Anyone doing a real estate deal in LA quickly discovers that there is a ton of paperwork involved. Some other time I’ll do a detailed rant about all of the government forms involved. But, for now, it suffices to say that there are probably 100+ pages of forms that need to be reviewed and counter-signed by buyers, sellers, and the agents involved.
With some much paper flying back and forth, things can get lost in the shuffle, creating problems on deals and also legal liability. At large brokerage firms, they solve this problem by pushing agents to use in-house “transaction coordinators”. These are professionals whose sole job is to make sure that the file for each deal is totally, 100% completed and accurate. “TCs”, as they’re called, get paid on a per-deal basis by taking a small piece of the agent’s commission.
Because I’ve never worked for anyone else, I always moved all the paper myself. This worked really well for a while, because doing the nuts-and-bolts stuff was great training. But, now that I’ve got a several clients at any one time, plus my own deals, I’m finding myself buried under repetitive paperwork.
So, starting this week, I will be working with Aleen, a very experienced transaction coordinator recommended by brother-in-law, Casey Adler, a very successful agent in the Mt. Washington area. Am hopeful that this will improve the service my clients receive, by freeing me up to spend my time on the high-value parts of my job (negotiating, interpretting diligence docs, etc.).
Let’s see how it goes…