Real estate professionals not only provide safe and attractive homes and offices but also improve property values and contribute to the community by paying taxes.
We often read headlines about greedy landlords, evictions, and record lack of affordable housing. In spite of those headlines, real estate experts make significant contributions to the community, often in ways that fly under the radar. Although the fundamental contributions include offering housing and office spaces, boosting property values, and fulfilling real estate tax obligations, there are several additional ways in which they positively impact the community.
Being a person or company that is in the business of maximizing the value created and shared is not only good for the community, but also for the bottom line.
Let’s explore these six:
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- Networking with other local professionals and community leaders
- Mentoring new real estate professionals
- Creating and sharing valuable content
- Giving back to local community organizations
- Joining and supporting local landlord/property owner associations
- Communicating with local leaders about real estate related issues and voting
Networking with Local Professionals and Community Leaders
Real estate professionals generate a lot of economic activity in the community. The real estate industry provides the housing that community leaders ask for as well as jobs for contractors and various real estate service providers. Real estate-related endeavors facilitate home improvement and furnishing purchases. And commercial real estate companies provide space for various businesses.
Real estate professionals help all these players navigate working with various government entities to achieve the housing and economic development goals the community needs.
Mentoring New Real Estate Professionals
We all got our start not knowing much. Most of us owe our development, in great part, to the more experienced mentors who took the time to come alongside and support us as we grew in our real estate career.
By being a mentor to a less experienced real estate professional, you are ensuring the standards of the industry are maintained. By being a mentor and paying forward your standards of professionalism, you are ensuring others will have a positive experience and impression of real estate professionals like yourself.
Creating and Sharing Valuable Content
One of the most valuable things we can do as real estate professionals is create and share content with the community that educates them on marketplace conditions and the best ways for them to succeed in the current environment.
Just choose your favorite medium and begin sharing your expertise. By creating and sharing content, you are ensuring the consumer and community are informed.
Giving Back to Local Organizations
As a real estate professional, there are many ways you can give back to the community through local organizations.
Think about volunteering your time to a service project or organizing or supporting an initiative you think would benefit a cause you care about. Consider financially supporting an organization whose mission you believe in or supports the mission of housing. If you have the time, perhaps you could even serve in a leadership capacity in one or two of these organizations.
By modeling giving back, we not only contribute our immediate service but also inspire others to do so as well.
Supporting Local Landlord/Property Owner Associations
With so many issues affecting real estate and housing these days, it is in the real estate professional’s best interest to join and be an active member of a local landlord, trade organization, or property owner association.
These may be referred to as apartment associations, real estate investor associations, or a professional trade group. Their purpose is to inform their members about local and national issues affecting their businesses. They advocate on members’ behalf to elected and community leaders, educating them about the issues affecting the real estate industry.
By joining and being actively involved these associations, you benefit not only yourself but also the broader community because real estate is such an important economic driver.
Communicating with Local Leaders About Real-Estate-Related Issues and Voting
As a real estate professional, you are knowledgeable about the issues facing real estate and can help educate elected and community leaders. By taking the time to visit, communicate with, and educate leaders, you help ensure the policies that are put in place are in the best interest of the community and the real estate industry.
Keep in mind that we not only need to engage and educate but also vote for leaders and policies that add value to the community and our industry.
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
Real estate professionals need to do a better job of communicating the ways in which our businesses benefit the community. Review the six value-adds discussed here and be prepared to remind others in the community about them. The bottom line is that by continually adding value to the community, we help not only the community but also our own businesses and ourselves as real estate professionals.
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