The trend of telecommuting has taken over a substantial amount of businesses, and a large population of business professionals do at least some of their work from a location other than the brick and mortar office. In fact, there are some professionals who work entirely from the comfort of their homes, and possibly for a company that doesn’t have a physical location that can be marked on a map. For real estate professionals, this is a very beneficial development, because the life of a property manager can be quite hectic and mobile. With new property management software and tools being developed rapidly, working on the go from anywhere is being embraced and perfected. Real estate professionals now have the choice to make between a company centered on a physical office, or one that is more based on mobile technology and telecommuting.
Real Estate Professionals on the Go
High-tech real estate is catching on, and there are professionals developing offices that will be almost completely paperless. There are great programs available that can give agents, managers, and clients access to real estate transaction documents at virtually anytime. It can also send online property questions to agents’ phones in the form of a voicemail. Add this to the numerous programs already available that facilitate collaboration and mobile real estate, like property inspection apps and tenant portals, and you hardly need a physical office at all. Of course, computers are entirely necessary, and you may prefer to offer machines for employee use in a physical location, but it no longer needs to be the traditional real estate office that you knew before. As demonstrated in the plans for the real estate café in Stewartstown, PA, you can get creative with how you fill your office needs. The real necessity is for your employees to have reliable machines from which to do their work. Rather than investing in an office, another alternative is to invest in top quality mobile equipment for each person on your team. You could potentially then run everything from a home office, and have your employees report via the internet for a fast paced, modern approach.
Some May Prefer the Physical Office
This mobile option could be an overall lesser expense, although it takes away the control and stability of having the main machines in a central location, where they can undergo maintenance and protection all at once. What you really need to decide is whether you team is the kind that will do better working from everywhere, or working from a physical location. There are still many benefits to be had from a more old fashioned approach, and you can adopt new technology as it becomes well established. Much of the mobile technology has yet to be proven as completely reliable, but some things have proven to be the best tools for real estate professionals. You can build a hybrid approach, mixing the new technology in a little bit at a time, until you perfect your processes.
