This April, one of Inman’s most popular recurring theme months returns: Back to Basics. All month, real estate professionals from across the country share what’s working for them, how they’ve evolved their systems and tools, and where they’re investing personally and professionally to drive growth in 2022. It’s always smart to go Back to Basics with Inman.
Are you on the hunt for more listings? If so, you will need a combination of tried-and-true tactics based upon what really works in today’s competitive market, plus the hottest new tech tools that produce plenty of new listing leads at a minimal cost.
Here are my top 10 strategies, which I’ll cover in-depth at Inman Connect New York Tuesday.
1. Be the first to get face-to-face
Did you know that the average seller knows 12 real estate agents? The question is, how do they choose the agent with whom they will list? According to the NAR 2021 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, once an owner decides to list their home, 82 percent of the time the first agent they meet with face-to-face wins the listing.
Consequently, no matter where the lead originates, the most important step you can take is to set a face-to-face appointment as soon as possible.
2. Listings hiding in plain sight
How many buyer leads have you ignored in the last year? According to NAR, 51 percent of all buyers own their current home. If they’re baby boomers, those numbers range from 65 percent to 86 percent.
Consequently, always follow up on every buyer lead — 51 percent are potential listings.
3. Eliminate the contingent sale issue
Homeowners often worry that if they sell their home, they will be unable to find a replacement property. For those who need financing, they’re also concerned they will be unable to compete with all-cash buyers when there’s a multiple offer.
You can now eliminate the contingent sale issue with home swap and home trade-in programs from the companies listed below. These companies either purchase the replacement home for the seller and then sell it to them once they sell their current home, or they provide them with the financing they need to become an all cash buyer without first selling their existing home.
4. Where to prospect to find high probability listing leads
When it comes to creating listings where there are none, target marketing is critical. According to the NAR 2021 Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends, the two key factors to target are the homeowner’s age and the length of time that they have lived in their current home.
As you can see from the chart below, the two primary groups of high probability sellers are homeowners between the ages of 22 and 30 who have been in their home for two to five years and baby boomers who have lived in their home for 21 years or more. The probability they will sell this year ranges from 35 percent to 45 percent for those who are between the ages of 22 and 30, and 25 percent to 36 percent for baby boomers.
5. Avoid the costliest mistake that you can make
According to the 2021 Survey of Home Buyers and Sellers, 89 percent of all clients would use their agent to list their next home, but only 26 percent actually did — the reason? Their agents failed to stay in touch. Remember 10 percent to 12 percent of your contacts who own a home will transact this year. Be sure you stay in face-to-face contact at least quarterly and monthly via text, email or social media.
6. Avoid being a secret agent
When you stop for a cup of coffee, attend a game or a social event, do you wear your name badge or piece of clothing that indicates you’re in real estate? When people see that you are a Realtor, they are naturally curious about the market. The best thing about this approach is that they will often approach you and ask the No. 1 question asked of Realtors, “How’s the market?”
7. The best all-purpose lead conversion tool: the equity checkup
When agents are asked, “How’s the market?” they often say “fantastic.” Unfortunately, that answer doesn’t help you obtain the prospect’s contact information.
When the prospect is a potential seller, use an “equity checkup” to obtain their contact information. (You can use the same approach with buyers, except call it an “annual report” that provides them with general data about the area where they will be looking.)
Here’s what to include:
- An iconic shot of one of your area’s best-known features as the cover page.
- The NARRPR.com (Realtors Property Resource) report that includes 15+ pages of information about their property.
- The HomeDisclosure.com Property Report which provides additional data including environmental risks, school rankings, loan and tax history, demographics, and proximity to local services.
Compile all this data into a PDF document that you can send from your mobile device on the spot. Use this data to set a face-to-face appointment to view the interior of the property and the provide them with the most accurate comparative market analysis (CMA) possible.
If you’re at an open house or an event where you need to send the prospect something immediately, RPR has an app that sends a full property report right to their mobile device with a single click — instant lead conversion!
8. Eliminate the blackout zone in your business
Did you know that 75 percent of real estate searches are in languages other than English? If you think this doesn’t apply to your market, think again. In Los Angeles, 72 percent of the population consumes TV and internet in languages other than English.
Immobel, the company that powers real estate in 19 different languages for many of the Realogy brands plus numerous MLSs, has launched a new site called XOMIO that provides you with 19 websites in 19 languages, plus 19 different pages on Googles foreign language search sites, such as Google.fr (Google France), Google.jp (Japan), and Google.mx (Mexico).
If your MLS already provides Immobel with an IDX listing feed, the base price is $159 per month. If your MLS does not provide them with IDX, then there’s an additional pass-through fee to add the IDX listing feed to your sites.
Imagine reaching a huge new audience in your local market area while also being able to show sellers how their listing will be displayed on 19 different Google foreign language sites. This is a huge opportunity to tap into a market that virtually no one else is serving.
9. Generate listings free from your own database with Likely.Ai
Likely.AI is currently providing agents with a free Database Refresh Report that allows agents to identify the contacts in their database who are most likely to transact in the next 90-180 days.
The chart below illustrates how the Database REfresh Report works.
Here are the results:
- 81.4 percent (2,663) of the contacts had valid contact information.
- Of this group, 216 (approximately 8 percent) had listed and sold their property in the last nine months.
- There are 231 likely sellers who will transact in the next 90-180 days that would generate approximately $6.55 million in GCI.
Instead of paying for internet leads, postcard blasts to entire neighborhoods, cold calling or door-knocking, shift your time and marketing dollars to those 231 sellers who are most likely to transact. Even if only 30 percent transact, that’s 69 potential listings waiting for you in your current contact database.
10. Your listing had multiple offers: How to generate even more listing leads
When your listing sells with multiple offers, how can still use it to generate additional listing leads? Atlanta Realtor Glennda Baker has a brilliant solution to this problem. She sends out a mailer that says:
We had 38 offers on our listing and we have one new homeowner. Those 37 other buyers are still looking to buy in your neighborhood and only one agent knows what every buyer looking in your neighborhood is willing to pay, and that’s me.
The bottom line
While all these strategies work, the real question is, which of these are you willing to implement in your business? Once you identify the ones you want to implement, the next step is to decide which one you will implement first so you can start creating listings where there are none right now.
Bernice Ross, president and CEO of BrokerageUP and RealEstateCoach.com, is a national speaker, author and trainer with more than 1,000 published articles. Learn about her broker/manager training programs designed for women, by women, at BrokerageUp.com and her new agent sales training at RealEstateCoach.com/newagent.
