If you’ve been thinking about starting a new career in home sales, you’ve no doubt considered whether your personality and work ethic are a good fit for the industry. To be profitable in this type of career, you’ll need to be self-motivated, ambitious and hard-working. Real estate agents do more than list homes on the market or help buyers find their dream homes.

There are also many administrative tasks that agents handle on a daily or weekly basis. To determine whether you’re cut out for a career in real estate, you must not overlook these details. To be successful in real estate, you have to be a good fit for the field work (listing and showing homes) as well as the behind-the-scenes duties that will require your attention.

The administrative side of the real estate industry

There’s a lot of “hustle and bustle” in real estate. If you don’t consider yourself a “go getter,” you’re probably better off choosing another industry to work in because selling houses takes a lot energy and hard work. The following list includes some of the clerical tasks you’ll be taking care of regularly if you decide to pursue a career in real estate:

• Filling out paperwork and filing documents that include lease information, buy/sell agreements and more
• Developing marketing campaigns to promote your business
• Studying comparative market analyses
• Researching all active and pending sales in your region
• Updating blogs, websites and social media accounts
• Responding to emails, returning phone calls and text messages, etc.
• Sending out postcards, newsletters, flyers, etc.
• Working on weekly, monthly or annual budgets

Granted, some of the tasks included in this list can be delegated to others. For instance, you might decide to hire a marketing or copywriting team to handle your social media accounts. However, you would still maintain oversight and provide input to the team as far as your vision for a particular social media platform and the goals you hope to accomplish with your accounts.

You can customize your real estate business

Flexibility and the ability to enlist support from others are key benefits to a real estate sales career. The important thing is to make sure you have a clear understanding of the overall type of work you’ll be doing as a sales agent. If you feel like you’re a good fit for both the in-the-field work and desk work that are integral components of a real estate business, you might be ready to take the next step, which is to earn your license to sell homes.