The Bottom Line
If you're on a tight start-up budget, cut somewhere else and spend the $200 or so and start out with a comprehensive plan for success.
Pros
- Helps a new agent to determine their personal fixed & variable expenses
- Prompts the agent to determine a budget for business marketing
- Suggests lead and contract closing ratios for the new agent
- Presents an expense/income projection that can be adjusted as needed
Cons
- Though worth it, the initial cost could deter those who need it most
Description
- The Personal Budget Spreadsheet - Takes you through determining what you need to live on.
- Projections/Assumptions - Enter inflation rates, close ratios, avg deal & commission percentages.
- Direct & Marketing Expense per Deal - Postcards, ads, virtual tours, closing gifts, etc.
- Profit/Loss Chart by Year - Shows profit/loss for five year projected period based on your plan.
- What Needs to Happen What you need to accomplish as far as appointments & leads to reach goals.
Guide Review - The CreateAPlan® Agent Personal & Business Budget Planning System
As average transaction dollars, expenses and real estate brokerage split percentages are all large variables in the type of data that goes into this system, I stayed very generic in my assumptions. I also tried to be conservative in my projections of agent split percentage, prospect-to-client, and transaction-to-closing ratios.The goal was to determine the value of this service/system to a real estate agent in determining what they would need to have in resources, expend along the way, and generate in revenues to be profitable in this business.
As most agents are Independent Contractors, CreateAPlan was quite helpful in the necessary first step of determining the amount to offset personal expenses while starting this new business venture.
Once personal break-even was determined, then the task is to develop a business spending projection for fixed and variable operations expenses and the all-important marketing expense piece. CreateAPlan did a good job of prompting for the common types of business expense encountered and allowed for addition of new ones.
The user must decide on certain performance ratios, such as how many appointments to secure a listing or buyer and percentage of deals that get to closing, etc. Once an average transaction amount is entered, the user is given an extensive report that tells them what they need to do to achieve their desired net income goal. Over the year, adjustments can be made and the plan changed.
