PRICE THE PROPERTY TO SELL 3 TIMES

A lot of agents will recommend a home owner price the home higher than the market will bear. I've written a great article on why this is not a good idea. You need to remember that you will need to sell the home three times during the process. The first time will be to the Buyer Agent. As you all know a Buyers Agents job is to work for the buyer finding properties that meet their needs, making recommendations on value, pointing out potential pitfalls on condition and resale values. If you over price the home from the beginning you run the risk of Buyer Agents passing on your listing for their clients.

The second sale comes from the actual buyer. And as we know buyers have access to more information on pricing than ever before. Need I say more?

Finally and most importantly, you will need to sell the home to the bank appraiser. We often forget and our listing clients do not think about the fact that the majority of home buyers will require a mortgage to make the deal happen. The appraisers are bound by certain rules of appraising so they do not care what you say the home is worth, what the seller says its worth, and they do not care what the buyer has agreed to pay for the property.

Also, it important to remember that upgrades that the home owner has made will be adjusted for what similar upgrades in the area are going for. For example if your home owner went crazy and added a 50K pool, but the local market only supports 20K for a pool, the appraiser is likely to only add 20K on to the value for the pool.

Having this discussion with your sellers can help with them to understand its important to price the home realistically from the beginning!

Happy listing,

-Ron

Prospecting VS Marketing for Real Estate Leads
Which one is better?

OK, as you maybe aware from basic lead generation classes there are two main forms of getting leads and business. The first is prospecting and the other is marketing. Both are important and its important to understand the differences between the two.

When your prospecting you are actively out there seeking people who need you. When you are marketing, you are attracting customers, having them find you when they have a need.

Each way is powerful in its on regards but we have found that prospecting is absolutely more critical and important in the first 90 days of a real estate agents career. The reasons being that prospecting is all about making it happen "now" and marketing is making it happen "later".

To begin prospecting you want to make a list of all the people you know or have met in any capacity in your life. You'll want to contact these people on a personal level either through a phone call or personal pop buy and simply engage them in conversation reminding them of your career and asking if they know anyone who needs your help. There also plenty of resources available for you to meet people like; chamber mixers, social events, city events, school events, gym, coffee shop, etc. You will be surprised how many people love to talk about real estate. And the best part about prospecting is that besides the cost of your time, it is FREE.

When it comes to marketing you will need to have a budget setup and make a commitment to consistency. Marketing is not efficient or effective when you only send one mailing out or take out 1 ad in a magazine. Your marketing needs to stand out from the crowd (read The Purple Cow for ideas) and be there over and over and over again. The main goal for marketing is solidify you and your services in top of mind position in the consumer. Using services like Quantummail.com , or MailPrint.com or ExpressCopy.com can help with automating this process. This approach will take longer than prospecting to produce results and be much more expensive so focus on prospecting first and then work in some marketing!

-Ron

Positioning In The Real Estate Consumers Mind

We've mentioned in prior posts that your success as a real estate agent is dependent on the amount of people, that when they think about real estate, they think about you. That is a fact. To that end we need to come up with ways and implement systems that will put you in top position with consumers so they can only think of you when they think real estate.

Understand marketing professionals have proven for the most part that the consumer has room for only 7 brands in their minds. Go ahead and try it for yourself. Try thinking of as many brands of cereal, gas companies, clothing lines, anything you'd like. I'd bet most of the time its 7 or less brands. Now combine that with the proven fact from NAR that most consumers interview only one real estate agent and a smaller amount actually interview two real estate agents. Combining both of these facts you quickly realize that you need to be front and center in the one and two position in the minds of real estate consumers.

So how do we do this? You need to implement systems that will bring you in contact with the consumer on a regular basis. The best touches are the personal ones, where you call them up and say "hello" asking if you can help them or anyone they know.

Now most people do not like this level of contact. They feel its too salesy or sleazy or their afraid of rejection. Either way it comes down to pain. Its too painful for some people to call their database of contacts. You need to turn that feeling around and come at it from the point of view that your calling to help people, not just asking for their help. You also should realize that the pain from not calling to generate business and brand positioning will be greater in the long run than the immediate pain of the phone call. Just watch the TV Show "The Office" for inspiration on making it on your own. I watch that show (yes its a comedy and very funny) and just get sick to my stomach when I think about having to go back to a cubicle working for someone else with all those quirky co-workers and office politics...That's motivation enough for me to reach out and make those calls! Find your own greater pain and use it motivate you to call!

Ok so besides calling what can we do. Well we've mentioned the 8 touches in 8 weeks program in prior posts. This is where you send something of value combined with the phone calling for eight weeks in a row. Doing this well get you into a high position in the consumers mind. Once your there you need to maintain that position with further calling and touches to them.

In future posts we will talk about which items of value to send that generate calls and good will. In the meantime, please post your feelings on calling your database or how you like to come in contact with potential business to share with others.

Build YOUR brand, not the Brokers brand

When you first get started in this business, unless you interview with the right brokerage houses, you start to believe you need the image and brand of the broker to be successful. Although a positive image and presence can help you get started and feel more confident, what you will soon find out is people hire real estate agents or realtors based on you, your merits and your value proposition and/or a referral to you. Once you realize this you can appreciate the benefits of building your own name and brand and not working under a broker.

So how do you develop your own brand and identity? Well first you need to get into an environment that fosters this type of ideology. I've chosen Keller Williams Realty because of this very reason. Take a look at my website: www.PrimePropertyTeam.com Notice anything different? First off my name, team name and logo is more pronounced than Keller Williams. I am building my name, team and set of values and service instead of my brokers. This does not happen at the traditional types or smaller independent firms.

It helps if you have the mind set of a business person and a desire to build an image should you choose to go this route. I am also not knocking the traditional firms and their models, because they are right for a lot of people who do not want to build their own brand an image. I am merely pointing out that your success in this business is not dependent on your brokers image! Your success in this business is based on the amount of people, that when they think about real estate, they think about you!

OK lets say you want to develop a brand and image campaign what are the steps you should be practicing? Here they are:

1) CREATE AN IMAGE
2) CONSISTENT USE OF THAT IMAGE IN ALL MATERIALS
3) FOCUS ON A MARKET TO EXPOSE THAT IMAGE
4) BUILD, MAINTAIN AND MARKET YOUR IMAGE TO YOUR DATABASE
5) ESTABLISH A MARKETING BUDGET OF 10-15% OF GCI (Gross Commission Income) DESIRED
6) LEARN ABOUT AND IMPLEMENT BASIC ADVERTISING PRACTICES

Thats it! Sounds simple, but of course each step will take time and effort. But in the end you will have your own brand and image and be 100 times more confident in generating business on your own, instead of relying on someone else for business.

Contact me for further discussions or to talk about how Keller Williams has helped me.

-Ron