Can Real Estate Agents in Boston Work from Home in 2025?

The demand to work from home has increased, and real estate is no exception. Across industries, increased flexibility is the major reason professionals want to work remotely. Real estate already offers this perk. As a real estate agent, you can make your own schedule and maximize your time. However, working the majority of time from home is not a good idea if you want to be a top producing real estate agent in Boston. The market for Boston real estate is extremely competitive.  You need to constantly meet people, build relationships, and interact with a wide swath of real estate professionals so you can better hone your strategies and closing abilities. This article aims to clearly illustrate how to become the best version of a true real estate professional and in the process generate a much better outcome for not only yourself but your customers.

Working in an Professionally Run Real Estate Office is a Massive Benefit

Although many experienced agents take this for granted, there’s an incontrovertible truth that offices with a high in-person presence have far more knowledgeable agents and close a greater amount of real estate transactions. Working with a team of fully invested agents around you often empowers you to think differently. The diversity of thoughts and opinions in the marketplace can help you see new market opportunities that you would not have explored otherwise. When you are around great real estate players- it makes you better at your craft. New agents should take note of this, and ask themselves the right questions. Asking the right questions to yourself will create the best version of you in real estate. How can I become better at real estate? How can I learn more faster? How can I glean knowledge and strategies from veteran players in the game? Will being in the office help me get away from outside distractions? There are probably ten more great questions that you could ask yourself that would improve your performance and commissions.

You have to remind yourself of several important points. Even though agents are independent contractors working with their own clients, they talk about listings and market trends with each other. Having great real estate agents around you in the office allows information to flow that can help create deals you never even thought about putting together.

Collaboration is key.

A smart, new agent would pay attention and make sure that they are learning from those with more experience. An intelligent agent would pay attention to what top producers are doing and pattern those successes. Different experienced agents bring different angles on how to close both simple and complex transactions. Diversity of thought in how to organize a plan for a successful transaction can have a meaningful impact on an agent’s overall success. On top of that, being a highly-paid real estate agent in Boston requires multiple disciplines of knowledge. It is often inspiring to watch a top producer on a roll. You start noticing their work habits. You might notice them coming to work early and staying late doing paperwork. Even one good nugget of information might change your whole month or year.

It’s important to know how to do the right things at the right time.

Many agents create their own schedules based on their internal beliefs, but those can vary greatly from experienced agents. It’s important for both new and experienced agents to spend some time in the office discussing what is working NOW in today’s market. Success can often change rapidly and being isolated at home can often cause an agent to stick with patterns that used to work but no longer are generating clients and transactions. Doing the right things at the right time will allow you to get better results, close more deals, and maximize your time. Never forget that there are seasonal and neighborhood patterns that you might not be aware of that influence deals. No one is going to call you at home and tell you how to be the best real estate agent – you have to go to the office and seek this knowledge. You have to show your commitment to yourself and others that you are serious about success. Who wants to invest their time and advice into a person that sits at home all day? What is that?

Lasting Professional Relationships Require a Connection

Working in real estate is about more than just housing-related transactions- it’s about human connection and building relationships. Buyer or rental clients will always choose an agent that they feel has their best interests in mind. This requires a personal exchange, where the agent can convince the client that they have the right team, the most listings, and the tools to find them a home in a competitive environment. It requires the reassurance that they are working with the best! If you only talk to your clients over e-mail and send them listings instead of taking them out on showings- it doesn’t feel personal. Soon, they won’t even remember the exchange- or you. What real time data and insights are you providing to them. Do you know the inventory in their particular areas of interest. Did you recently get a price reduction and call them to tell them about it? What are you actually doing to help people?

The same goes for landlords looking to rent or sell their properties.

Property owners, and smaller landlords, in particular, want to work with smart agents that know the market well- and they often like to meet at their properties. How can you help an owner accurately price their property if you don’t see it in person? Or, if you don’t know the local market well enough since you’re always at home? In Boston, each neighborhood is extremely different. In some cases, one street is very different from the next in terms of pricing and demand. Are you showing up to see the landlord armed with real-time data information on their competition? What value are you going to bring to bear to help get a multifamily property rented or sold?

This is something that can only be learned with experience, and by spending time talking to owners, clients, and other real estate agents in person. Nothing beats face time. You generate a far higher level of trust. It is important that you show up prepared and have a massive real-time database that you can articulate to a landlord so they can make empowering decisions. If you know the competition all has four bedrooms and three bathrooms and theirs only has one bathroom– perhaps you might want to explain how that impacts their rental or sales price. So go shake hands with landlords and bring impactful real time data to augment your discussions– believe me– you will get the listing.

When a Home Office is Worth It

Working from home can be full of distractions- roommates, family members, or pets can demand your attention and make it hard to focus. To make it worse, the kitchen is only a few steps from your bedroom or makeshift office and excessive snacking can become a problem. Many work from home agents often complain that they have packed on the weight because it is simply too easy to walk to the refrigerator over and over. We hear from a lot of stay at home agents that the isolation of working at home can have some unintended health consequences. However, a home office can benefit you if used correctly with a great degree of self-responsibility and discipline.

As a real estate agent, you are freed from the constraints of a commute during rush hours. This also means you will likely need to take calls early in the morning or late at night- and having a quiet space to focus on work at home will be helpful. Additionally, you’ll be able to take advantage of certain windows of time. For example, you can maximize your time by avoiding peak hours of Boston traffic from 7AM-9AM or 5PM-7PM. You can use that time to plan your day, catch up on e-mails, and make calls. Your commute to the office will be shorter, and you’ll be able to seamlessly flow into work ready to grab keys and show properties. You can also take advantage of your home office late at night to check your e-mail or post ads before bed. A superior brokerage will help teach you the maximization of time principles (MTP) which can often put thousands of additional dollars in your pocket by helping to point out tips that enhance your showing and closing process.

Can Great Real Estate Agents in Boston Work from Home?

Real estate agents in Boston can work from home- but they shouldn’t work primarily from home. Having a dedicated workspace at home is smart, but there is far more to be gained from being in a fully integrated and high transactional based office. You will benefit far greater in real estate if you are around high energy people with bigger goals and dreams than you. Inspiration and motivation matter in life – being around valuable, talented and positive people can make all the difference in the world. Having access to a vast amount of keys in one location will provide you with 10-20 hours per week in additional showing opportunities. Working with a company with a massive local technology budget and can give you custom CRM’s and full stack real estate ecosystem systems will enhance your closings.

Going to an office where the phone rings with customers is also another huge advantage that can also save you 10-20 hours in prospecting time. Think about it – why sit at home making tons of calls and trying to find customers when some high tech nontraditional companies are making the phones ring and all you have to do is pick it up and book a time to show properties. Time is money. Real estate is based on operational efficiency and best showing practices. Property owners do not give keys to agents that work from home. There is simply too much liability to providing an agent with keys to properties that they store at home. Waiting for tenants or the owner to show up to help provide you access to a property is a recipe for being an average transactional volume agent at best. Over time you will come to realize that the offices with the most keys have the highest producing and happiest agents.

Many real estate agents get burnt out by not having proper access to properties and having to constantly reschedule their clients. Agents tend to get bad reviews when a showing goes bad because they couldn’t get access and the client feels their time is wasted. You might want to think about how many keys your office has to units – isn’t that the greatest form of trust any landlord could speak about a real estate platform?

The fact is that as a new agent, you don’t know what you don’t know.

You might have listened to a well-polished recruiter that sold you a bag of rocks so that they could make their hiring quota. You might want to ask that recruiter do they even have a real estate license? What state or country are you calling from? How many landlords and investors are in your database? How many visits does your website get? How many times does the phone ring in your office per day with leads? You should ask a lot of questions to everyone in real estate on a non-stop basis. You owe it to yourself to challenge the status-quo. Does your manager keep telling you to call expired listings? Why does your office manager keep telling you to work your sphere of influence? Maybe you should ask them what they are doing to help you become more successful?

You can only learn that from others or by making mistakes- and the former is certainly less painful. Working from an well respected office with an impeccable track record allows you to keep quickly learning and optimize each month or quarter. Every year in Boston real estate brings about significant new patterns or opportunities, and it’s easier to discover them through face to face communication with the successful agents figuring out new ways to win. No team wins any major victories alone at home.

Conclusion

Boston Pads powered offices are the most successful leasing teams in the history of New England- and the experts when it comes to multifamily investment sales. We can provide real time data to multifamily sales and leasing experts like no other platform. We deliver unique, local and innovative CRM tools to your fingertips to help you close more transactions in less time. If you would like to take your career as a new or experienced agent to a level you never thought possible, please come and see our full stack real estate ecosystem is all about. Our team can show you how working together has massive benefits. We can optimize your real estate experience from click to close and enhance both your office and at home presence. Your wallet will thank you. Please feel free to reach out for a confidential interview at any time.