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Inheritance to property has been a cause for conflict in the nobility since the cradle of civilization first emerged. The natural or absolute right to own property for even citizens had been a part of earlier Greek philosophy and later Roman law. Land has always been a worthy investment and valued perhaps even more than gold since ancient times.
Real Estate Today
Fast forward to modern times and we have huge real estate conglomerates who influence the buying and selling of properties in huge cities and even in townships. Real estate in India contributed 7% to the GDP in 2022 and is expected to contribute up to 13% by 2025, according to Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
Factors Shaping Real Estate
The rise of information technology centres, the prosperity of the middle class, and the general influx of people, especially in megacities such as Mumbai in the East or New York in the West, has been increasing the demand for good property.
The lower borrowing rates in the merry times ought to encourage people to happily be in debt to a financial institution for years if they can own their dream home. All good news for the real estate industry.
But this is counterbalanced by external factors such as economic recessions, inflation, changing customer expectations, pandemics such as Covid-19 and compliance; all of which could make things difficult for the real estate business.
And if that was not worrisome enough, tsunamis, earthquakes, and other earthly calamities can destroy hundreds of homes and, from a real estate agent’s perspective, lower the value of the homes in the affected areas.
How Recruiting Talent for Real Estate is Different
What we can conclude is, no matter what happens, real estate is always in the news and given to volatility. When recruiting for an industry that is so sensitive to regulatory, economic, migratory and even natural influences, you have got to hire the best there is, people who can weather the storm and close deals in the most difficult of circumstances.
These are some impressive social and emotional skills to put on one’s resume and as difficult as ever to source from a recruiter’s standpoint. But they must be well-versed in technology and up to date on changes in the real estate market too in addition to having great interpersonal and selling skills.
That already sounds very challenging. Let us look at the specific challenges in recruitment in more detail now.
Challenges when Recruiting for Real Estate
Lack of resources
Because of the competitiveness of real estate market, smaller real estate boutiques are very popular, offering personalised customer service and having local expertise. On the other hand, huge real estate corporations have access to several resources when it comes to hiring, including large HR teams, and the smaller real estate businesses cannot afford them.
This means that over time, the talent moves from these smaller boutiques to larger corporations, and smaller companies would have to keep recruiting fresh talent and keep spending money on training to train them to a suitable level of understanding as competitive and spirited real estate agents.
We recommend you pay your real estate agents very well and pay them the amount that is commensurate with their performance and competitive so that they stay with you. You can reduce the percentage of the commission that goes to the team accordingly.
Staying compliant
Just like any other industry, real estate needs to stay compliant with government regulations and this affects recruitment as well. When the laws are amended or internal policies change, this must be communicated to the recruits if they do not pick it up by themselves.
This requires a continuous training process and the need to hire agents or consultants who are up to date on compliance and possibly a compliance manager too.
If you need a compliance manager, then well, you need a compliance manager. There is no replacement for this role as several other talents cannot make up for it. It is also not possible to delegate the role to someone more senior in the company. Compliance as a role requires great understanding and accountability that comes with practice only.
Getting the tech side of things right
There is a great demand for IT professionals in the real estate industry due to the operational changes in the processes such as property discovery, housing finance, transactions, algorithm-based decision-making, and property location.
The real estate developers are also keen on creating buyer profiles to predict purchasing behaviour with data such as age, demographic variables, financial information, type of property bought, etc. Companies with their platforms in place are now hiring tech-savvy individuals to deliver a unique experience to their customers.
But here is the problem, the number of people who prefer working in the real estate industry is very low. According to LinkedIn, when there were nearly 180,000 software engineers working in banking and finance, there were just over 21,000 only working in real estate, nearly nine times low.
There are two reasons for this: first, banking and other financial services need more IT professionals and second, IT professionals tend to prefer banking and finance sector for employment over the real estate sector. Unfortunately, this is a challenge that will change only with widespread digital transformation impacting the entire real estate industry.
Employee turnover in real estate is increasing
In recent times there has been a growth in attrition worldwide as people are looking for flexible work arrangements post the pandemic. It is more so with real estate. Employee turnover in real estate is increasing at a rate that is more than other industries. As many as 88% of all real estate agents quit their jobs before they complete 5 years in a company.
And this will affect smaller companies severely. Bigger companies can get over this by offering more incentives and reducing the workload through spending on automation. But what can smaller boutiques do? We recommend large scale automation even in smaller companies to negate the attrition that will happen.
Another thing that can be done is to recognise achievements continuously at regular intervals and to pay bonuses that they deserve for the exemplary work they do.
Demand for Remote Work
Post the pandemic the demand for remote work has been on the rise. Around two-thirds indicated that they would like to continue to work from home at least once a week. Work from home is very good from the perspective of business continuity but when it comes to real estate industry it hits a wall. Why is this so?
When working from home it is increasingly more difficult for collaboration despite all the tools available and difficult to manage projects and deal with the challenges involved. Even if these two challenges are addressed, there essentially is still the problem of on-site visits, which is just not possible when agents and consultants are working remotely.
Also, it is such a job that requires building relationships with customers and that happens only through face-to-face interactions, which helps to reinforce the faith they have in your company.
How do we tackle this problem? By giving an option to work in a hybrid mode. You can allow your agents to work from home a day, but going fully remote is not an option. They must also preferably be provided a sim card from the company and a system from the office that regularly tracks their progress every day they are working from home.
Alp (read Hope) on the Horizon
Now those were some towering and intimidating challenges. If you are still not satisfied with the solutions we have offered, there are many more on the Internet. And when it is a hydra, you must contend with, then you need a Hercules. If you would ask us what we’d do, we would outsource the recruitment process to an HR company.
They will take care of the entire recruitment cycle in real estate, and bring the decades of experience they have to the fore when hiring for the industry.
By recognising the wants of real estate agents and consultants, understanding what experts say, and evaluating the immediate needs and challenges faced by the company, they will ensure only the best of talent for you. An HR company of repute, Alp Consulting has been at the forefront of recruitment for real estate for more than two decades. No matter what your concern, there is always a solution.
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Amit Saproo
Amit Saproo is the Head of Operations at ALP Consulting with nearly 17 years of experience in Executive Search, RPO, Leadership, and IT & Engineering recruitment. He leads nationwide recruitment programs across Technology, BFSI, and R&D domains, driving strategic hiring solutions for diverse client needs. Amit excels in building and managing high-performance teams that deliver scalable, end-to-end recruitment and consulting services.
