A transaction coordinator's first 30 days

Most coordinator onboarding starts with a software walkthrough and a folder of templates. Both are useful and neither is the thing that decides whether the hire works.

What decides it is the state of the files they inherit, and whether anyone looked at that state before handing them over.

Week one: re-extract everything, together

A new coordinator inheriting active files is inheriting undocumented state. Somebody knows what is outstanding on each one, and that knowledge is in their head, in an inbox, or gone.

So the first week's work is not training. It is sitting down with every inherited file and re-extracting it from the contract: every date, every obligation, every outstanding item, with current status.

This does three things at once. It surfaces problems that predate the new person, so they are not blamed for them later. It teaches the contract structure using real files rather than a sample. And it produces an accurate starting position, which is the only thing that makes the next eleven weeks measurable.

A coordinator who inherits an inaccurate picture will be judged on their handling of problems they were never shown.

Week one to two: jurisdictions before software

Teach the counties you actually work in, not real estate in general.

For a DMV coordinator that means knowing Montgomery County runs on GCAAR paper with a resale certificate at ten to fourteen days, that Prince George's County requires a county addendum on every residential contract and a disclosure set that is state plus county, that Fairfax County requires the association package requested within three days of ratification, and that DC has TOPA as a process rather than a form.

Those four facts prevent more damage than any amount of software training. The software is learnable in an afternoon. Knowing which item has a two-week lead time is the knowledge that saves a closing date.

Week two to three: shadow, then reverse-shadow

Shadowing alone teaches the visible half of the job. The invisible half is judgment about which obligation matters most right now, and that only transfers when the new person makes the call and someone checks it.

So: two or three days shadowing, then flip it. The new coordinator drives, the experienced one watches and corrects. The correction conversations are the actual curriculum.

Week three to four: own simple files end to end

Give them whole files rather than tasks across many files. A coordinator who has only ever done disclosure packets across twenty transactions has not learned a transaction; they have learned a task.

Start with listing-side files if you have them, because the listing side is the more standardized half and mistakes there cost marketing time rather than earnest money.

What to measure, and what not to

Do not measure speed in the first month. Speed comes from familiarity and pushing for it early produces exactly the wrong behaviour, which is closing items rather than verifying them.

Measure instead:

• Extraction accuracy. Take a file they extracted and check it against the contract yourself
• Escalation timing. Did they raise the at-risk item while it was still fixable
• Written trail quality. Could someone else pick up their file cold

That last one is the real test of whether the process is the team's or the person's.

The thirty-day conversation

At the end of the month, ask two questions rather than delivering an assessment.

"Which file worries you?" A coordinator who names one is paying attention. A coordinator who says none is either exceptional or not yet seeing the risks.

"What did nobody tell you?" The answer is a defect in your onboarding, and it is the highest quality feedback you will get, because after month two they will have forgotten what was confusing.