Many real estate Brokers, Agents, and Realtors in the low country don’t understand the value of time and how little “quality” time they have which is capable of making a difference in their performance. And in this profession, performance ties in directly to personal compensation. Most of us are affiliated as independent contractors with a real estate company and are asked to attend meetings and often find ourselves at various training sessions. We commute to and from work. We show property, we preview property and we make listing presentations. If we are thorough, we find ourselves taking care of the dogs, cats, the pool, vacuuming, babysitting, and picking up the Palmetto bugs on a continuing basis. All kinds of stuff!

You can now start to feel the subject of this article which is “time” and how the misuse of it can affect your individual performance and therefore your financial net return. There isn’t anything more important when you are on commission than how you are organized and how well you spend your available time. Most of us work approximately 2000 hours per year. As you start to understand the value of quality time I would suggest you need to overlay your available hours with a business plan. All of life’s distractions take away from this valuable time axis. In my particular case, I felt that entering the real estate market would mean that I initially wanted to make $100 an hour or $200,000 per year in this business. It sounds like a lot of money but when one subtracts costs such as office rent, automobile, telephone, supplies, entertainment, fax, computers, associations fees, etc., the net revenue distribution isn’t all that much on a hourly basis.

So where does that leave us in our planning and time allocation. The next step is to decide how you want to spend that valuable time and where should you spend your effort. It comes down to the process of elimination of important targets that have a good chance of being successful and bringing in precious income. I have recently changed companies and have found myself in a situation where I am deciding what it is I don’t want to do! Where can I eliminate processes and work that do not bring in much revenue or have a very small chance of being successful.

Here is what I have done so far: I have decided that spending time in the lower priced neighborhoods west of Hilton Head and Bluffton are areas massively covered by some of the newer companies and most of the younger owners believe there should be weekly open houses. Often pricing is unrealistic and in today’s market much of the inventory looks the same. Competition is often short sales and foreclosures. Many of these owners want to see their homes in lights and want periodical and newspaper advertising. Conversely, many of our sophisticated customers recognize the efficient & effective value of the internet. Sometimes I can spend more time and money on a $185,000 home than I can on a $500,000 home.

So, I am offering you a planning tool that has been extremely helpful to me and others might benefit from the thought process behind it all. Think about how you spend your time and where your income is derived from on a daily basis. In my case, I spend most of my listing time on Moss Creek and The Crescent in the low country. Most anything that happens in Moss Creek or in The Crescent is quality time for me. Buyers looking at homes in excess of $200,000 are of interest to me anywhere in the low country. But I must admit requests from some of the western neighborhoods will be referred to others in the company or out of the company. You can’t be all things to all people!

Here is the key for you to reference:

GREEN TIME is quality time well spent with a chance for high economic return. More and more time has to associated with the green light. I spend green light social hours in Moss Creek and in The Crescent which are not personally enjoyable all of the time but bear fruit. Last weekend I sent out an easy update e-mail about my new company, Carolina Realty Group, to Moss Creek and The Crescent homeowners and so far this week we signed two new and previously unheard of listings! That e-mail took all of five minutes to write and spell-check & has a chance to supply $20,000 in earnings! I think I get it!

YELLOW TIME is time that is bureaucratic and time consuming and may produce some results but the effort is pretty much way down on the food chain. Results may be more luck or being in the right place at the right time but not forecasted returns. As an example, meeting with a high-end beach front home owner in Palmetto Dunes would not be the best use of my time. I am unfamiliar with this gated community and I would be better off partnering with one of Carolina’s agents who has a solid history there. Yellow time has to be converted to green time. Yellow lights just like on the highway mean “ Be careful and proceed at your own caution!” Understood?

RED TIME is understandably a disaster waiting to happen and this is wasted time with absolutely no chance for a return. I once organized a telephone distribution list for Doctors and Lawyers in Savannah and had over 50% of the letters returned. I must have spent 50 hours organizing the distribution list. Not one dollar ever resulted in commission income. Red time needs to be converted to mostly yellow but also to some green time.

In the residential real estate business, maximize your green time carefully and decide where you don’t want to play the game. Your income will increase proportionately!

Thank you for reading my article and if you have any questions, I’d love to hear from you. If you know anybody interested in buying or selling property on Hilton Head Island or bluffton, please have them give me a call.