According to Tom Mitchell, Senior Vice President of RealtyU® Online, “2005 has been one of the strongest years in real estate, when the final numbers are in, maybe even the best year ever in recorded history. But, the market is already showing signs of a slow down and that means less sales and less commissions for most real estate agents in 2006. Now is the right time for real state agents to plan and ensure that they do not earn less commission next year but actually use 2006 as an opportunity to grow their market share.”

The first step in being successful is creating a plan – a real estate business plan, that will map out the actions you need to take in 2006. The new online real estate business planning course was designed to provide real estate agents with an overview of the business planning process, what needs to be done to crate a plan, how to actually go about doing it and the do’s and don’ts of business planning. The online real estate course provides more than just the theory behind creating a well constructed business plan, but also provides various worksheets for the agent to fill-in portions covering:

• Components and Mechanics
  
• Revenue and Commission Structure
  
• Expenses
  
• Planning and Decision Making
  
• Business Development
  
• Accountability and Tracking

According to Mitchell, “The course was designed to give Realtors® the necessary knowledge to assemble all the required components of a business plan, helps them understand how to maximize the differences between revenue and income and how to properly separate variable and fixed expenses.” The course uses an actual real estate business planning tool as an example and works through all aspects of the process such as calculating required closed listings and buyers, the different real estate marketing expenses, different real estate commission splits, direct mail costs, newspaper and internet real estate advertising, flyers and brochures, signs, business cards, cell phone, lock boxes, auto expenses, closing gifts, and much more. At the end of the process and agent is able to create his or her own personalized weekly “To-Do” list for 2006.

For more information on BUSINESS PLANNING - Purpose Driven Real Estate Planning for Successful Agents, go to www.RealtyUOnline.com and click on the Business Planning link.