Relationship Management software. Such software and technologies are especially useful for new entrepreneurs to work from anywhere without worrying about a physical location.

6. Go Online. A Good Online Presence is Key

The benefits of taking your business can never be over emphasized. So, you must ensure your real estate business has a good web presence. Remember your potential clients are making online search to find out real estate products and services offers. You will need to get a good website for yourself.

It’s not just about owning a real estate website, but ensure that your real estate website comes up on the top rankings of the search engine results on Google. A clear visible website at the top search result will mean that the consumers can reach to your website, where you have put all the details of your company and business.

You require good digital marketing skills especially with social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn when you start real estate business. Don’t use lack of skills as an excuse, you can learn the skills in a jiffy. You can as well contract out your digital marketing campaigns. But build relationships also offline using traditional outreach strategy.