Effectively managing a real estate business means keeping an eye on several different factors. Real estate companies range from investors to developers to realtors and represent every type of property, commercial and residential. It’s often a highly competitive industry, given that you have to understand constantly changing markets.
The challenges real estate businesses face include:
Regulatory compliance
The planning and development of real estate projects is governed by regulations at local, state, and federal levels. Zoning laws, tax codes, land-use policies, and other rules can affect the viability of real estate.
When you’re developing, managing, or selling real estate, failing to follow regulations can lead to fines or a business suspension. And if you need to pull properties from the market, that can damage your reputation.
Sustainability concerns
There’s a growing green construction movement in the real estate industry, just as there’s a greater emphasis on sustainability in business in general. Consumers now prefer homes that are designed to consume less energy, either through greener materials or with the help of smart technology.
It’s important to make sure that you operate sustainably during construction as well. Simply building in the right location is an important step to making projects more sustainable, as is switching to lower-energy equipment and using recycled/recyclable building materials.
Property maintenance
Property management can be difficult for a real estate business, especially as you become responsible for more and more buildings. Comprehensive maintenance takes time, and you need to document everything so you have a record of any issues.
Make the process easier for yourself by using a premade checklist to inspect each property. That way, not only will you know what you’re checking for, but you can prepare separate checklists for different properties, in case they involve different factors.
Emerging technology
Technology and digitization have become indispensable in the real estate industry. Most people find real estate online these days, and if they can take a virtual tour of your property, they’re much more likely to do business with you later.
Technology also comes into play during construction. The same way that smart devices can make a building more environmentally friendly, designing a property with smart technology in mind helps management and tenants interact more smoothly and helps build community.
Running a real estate business with Lumiform
Keeping pace with your maintenance, regulatory, sustainability, and other obligations means collecting data constantly as a basis for improvement. Trying to manually gather information on all of these things would take too long and be too much paper to sort through regularly.
But using Lumiform, you’re able to automate the various inspections and audits required to ensure you’re meeting business goals. The combination of desktop and mobile app makes it easy for you to prepare digital checklists that walk you through every step of required inspections.
Customize inspection forms or use an existing template as a base for use in routine tasks like property maintenance, sustainability audits, site safety inspections, and more. Lumiform helps you:
- Look after the properties you manage and resolve any issues
- Ensure workers stay safe during construction projects
- Audit the amount of energy your properties consume
- Document compliance with regulations
Every time you finish an inspection, the results are stored securely in the cloud. And you’ll receive regular automatic reports that summarize inspection findings over time, allowing you to identify patterns and weaknesses. These reports are also customizable, meaning you can prioritize which aspects of your inspections are most important to your business goals.