Acre of Diamonds

I want to focus on four key areas that are generating listing opportunities right now: buyer prospects, your sphere, dormant leads, and your geo farm. There has never been a better time to load up on seller listings if you want to have an amazing 2021.

USE BUYER PROFILES TO PROSPECT FOR LISTINGS:

Half of all buyers have a house to sell, so ensure you investigate all buyers leads for the potential listing opportunity.  Use every buyer’s profile as an authentic reason to prospect for listings in the area they want to live in. Having real, serious buyers for an area brings validity to your conversation with homeowners because you can say you have qualified, committed buyers who want to live in their area. You can let the seller prospect know that the current listings don’t meet your buyer’s needs (or they missed out on one that just sold up the street). Use every buyer prospect’s profile as an opportunity to prospect for listings in their desired area.

RECONNECT WITH YOUR SPHERE:

Your CRM system is a gold mine. The agents who knocked it out of the park in 2020 were the ones who got back in touch with past clients and worked their database. Even if you touched base with every past client in 2020, it’s time to reach out again. Let them know that if there was ever a time to think about selling, it is now.

If you have past clients who are seniors living in 2-story houses, this may be the perfect time to downsize to get rid of the stairs and the property maintenance. If you have past clients who live in lofts/condos and are working remotely, they may entertain moving to a larger property in the suburbs if they plan to continue working remotely post-pandemic. Focus on past clients who live in houses that are 10-15 years’ old. These homes hit the 15-year curse when it seems like everything needs to be fixed (roof, gutters, furnace, air conditioner, floors, kitchens, bathrooms, etc.). They may consider moving rather than spending all their time and money renovating. Stay on top of what your closest contacts are posting on social media. People are more likely to move when they go through a major life event (wedding, birth, divorce, promotion, etc.). When you see someone post about a life event, message them to see if you can help.

Don’t just call past clients and ask if they want to sell. Think about what specific “hook” would entice them to explore the opportunity of selling. My favorite question is “If there was one thing you could change about your house, what would it be?” Follow it up with “If I could find you that, would you be interested in exploring your options?”

GET BACK IN TOUCH WITH DORMANT LEADS:

This is a great time to reconnect with leads that went cold in 2020. I know it can feel awkward to get back in touch with people after several months, but it is just part of our business. Go back and call everyone on your old open house registries. Call every buyer you started working with but didn’t commit. Phone your old online leads that fizzled out. Phone every seller prospect who postponed moving because of the virus. The question you want to ask is “Have you bought/sold yet?” If they say yes, congratulate them, find out where they moved to, update your CRM system, and ask if they want to receive regular market reports to stay up to date on what is happening in their local real estate market. If they say they haven’t moved yet, investigate if they are still interested in making a move, chat about what they are looking for, and explain why now is a great time to make the move.

GEO FARMS ARE AN UNTAPPED RESOURCE:

Geo farms are great for prospecting, but most agents don’t do a good job with prospecting and marketing into a geo farm. Whenever there is a void in the marketplace, there is opportunity! It starts with choosing the right geo farm. You want to find an area with a minimum 8% turnover. For example, I researched my neighborhood this morning. It has 1169 homes. With an 8% turnover rate that would equal about 93 sales/year. With an average sale price of $800,000 – $1,000,000 and approximately $20,000 commission per end, that equals $1.86M in annual listing commissions in this geo farm. If you did a great job with consistent marketing and prospecting and you captured 50% of the listings you would earn almost $1M in gross listing commissions every year just from this geo farm. Here’s the kicker. No one is doing a great job with marketing in my geo farm. In the past year I have not received a just listed or just sold card (and there have been a lot of sales)!!! Not one agent has phoned me to see if I would consider selling.

If you decide to go down this path, do some research to find out who lives in the geo farm so you can market to them with a message that will resonate. For example, I researched my geo farm and found out that 3 out of 4 people who live here are married and the majority are between 45-65 years’ old. These demographics are important when you think about the messaging that will entice them to call you. Whenever a property is listed or sold in your geo farm (even if it is not yours) you want to reach out to all the neighbors to let them know about it. Introduce yourself as their neighbor because homeowners are typically nicer to neighbors. Let them the details about the new listing/sale and that it has created interested buyers for the area. Have they thought about selling? Don’t make this complicated.

The opportunities are endless if you are willing to do the work. If you want to learn more about how to generate more listings in 2021, check out Leader’s Edge Virtual Training.

Chris Leader
President
Leader’s Edge Training