Farming Expired Listings

In areas where there are additional FSBO properties, make notes on the report to include the details that you’ve discovered about these properties.  If you need other details that you may have not been able to find out from your brief visual inspection, feel free to call competing FSBO’s.  Simply identify yourself as a real estate agent and inform the homeowner that you deal with a lot of buyers and that you may have some that are interested in homes in their area.  Make sure that you ask if they are willing to pay a Buyer’s Agent and if so, find out what percentage commission they are willing to pay.  This will help you later during your Listing Presentation. Read the rest of this entry »

(In this new multi-part series, we’ll take a look at the successful real estate agent’s marketing plan)

As a real estate agent and / or Realtor, the single most important aspect of your career is to come up with a rock-solid marketing plan.  A well thought out and executed marketing plan will not only help to create your business but it will also define your success as a real estate agent.  Word-of-mouth advertising is one of the most sought after types of advertising in real estate but it is not the most lucrative and you almost have to have your business set up and running smoothly before being able to take advantage of this type of advertising.  No real estate agent, whether they’re just starting out or have 20 years in the business, can survive on word-of-mouth advertising alone.  In fact, a successful real estate agent marketing campaign should be multi-pronged in its approach.  It should consist of farming expired listings, marketing to FSBO sellers, a ‘geographic neighborhood’ campaign (or several) as well as being a buyers agent.  For this segment of the series, we’ll be focusing on farming expired listings. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that you’re back in your office you can begin to compile all of your preliminary notes into the outline of your Listing Presentation.  The first thing that you’ll obviously want to do is create a comp report (comparables) detailing all of the properties in the area that: are for sale, have sales pending, have sold and listings that have expired.  It’s imperative that you add in other expired listings as well among the variables.  Try to go back at least six months and possibly up to a year but nothing beyond a year.  Due to the fact that the market is constantly fluctuating, pulling the report for the past 6 months will give you the highest rate of accuracy.  In some rare and unlikely cases though, if there haven’t been any homes for sale in that period, you’ll have to go back a year. Read the rest of this entry »

If the homeowner is calling about the possible listing on an expired listing property, then you’ll also want to try and drive by to take a look.  While it is true that the majority reason that homes that are listed by real estate agents become expired listings is because the property is priced too high to begin with, there may also be some other factors involved.  Driving by the expired listing property and seeing it first-hand will help you in your efforts to convince your homeowner that a property reduction needs to be taken.  These factors may include a roof that is in poor condition, windows or doors that may be outdated and in need of repair or replacement or simple cosmetic issues that could be off-putting to buyers. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve finally set a day and time for the Listing Presentation.  Now, the real work begins!  If the property is a FSBO listing then it’s highly recommended that you drive by the property as soon as possible to get a better feel for the house and the neighborhood where your homeowner lives and / or is selling their property.  Make notes on the outside condition of the property, the yard, etc.  If you have time and the conditions are right, you might also consider taking a few quick pictures of the exterior of the home.  You’ll be able to add these pictures to your comparisons later. Read the rest of this entry »

More than likely you’ll be sending out dozens of solicitation letters each month.  While names and addresses may seem familiar, after a while it’s quite possible — in fact very probable — that you may not remember all of the homeowners that you solicit.  An easy way to combat this is to keep a simple log of every letter that you send out.  It can be as simple as the homeowners name with the property address or even a little more complex with such details as square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms and the price that the property is listed at either when it expired or was listed by the owner.  Obviously the more information that you have in your log, the more prepared you’ll be when the homeowner calls you. Read the rest of this entry »

There is no factor more important to being a successful real estate agent than preparation.  Most everything you do and say should be well planned out in order to ensure success in implementation.  Your Listing Presentation will become the backbone of your business and it’s vital that you feel comfortable during the process and that your actions come off as natural.  Even if you’ve never been on a Listing Presentation before, proper preparation will prevent you from looking like a novice and will go a long way towards making sure that you secure your listing every time you meet with a new client. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most important tools in your Real Estate Agent marketing toolbox has got to be your Expired Listing Letters.  If you’ve been an agent for any real time, no doubt you’ve amassed a nice collection of real estate agent letters that you like to use regularly.  One set of these you no doubt use for farming expired listings.  Expired listing marketing can be extremely lucrative to adding listings to your inventory and it’s important to dust off your system for expired listings from time to time and really give it a thorough review.  Like all of your real estate agent marketing tools, your expired listing marketing should be strong and sound.  When a potential client opens the letter, it should convey a sense of professionalism that puts you in the forefront of that home-owner’s mind. Read the rest of this entry »

A healthy attitude is paramount to the success of all real estate agents.  No matter why you started out in the Real Estate profession, maintaining the proper positive attitude will help secure your future success.

Positive attitude can be directly linked to Time Management.  If you as a real estate agent, have the proper handle on how you’re using your time, you’ll feel less frustrated and less rushed.  Remember, if you have an important event in your life it’s perfectly fine to take the day off and leave work behind.  As with any other career, days off are part of the territory.  If you have an important event that you know is coming up, simply schedule yourself OFF! Read the rest of this entry »

The key to successful time management begins with setting up a workday schedule.  This can be as involved or as abstract as you want it to be.  The basic schedule should include an outline or overview of each day.  Perhaps you’ll spend the morning working on your marketing and the afternoon making follow-up phone calls with clients.  However your schedule turns out or works best for you, make it and follow it!  For professionals that move out of their field to become real estate agents, one of the biggest pitfalls can be all the free time you suddenly seem to have on your hands.  The Real Estate profession should be treated just like any other job.  Only, this time YOU are the boss and you only have to answer to yourself.  (Of course, you also have to answer to your broker but most real estate brokers realize that they cannot micromanage their agents and so outside of the weekly meeting and occasional one-on-one meeting, will generally leave you to yourself.)  This can be good or bad depending of course, on your ability to manage your time. Read the rest of this entry »