6 time management hacks to help agents sell more homes in 2025

A majority of agents believe 2025 is going to be a great year for the housing market. Around 85% have an optimistic outlook, and 70% believe the market will be more stable, according to a new survey from Clever Real Estate.   

Although agents are split on whether it’s going to be a buyers or a sellers market, 87% predict that demand will remain very strong over the next year. That will likely make it a busy year for real estate agents. 

Time will be your most valuable resource. To juggle all the demands of being an agent — from tracking your deadlines, avoiding time wasters and making the most of each day — you’ll need these six time-management hacks to sell more homes in what’s looking like a very busy year for the housing market.

1. Don’t be ruled by the clock

One of the beautiful things about being a real estate agent is that you aren’t restricted by a Monday through Friday, 9-to-5 schedule. This gives you a tremendous amount of freedom to manage your day according to your unique productivity patterns. 

If you’re an early bird, frontload your day by getting all your paperwork and research done during the morning hours. If you’re a night owl, wait until everyone’s asleep to tackle that day’s workload. 

Figure out what works best for you through trial and error, and embrace those best practices. By aligning your work time with your natural productivity periods, you can bank massive gains in how much work you complete.

2. Make a schedule and stick to it

Once you’ve identified your best work times, create a detailed daily schedule that blocks off time for all your tasks. A tried-and-true method for this is to look at everything on your to-do list for that day and put the most important items at the top.

A slightly different time-management strategy, sometimes known as “eating the frog,” recommends putting the most difficult or most unpleasant task upfront. This ensures that it’ll get done, allowing you to move on to the rest of your work without the dread of an unpleasant task weighing you down. Either way, establish a strategy to prioritize your day’s work.

While you’re deciding what to tackle first, identify the items on your to-do list that aren’t actually urgent. Everyone has a couple things on their list that can probably be crossed off. Once you’ve recovered a little time, keep it open for those inevitable times when a client needs a last-minute showing, or if some other emergency pops up.

Finally, don’t forget that your schedule isn’t just for your benefit. It also communicates your priorities to your co-workers and employees. Blocking out your time tells them that you’re busy doing important work. It also discourages drop-ins, small talk and other unnecessary time-wasting behavior.

3. Ruthlessly delegate

Ideally, you want to expend your effort on the type of work that you’re best at — whether it’s marketing, negotiating deals, building relationships, or something else. Clearly and objectively identify where your particular strengths lie, and then delegate the rest as much as possible.

This is going to require you to hire the right team. One common mistake that agents make is to hire people who are similar to themselves. Unfortunately, all that does is make one of you redundant. Hire people who bring complementary skills to the table or who are good at the tasks you may not excel at.

Once you delegate, it’s important to step back and not micromanage. If you hired the right people, you should trust them enough to work independently. However, you should monitor and check in regularly to make sure there’s some kind of defined accountability process in place.

4. Cordon off communication

Most of a real estate agent’s job is communication — from reassuring clients face-to-face, to acting as a go-between for the buyer and the seller, followed by answering texts and emails. In fact, communication is such an important part of the job that it can easily surpass any boundaries you try to set until you’re essentially on-call 24/7. This can not only exhaust you, it can also spread you so thin that when you do respond, it may not get your full focus.

For that reason, one of the most productive time-blocking techniques can be to designate a certain section of your day to respond to emails, phone calls, and text messages. Otherwise, don’t allow yourself to answer non-emergency communication. You’ll be more productive, and the people who want to get in touch with you will come to value your time more.

5. Take advantage of technology

For time management and productivity, there are several apps that can help you optimize your workday. Every agent knows about ShowingTime and Mailchimp. But document management apps — such as PandaDoc or CamScanner — or transaction management tools, such as Dotloop, can be a huge help. 

If you need more general workflow enhancement, you can tap into your true potential with Pomodoro apps for time management or apps that restrict your social media usage or online time so you can focus on important projects.

6. Don’t let meetings steal your time

Some of the biggest time sucks for real estate agents are endless meetings. In many workplaces, it’s often a two-pronged problem. Some meetings are unnecessary. Others serve a purpose but tend to eat into productive hours. That means you have to take a top-down approach to overhauling your meeting culture.

First, make sure every meeting has a well-defined agenda. This prevents meandering conversations that often stretch meetings past their productive duration. The agenda should also list the necessary attendees, which ensures everyone there has a well-defined role. Finally, the agenda should include a start and finish time.

Structuring meetings like this can make them much more constructive. But to really make your meetings productive, you need to have an open and encouraging workplace culture. Your employees should feel empowered to step up and make real contributions or register disagreement when necessary.

Nicole Lehman is a PR Strategist for Clever Real Estate.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners.

To contact the editor responsible for this piece: zeb@hwmedia.com.