BY ALICE WEINERT | Haven & Loft Realty
Getting out of town for a vacation can feel like an impossible task. What if a buyer wants to see a property with two hours’ notice? What if a prospective seller calls to list their home as soon as possible? Taking time for yourself is often seen as a zero-sum game where relaxation is at the expense of your business.
For me, those breaks from work are required. I can always tell when it’s time for me to plan a getaway–my eyes are tired from staring at screens, my shoulders are tense from the weight of problem-solving for my clients and my patience is worn thin. So, I pack up my camping gear and disappear into the woods for a day (or a week) to recalibrate.
If the idea of disconnecting for a week makes you cling to your phone, it’s okay to start small! Getting in the habit of taking time off isn’t just good for your stress levels, it lets you create systems so eventually you can work up to taking a weeklong trip without cell service. And, if you start to feel guilty about decompressing while there are unread emails in your inbox, remember that burnout could be a detriment to your own success! Here are my tips for taking time to yourself and away from your business.
YOUR FIRST CALENDAR EXERCISE:
Figure Out the Least Disruptive Time to Get Out of Town
In real estate, we handle objections all day long. Are your own objections getting in your way? Here’s a straightforward place to get started with scheduling time away.
Possible objection: taking a vacation can’t happen because you are busy with showings and open houses all weekend. That’s a reasonable concern, so how about a midweek getaway instead?
Before you do any other planning (and definitely before you book a non-refundable airline ticket), take stock of your calendar. Are there certain days of the week that are typically busier than others? Perhaps Mondays are a heavy paperwork day as the dust settles from weekend offer deadlines; or, you always spend your Thursdays scheduling appointments for the new listings that came on the market. Now, flipback through the last couple months of your calendar and look at what days are typically quieter. If there’s a pattern that your Tuesdays are spent tying up loose odds and ends that normally wrap up by noon, it would probably be a good day to take off in the future.
Do you already know when your clients are going out of town, or is that information you find out after you send them a perfect listing—only to discover they are on vacation for the next 10 days? In the lead up to holiday weekends, check in with all your active clients to better understand whether they are expecting to see properties with you during that time or if they will be busy at the beach. New parents are given the advice to “sleep when the baby sleeps” so they can get some rest during the newborn stage. Let’s update that adage with a real estate twist and “get out of town when your clients go out of town!”
Create a System for Handling Your Clients From Afar
Now that you’ve committed to getting away, how do you ensure that your clients won’t be left in a lurch by your absence? If you’re part of a team, there may already be systems in place for someone to cover your showings. If you’re a solo agent, who do you turn to? Since you have built strong relationships with your clients, they may balk at being passed off to whatever agent in your office happens to have free time this week.
Start by making a list of the tasks you need handled during your trip and label them as either remote or in-person. The remote tasks are the ones that can be done anywhere you have cell service. I’ve written a contract at a picnic table while volunteering at a trail building event; I’ve answered questions about a CMA while parked at a rest area on a road trip; and I’ve even handled an appraisal issue while camping at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore during a thunderstorm!
The in-person tasks– like showing properties and installing or removing “For Sale” signs– are trickier to handle without physically being there. If your trip is only a day or two, the simplest answer may be to postpone those tasks until you’re back. For time-sensitive tasks, and for longer trips, you will need to delegate. Non-licensed activities, like removing a “For Sale” sign from your listing, can be outsourced to a handyman service or a trusted friend. However, the licensed activities still need to be handled by a real estate licensee.
It can be scary to leave your clients in the hands of another agent, so cultivate your peer-to-peer industry relationships. Get to know other agents in your brokerage, attend networking events and join an association committee until you have a roster of licensees that you can confidently tap on the shoulder.
If I’m leaving town for more than just a couple days, I ask my buyers if they would like to be set up with a referral while I’m away; usually, it’s in case the perfect house comes on the market while I’m unreachable. You may be surprised that some of your clients will be happy to take a few days off from house hunting, because they are that committed to working with you!
Set Boundaries for Yourself to Maximize Relaxation
Just because you are capable of handling many tasks remotely doesn’t mean that you should be doing a full day of work from your vacation locale. I use several strategies to keep an eye on my business while not letting it consume my day.
The most important thing is to set expectations with your clients before your trip. I tell my clients how often I expect to have cell service and encourage them to send any questions that come up, with the knowledge that I will respond to urgent or time-sensitive emails and respond to the rest when I get back.
Since I’m often in places with spotty cell service, I check the coverage map for my phone provider before each trip. It’s helpful to know where I’m likely to be able to check email and, just as importantly, what stretches of time I will be off the grid. As an extra precaution, I also carry a satellite messenger as a safety measure on backcountry trips. It has an added benefit of letting me check in with clients if my phone is struggling to find bars.
In 2021, I had a weeklong trip with a friend planned to Isle Royale National Park. The park is an archipelago in the middle of Lake Superior, closer to the shoreline of Canada than of any U.S. state. As you can imagine, cell service was nonexistent.
At the time, I was representing a first-time homebuyer client whose closing date kept getting pushed back during the appraisal process. When the title company finally confirmed the closing appointment, it was precisely when I was supposed to be riding a ferry to Isle Royale. Since that was an urgent situation, I was happy to be on call while on vacation. But most of the time, I am just triaging my emails. I use email filters to move the daily deluge of promotions and news alerts to hiddenfolders. This allows me to clearly see the most important emails at a glance and winnow down to the ones that need my immediate attention.
I also set up a personal Focus on my iPhone, similar to Do Not Disturb mode but specifically targeting my real estate messaging apps. My work emails and ShowingTime alerts are silenced and only the whitelisted phone numbers of my closest friends and family will show up as notifications for texts and phone calls. When I don’t see the preview of the work email show up in my notifications, I’m not tempted to ruin my lunch by answering a question that can wait until next week.
Pre-planning brief times to check in on work communications allows me to fully focus on my vacation the rest of the time. Think of it this way: if you were in the middle of an afternoon of showings for an out-of-state buyer, you would prioritize that client for several hours. When you’re on vacation, you need to treat yourself like you are your most important client. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else! Very few real estate emergencies can’t wait two hours, and if they really are that urgent, your clients probably need first responders, not a REALTOR®.
A Little Pre-Work Goes A Long Way
One possible “vacation hack” is to pre-create vacation outlines for future trips that you can take advantage of, especially if a last-minute gap appears in your schedule. Have a sudden three-day opening? Consult your pre-made trip outlines!
Even the best laid plans can go awry. A few years ago, I had plans to go backpacking in the Upper Peninsula over Memorial Day weekend. All of my active buyer clients were heading out of state, so I figured it was safe to book backcountry campsites in an area with no cell service.
The day before my trip, one of my buyer couples called about a house with a recent price reduction. Their car was packed for a beach getaway in Michigan and mine was packed for backpacking, but we met at the property for a tour before heading out of state. They fell in love with the property and digitally signed their offer a couple hours later. Now that I had just submitted an offer, would I continue on with my plans to be off the grid for the weekend, or would I adjust so I could be available to answer a call from the list agent? I made the decision to cancel my backcountry site and instead pivoted to a camping trip in Door County where I had better cell coverage.
The reason I could make a spontaneous change is because I had already created an outline for a vacation in Door County! I keep a running list of places that would be good for an overnight or weekend getaway, with information about driving time, places to eat and stay, and nearby hiking trails. When clients cancel last-minute or a closing gets moved up a week, I take advantage of those holes in my schedule to try out one of my pre-planned itineraries.
If a last minute overnight doesn’t work with your spouse, kids or pets, don’t underestimate the relaxing benefits of a solo day trip. I recommend skipping across state lines so you aren’t tempted to say yes to a last-minute meeting; staycations within your market area take a lot of self-control, so give yourself some distance! Try a leisurely lunch at a riverfront restaurant in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, followed by a visit to the Kohler Art Center. Get into nature with a hike on the Cowles Bog Trail at Indiana Dunes National Park. Or take the Amtrak to Milwaukee and explore the shops and eateries of the Historic Third Ward.
Like so much in life, practice makes perfect, so be sure to allocate time for yourself. It may feel strange at first to be at a winery on a late Wednesday morning, but when you come back relaxed and ready to face the weekend chaos of the real estate market, you’ll be glad that you did it!