The past few years have not just been a boom time for homeowners but also for real estate agencies.

While prices have soared, the number of transactions also reached record levels. As sales activity slows down, it’s important to make sure your agency remains profitable in 2022.

Here are five ways to make keep your agency profitable.

Identify your agency's strengths

As an agency, it’s possible to sell property across your entire state. The world of opportunity is large, but that doesn’t mean you should be trying to win every single listing. In reality, a far better approach is identify your strengths and hone in on your point of difference.

One of the most obvious strengths an agency can have is location. Being area experts is one way you can separate yourself from the competition and put a moat around your business during a market slowdown.

Other strengths can be around the selling and marketing techniques that you implement and how they can stand up well in changing marketing conditions.

Another key strength to focus on is your database of potential buyers and how that can help vendors and buyers do deals faster.

Keep your technology up to date

In a market downturn, it can be hard to justify a shakeup of your technology due to the costs involved as well as the time taken away from generating leads and making sales - but it can and will save you long term.

Becoming more efficient with what you’re currently doing and improving your processes is important regardless of where you are in the business cycle. But this can be even more important when things slow down.

More often than not, businesses don’t take a close look at their tools and processes, such as their technology stack, until they really need to. This might be the perfect time to do it.

Upgrade where you can and consolidate if there are tools you don’t need. A great way to do this is by performing a tech stack audit, which will help you decide which technology can stay, and what needs to go.

Lean on your network and nurture existing relationships

Now is the perfect time to start leaning on your existing network and databases to nurture contacts that have already been captured, even if they aren’t active. In this stage, building trust with your clients is paramount.

A healthy lead nurture campaign can be crucial to converting leads into listings in a cooling market.

While the number of listings are rising, nurturing buyers is important in the current market.

Evaluate and bolster your online presence

The modern real estate journey starts digitally and every agency should have a website that provides meaningful value to visitors to entice them to stay on the site (and return).

Look to find new ways to expand your social media presence and paid advertising campaigns for all types of properties that you are selling, sold or about to list.

Don’t be afraid to try new platforms and experiment with different forms of content. You can learn more about how to market yourself as a real estate agent by reading this article.

Examine the structure of the business

These days real estate agencies are a lot more than just the sales side of the business. Property management is often the lifeblood for most agencies, so it might be prudent to focus more time and invest in more staff to bolster this side of the business.

Similarly, there are other complementary businesses that you might be able to work with or bring in-house that could add additional ravine to your business. Having in-house settlement agents or mortgage brokers might be something to consider as a point of difference, or look to establish more formal referral arrangements with your current partners.

It’s important to be flexible and put your energy to where your business most needs it and where you’ll get the most value for your time and capital.