JunkBossPro Blog — Running a Junk Removal Business

Working With Realtors as a Junk Removal Business

Realtors run into junk constantly. A seller who has lived in a house for decades. An estate sale that left half the basement behind. A buyer who moved in and found the old owner's furniture in the garage. Every one of those is a job, and a realtor who trusts you can send several a month. For a small junk removal business, a few good realtor relationships can smooth out a lot of the ups and downs.

Partners Who Send Repeat Work

Turning One-Time Pickups Into Repeat Junk Removal Customers covered homeowners who call again. Realtors are a different kind of repeat customer. They do not have junk of their own very often, but their clients do, over and over. Win one realtor and you can reach a steady stream of sellers.

What Realtors Care About

Realtors are working against a listing date or a closing date. What they need from you is usually simple:

• Speed. The house needs to be empty before photos, showings or closing.
• Reliability. When you say Thursday, it is Thursday.
• Care. No scuffed floors or dented walls in a house about to be shown.
• Communication. A quick update when the job is done, ideally with photos.
• Easy billing. Clear invoices they can pass to the seller or pay themselves.

Do those well and price becomes a smaller part of the decision.

How to Introduce Yourself

Realtors hear a lot of pitches. Make yours short and useful. Stop by a local office, bring cards, and explain what you do in a sentence: “We clear houses before listing and after closing, usually within a few days of the call.” Offer to handle one job so they can see how you work.

Before-and-after photos from past cleanouts are your best sales tool here. A realtor can picture the empty house in the listing photos right away.

Run Realtor Jobs Smoothly

Realtor jobs often come with a twist: the client may not be home, the house may be on a lockbox, and the realtor wants to know the moment it is done. A few habits help:

• Put access details in the address's access notes, like lockbox location or who will let the crew in.
• Write down exactly what stays and what goes. “Everything in garage goes except the workbench” prevents mistakes.
• Take before and after photos on every job and share them with the realtor.
• Text the realtor when the crew arrives and when they finish.

In JunkBossPro, access notes and the description of what is going show on the crew's job card, and photos are saved with the job. For big houses, an on-site estimate visit is just another job on the schedule.

One Client, Many Addresses

A realtor might send you five houses in a busy month. Setting each one up as a separate customer gets messy fast. In JunkBossPro, one client can have many addresses, so the realtor is one client with each listing as its own address. Every job, photo and note stays with the right house, and you can see all of that realtor's work in one place.

Use a tag like “Realtor” on the client record so you can find every realtor partner quickly when it is time to reach out.

One Statement a Month

Some realtors want each job billed to the seller. Others prefer to pay you directly and handle it on their end. For realtors who send steady work and want one bill, set the client to Monthly billing. JunkBossPro then sends one statement each month covering every address, with each line labeled by address.

That is much easier for a busy realtor than a pile of separate invoices, and it makes you easier to work with than a company that bills job by job. Agree on terms when you set up the account so expectations are clear from the start. Billing options in general are covered in Getting Paid Before the Truck Leaves: Billing in a Junk Removal Business.

Remember that the realtor is not always the one who pays, and not always the one at the house. A seller may be paying for the cleanout, or the realtor may cover it as part of their service. Ask early who the client is, who approves the quote, and who should get the invoice and the photos. Getting that right on the first job saves confusion on every job after it.

A Steady Source of Cleanouts

Realtor partnerships work when you are fast, reliable, careful and easy to bill. Keep each realtor as one client with many addresses, share photos, and use monthly statements where they help. The next guide covers property managers and trash-outs, another source of steady monthly work. For every topic in this series, visit the running a junk removal business page.