7 Tips to Real Estate Agent’s Success: Tip #5 - Create a Financial Budget

Every business demands a financial budget and the real estate agent’s practice is no exception. Small business financial budgeting is critical given the historically ups and downs of the real estate market place. Your financial budget should plan for your marketing costs, any additional costs such as education and your forecasted income.

Most individuals recognize that a budget improves overall financial performance. Yet, when it comes to a business, many small business owners drop the ball and ignore this critical step in improving their own financial business success.

Projected profit and loss (P&L) are part of any business plan. Actual P&L figures can be found within any completed tax return. P&L statements can be quite complex if the organization has high dollar volume. For the typical real estate agent, P&L statements are quite simple and probably take only 1 to 2 hours per month to complete and review depending upon the agent’s record keeping whether software driven or paper and pencil. These projections should be monthly and followed up with actual expenditures.

A financial budget has 2 categories:

* Revenue
* Expenses

Revenue is determined by your products and services. Revenue should be broken down for the real estate person into listings and sales and tied to the marketing plan and overall sales goals.

Expenses need to be consistently measured and managed. Specific categories may include:

* Staffing compensation
* Staffing benefits
* Other staffing costs
* Dues and subscriptions
* Marketing (business cards to purchased leads' lists)
* Management fees
* Office supplies
* Professional fees
* Rent
* Internet fees
* Advertising
* Telephone
* Utilities
* Travel – gas
* Travel – lodging
* Travel – food
* Entertainment
* Education

Having a written financial budget will assist you in keeping within your projections. But, most importantly, a financial budget that you actively review will help to ensure that you are not one of the 40% or 80% who drop out after the first year and will allow you to be one of the 10% who stay within the real estate industry after 3 years.