How a Transaction Coordinator Will Help Your Real Estate Business (2024)

A real estate transaction coordinator plays a critical role in many successful brokerages.

For busy real estate brokerages, managing buyer and seller transactions is a full-time job. Thousands of individual tasks must be completed in a specific order, and many businesses fall behind.

For brokers and brokerages, falling behind means:

❌ Deals not closing on time.

❌ Crucial documents falling through the cracks.

❌ Frustrated clients and agents.

❌ Being unprepared for, or even failing, state audits.

❌ Feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.

In this article, we discuss a transaction coordinator’s role and help you decide if and when hiring one is right for you.

So, What Is a Real Estate Transaction Coordinator?

Transaction coordinators are key to success in busy real estate brokerages, leading many to add them to their teams. Recruiting and efficiently equipping a transaction coordinator offer many benefits. They can help to:

✅ Ensure the correct buying and selling process is followed.

✅ Keep agents on track.

✅ Free up brokers to work on closing deals.

✅ Make sure you don’t fall foul of regulators.

✅ Relieve stress and make your team feel less overwhelmed.

✅ Increase your monthly production.

✅ Free up time to grow your business.

However, deciding whether to hire a new transaction coordinator is not always simple.

Consistent monthly revenue and production are crucial for your brokerage to afford this new overhead. As a result, many brokers need to recruit and integrate transaction coordinators into their teams when volume provides the opportunity.

At Paperless Pipeline, we’ve worked with thousands of real estate brokers and transaction coordinators, so we’re here to help you:

1. Decide the best time to hire a transaction coordinator.
2. Plan toward bringing your transaction coordinator on board.
3. Equip your new real estate transaction coordinator for success.

What Are the Benefits of Using a Transaction Coordinator?

A transaction coordinator keeps deals on track. They also take care of the administrative side of a transaction—from the initial contract to closing.

Their role is broad, and it varies depending on state regulations, but typically, the duties of a transaction coordinator include:

• Coordinating property inspections.
• Managing escrow, mortgage loans, and appraisals.
• Managing paperwork and ensuring all documentation is submitted.
• Keeping everyone updated on progress.
• Ensuring critical due dates are met.
• Meeting all necessary regulations.
• Ensuring files are securely kept.
• Coordinating the real estate processes from the start to the closing process.
• Updating your client database system with relevant client information.
• Assisting real estate agents with comparative market analysis.
• Submitting appropriate documentation to the office broker.
• Providing excellent customer service and maintaining client relationships.

When Should You Hire a Transaction Coordinator?

Before hiring a transaction coordinator, you should consider what needs they’re going to fulfill at your brokerage.

Here are three options to help you understand how and when to utilize transaction coordinator software and transaction coordinators:

Option #1: No change

If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably experienced some frustration managing real estate transactions.

Our stance is that very few real estate brokerages regret investing in streamlining transaction management systems and processes.

Even solo operations can benefit from transaction coordinators or transaction software.

If you’re struggling to manage transactions and using outdated methods like spreadsheets or pen and paper, we don’t recommend keeping the status quo.

Hiring a transaction coordinator can seem like a big step, but there is an intermediate step. You can deploy software—like Paperless Pipeline—to solve many of your problems without investing in a transaction coordinator.

Option #2: Add software

The right software solution can help you manage all your real estate transactions in one place. Even if you don’t feel ready to invest in a transaction coordinator, this option will help make your real estate transaction process seamless.

Paperless Pipeline helps by:

✅ Creating powerful transaction checklists.

✅ Automatically setting deadlines to keep everyone on the same page.

✅ Tracking the progress of transactions in real time.

✅ Storing files securely, ensuring compliance.

✅ Allowing real estate agents to work on the go from their phones.

✅ Managing separate offices, teams, and departments from a single platform.

✅ Providing ten-year storage and free monthly backup for long-term compliance.

✅ Only paying for what you need, allowing you to upgrade or downgrade at any time.

✅ Not signing into annual contracts.

Option #3: Add software and hire a transaction coordinator

With option three, powerful software is managed by a designated transaction coordinator.

You get the best of both worlds: a tool that tracks your activity and makes planning much easier, plus a dedicated person to manage your transactions.

8 Questions to Help You Decide Which Option Is Best for You

Many brokerages are stuck deciding between options two and three, so we’ve created eight key questions to help you decide which option is best:

1. How much oversight do you want over transactions?

Some real estate brokers are comfortable leaving the details to transaction coordinators. This is possible if you can find the right person.

However, there are always situations where it helps to have access to the details of a transaction.

Perhaps they are unwell, you have an audit, or they have taken their eye off the ball.

Paperless Pipeline solves these problems. In seconds, you can create a custom transaction report that gives you a quick view of the status of every real estate deal.

You don’t need to view the details daily, but you know they are accessible when necessary.

2. What do your state regulations say about the responsibilities of a real estate agent and broker?

Every state has its own real estate compliance and regulations. These cover the elements of a transaction process that a licensed real estate agent and transaction coordinators are allowed to complete.

In some states, agents have more autonomy to complete tasks. For some brokerages, this means they feel a transaction coordinator is unnecessary.

3. What stage is your brokerage at in its lifecycle?

Some brokerages are small but still overwhelmed by the administrative duties that come with managing multiple transactions. Staff at these brokerages can easily get stuck working long hours to close even a handful of deals.

They need administrative support so they can spend more time on closing deals. These deals help pay for administrative support. The way to break this cycle is to deploy software to make managing transactions simple.

This allows founders to make more deals and gradually start growing the agency.

Once the agency closes more deals, a transaction coordinator can be hired to reduce the burden and enable the founders to drive more growth.

4. How consistent are your current real estate agents at managing transactions?

If your real estate agents manage transactions competently, your main concern may be helping them spend more time on deals rather than all the paperwork.

In a case like this, transaction management software is the perfect choice. By giving your agents access to Paperless Pipeline, they’ll immediately save a lot of time with automated real estate checklists and task management features.

This will quickly translate into more productive and happy real estate agents. Our solution greatly aids production, but going forward, you could also consider hiring a transaction coordinator to make agents’ lives even easier.

5. What is your monthly transaction production?

When you’re doing 25 or more transactions a month, that means you have to complete a large amount of work.

Each transaction generates hundreds of tasks, so completing 25 transactions creates thousands. At this stage, a transaction coordinator is usually a good addition to your real estate team.

6. How many full-time agents do you have?

Usually, brokerages with ten or more full-time agents benefit from hiring a transaction coordinator and equipping them with real estate transaction management software.

7. What is your margin per transaction?

For brokerages with agents on standard real estate commission plans, investing in administrative infrastructure like transaction management software often makes sense.

If you’re a flat-fee brokerage, there is usually less money to invest in administrative support.

8. Are you actively looking to grow your brokerage?

For brokerages with plans for growth, transaction management is a critical investment—and the earlier you adopt this software, the better. You want to allow agents to step into a well-oiled machine, so they can start closing deals quickly.

How to Hire a Transaction Coordinator

If you’ve decided to hire a transaction coordinator, then it’s time to get started with recruiting. Here are the steps you should follow to ensure you find the right person for your business:

➡️ Decide whether to outsource or keep in-house

Outsourcing could be a cheaper and more effective option than employing someone. Hiring a virtual transaction coordinator could be a viable option for your brokerage.

How much does an outsourced transaction coordinator cost you? It could be up to $50 per hour.

Companies like Happy Agent provide remote, automated transaction coordinator services.

Consider these three things:

• Can you afford full-time wages?
• Which do you value more: a freelancer’s experience or an employee’s knowledge of your business?
• Are you willing to accept the risk of employing someone full-time?

➡️ Advertise

Your job advert needs to get maximum exposure so that you attract as many good candidates as possible.

Consider where transaction coordinators may look for job ads and place your advert there. Some good examples are:

• Real estate sector publications and websites.
• Your local department for real estate’s website.
• LinkedIn.
• Job sites.
• Your own website.

➡️ Use a recruiter

You could also consider using a specialist recruitment agency to find a transaction coordinator.

Recruitment agencies have excellent networks and are able to match the best candidates with suitable companies. The downside is that their services are often expensive.

For example, RETS Associates is a recruitment agency based in Southern California that specializes in commercial real estate talent.

➡️ Offer attractive terms

You can attract the best transaction coordinators with a good benefits package and a competitive salary. They’ll likely appreciate the perks and stability you offer them. Benefits that will attract excellent coordinators include:

• Remote working.
• Flexible hours.
• Tools and software that support their work.
• A company laptop and cellphone.
• A pension plan.
• A company car.
• A bonus scheme.

➡️ Interview candidates

An interview is a critical step in finding a good transaction coordinator. Many soft skills required of a good transaction coordinator are difficult to identify without an interview.

Try to find out about their:

📌 Experience level

The best transaction coordinators usually have years of experience under their belts at various brokerages.

Some transaction coordinators have a real estate license. They will usually have higher salary expectations, and accreditation is the mark of a trained professional.

Having a license means that your agents can benefit from their knowledge of contracts and negotiations. However, seeing that negotiating contracts is usually the agents’ responsibility, we don’t recommend that your transaction coordinator gets directly involved in this entire process.

Another good option is hiring someone with experience in the real estate industry or one that has transferable skills. For example, legal or regulated industry administrative assistants may be well-suited to a transaction coordinator role.

However, remember that the less experienced or qualified the individual, the higher the risk. An inexperienced employee can lead to delays and mistakes, which they are employed to avoid.

📌 Ability to make decisions

At any one time, a transaction coordinator will be processing multiple deals and will have to prioritize urgent tasks on a daily basis.

They also need to be able to work independently so that they save you time. Therefore, it’s vital that a transaction coordinator can make good decisions independently.

Good decision-making relies on a variety of skills and characteristics, including:

• Intuition.
• Reasoning.
• Logic.
• Processing information.
• Asking questions.
• Analyzing potential outcomes.
• Emotional intelligence.

📌 Attention to detail

Real estate transactions involve large volumes of forms, contracts, and files that must be filled out correctly to ensure a deal progresses on time. Any mistakes or missed information could result in costly and frustrating delays.

It’s important that you find a transaction coordinator with meticulous attention to detail who is willing to pore over every sentence in every document. This skill must be balanced with their ability to make good decisions and prioritize tasks.

📌 Ability to follow processes

A good transaction coordinator will follow routine processes to ensure that even the smallest details of every real estate transaction are dealt with.

Try to avoid hiring someone who works in a sporadic or illogical manner. You could determine this by asking a candidate to outline their transaction management approach or providing them with some scenarios and asking how they would approach them.

📌 Communication skills

Good social skills and being an effective communicator are vital characteristics of a transaction coordinator. Why?

✔️ You’ll trust them to regularly liaise with buyers, sellers, agents, inspectors, surveyors, and other brokerages. This means you need someone who is going to be approachable and sociable.

✔️ They need to be able to clearly explain what stage deals are at and what action parties need to take. This goes for both written and verbal communication. This is vital to ensuring that deals progress efficiently and that all parties have a smooth experience with your brokerage.

The best way to assess this ability is to provide the candidate with a test outside the interview, to see how they handle it and communicate with you.

📌 Job satisfaction

The transaction coordinator role involves a lot of paperwork and administrative tasks that may seem dull, complicated, and tedious to many people.

You should try to choose a candidate who enjoys organization, management, and going into detail. If they truly enjoy their job, they will be more effective than someone doing it for money.

Provide Your Real Estate Transaction Coordinators with the Best Tool

A great transaction coordinator can completely change the game for your brokerage. Hiring a transaction coordinator and giving them the right software is an even more powerful move.

With transaction management software like Paperless Pipeline, you empower your transaction coordinators to do the best possible job.

Our tool helps transaction coordinators stay on top of processes, create custom checklists for all parties involved, and ensure deals are closed on time.

Visit our website to try Paperless Pipeline out for free. It’s not only the best choice for your transaction coordinators, but also an investment in your business.