Things to Do in a Real Estate Strategy Planning Meeting
Every year as part of a real estate business planning process, commercial real estate brokers should look at market trends and opportunities to help their brokerage grow and match market expectations or opportunities. Once a plan of this type is created it should be revisited quarterly to make adjustments based on market trends.
The property market will change, so your real estate plans will do the same. Through the seasonal changes opportunities will occur with some or all of the following:
- Sellers looking to upgrade or shift investment types
- Businesses looking to change location, expand, or contract operations
- Buyers wanting more investment stock
- Tenants wanting to relocate
- Leases expiring in existing premises
- Franchise groups wanting more space or relocation
- Property developers wanting to participate in the opportunists of the market
- Tenant advocacy work
Have you got all of these ‘bases’ covered? Are there segments of the market that will provide you with greater opportunity in sales or leases? These things should be addressed in your regular ‘Strategy Planning Meeting’.
To help you get started on your real estate strategy and planning meeting, here are some issues to consider and research:
- The focus of your business plan should be both medium (up to 12 months) and long term (up to 5 years). The plans for the upcoming 12 months will be frequently changed as ‘seasonal’ market pressures occur.
- It takes about 3 months of planning to set your targets and refine your plan so start the process early each year. Incorporate current and predictable market conditions in all your considerations.
- Set targets for income, sales, and market share. Those numbers should be based on market evidence and the resources at your disposal. Consider your staff and skill mix. Consider also the segments of the market that you serve now. Will you need to change any of those segments? If that is so, how will you do that and will you need a training upgrade for your staff?
- What are your real estate competitors doing currently in your market? Are there any ‘top agents’ in the group? Are they any good at what they do? What impact will they have on you or your business? Assess their activity based on signboard counts, exclusive listings, internet listings, and closed and completed sales and lease activity.
- Define your territory geographically so you can assess market trends realistically. You will have two parts of the market to consider; the primary market where you will get at least 80% of your business, and the secondary market where you will get the remaining 20% of your business. What will that business be? Can you handle the diversity of sales, leasing, property management, retail, office and industrial property? Have you got the right people with the right skills? Will you need to segment your people into parts of the local area, town or city? What targets should you give them on property sales, listings, leasing and commissions?
So there are many things to consider here and resources to redeploy. A good real estate strategy meeting will cover these and other locational factors to help your business thrive for the coming period. When you set your plan in place, monitor it monthly and shift your targets quarterly based on real market evidence and strategic real estate decisions.
