Give a Realtor a personal referral and with social media he will sell the world. Play on the Archimedes quote “Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth”. Archimedes was talking about a lever. The new leverage today is social media standing on the internet. Facebook, Twitter and Google+ give everyone long levers. Sales are won with relationship and trust. Communication and relationship are facilitated by social media. The price of admission is time, consistency, and a little money (when you figure out who you are looking for and how to advertise).
Experienced real estate agents operate on past customer relationships. Trusted referrals will always be the most powerful force for buying behavior. When was the last time you asked about a restaurant or movie? Probably not long ago. How was your experience with that car repair place? Before you spend your money you get references.
Some date nights at home, call for a movie at Redbox. Before I spend a couple of bucks and more importantly an hour or two of my life, I check a few movie rating app sites for other opinions. Once you trust a source you keep going back to that well.
I placed a picture of a home on Pinterest. The details intrigued a person who called me and eventually purchased for $340,000. The only cost of the Pinterest post was my time. Was it worth the effort? Was it a lightning strike never to happen again? While you keep asking “what is Return on Investment”, I will keep posting pictures on Pinterest. (or for the lightning strike analogy, I will keep dancing in storms with a golf club above my head)
Social Media is a product of our desire to connect. Reaching out to care about your customers in relationship is the very essence of real estate. It is the perfect lever in your hands. Social media is a powerful tool to move people and homes, while standing on the internet using email and blogs. Give a Realtor a personal referral and with social media he will sell the world.
Real Estate Brokerage Must Deliver Service and TrustReal estate brokerage model will change to accommodate trust and service. Serving home buyers and sellers with trustworthy service will be a generous business for years to come. How Realtors and brokerage firms get paid will most likely change. Change is being driven by the human need for honest communication and is being facilitated by technology. Here are four observations to make the point.
One: Ebay and AirBnB. Models that are built on trust. They work because of stamps or stars of trust conveyed by stories of other people.
Two: Google took inventory of all real property and Zillow Make Me Move is a system that is begging for trust. Ebay and AirBnB proved their models. I hear grown Realtors calling Zillow and Trulia the porn sites of real estate. What? Give me a break – what that tells me is that they are gaining traction and weak agents are becoming fearful. Do not even come back with poor data integrity, etc. (Granted…buyers miss some deals because Zillow updates run slower than MLS) The services still provide value.
Three: Real estate brokerages can charge much less money if everything they did was compensated. 40-50% of all listings, energy , advertising is wasted on properties where the seller does not have sufficient motivation or ability to sell for the market demand. Sellers would sell “if” they get their price (to buy the next place or simply pay off the lender) Home shoppers not buyers: real estate agents may spend lots of time and gas showing houses to someone that does not “have to” buy a home. There is room for creative agreements with sellers and buyers and their brokerage firms if motivation and non-payment risks are reduced.
Four: Social Media will push Brokerages to adapt “systems” because buyers and sellers will “connect” more frequently. (Pushing on the door of reducing the costs of finding the “Willing” party) Which will demand a service of transaction liability coordinator. Some title companies may niche and grow what some will see as a growing FSBO (For Sale By Owners) market. On the brokerage side, I can see a DIY brick and mortar model where the seller and buyer pay for a menu of services complementing Zillow. (Similar to local Ebay stores that handle the sale of an item for you for a fee). Agency law, fiduciary responsibility, and liability insurance will need to cover the scope of services rendered.
[** Learning moment for agent compensation: The local Chattanooga MLS reports that there has been 5,144 homes sold year to date with total volume of $872,600,261. Multiply that number by 5% or 6% and you get roughly $34-$53 Million dollars of commissions. Divide that by 1,500 real estate agents and they average $35,000 each. Multiply $35,000 by 70% split that is nearly $25,000 a piece gross before gas, taxes, advertising , healthcare, etc. Agents are paid 1099 not W-2. You can see the model is pretty efficient, especially when a high percentage of activity is NEVER compensated. Imagine your boss walking in on payroll day and saying let’s roll the dice to see if you are worthy of being paid today!]
The bottom line is that technology is changing how we serve people in real estate. I used my smart phone to check the level of a door jam, shine a light into a crawl space, check a HUD for closing, and text a message to another customer (All during one home showing). My buyers are calling me with information from Zillow, and Trulia on their phones. They are demanding a response. Please understand, that I am NOT predicting that smart phones will replace real estate agents. Nor, I am predicting a sharp reduction in the “cost” of sale of your home. Ebay does not seem to be making large dents in retail malls, and AirBnb has not toppled Marriott.
Home buyers and sellers will pay for great service and trust. People will demand it. They may actually pay more than a “typical” commission to sort out all the “noise”. Tech is changing real estate; therefore, the real estate brokerage model will change to accommodate trust and service.
Video Helps Sell HomesSell your home with video. Video tells a story. The story can take you on a journey. The trip should engage your senses and curiosity to cause you to explore the question “Can I see myself living here?”
The purpose of the video below is to help the viewer understand the neighborhood and then tell the story about the home itself. My thought in this first effort was to focus on creating a desire to visit.
The video is professionally shot and produced. This makes a huge difference!
As I am writing this August 17, 2013 there are over 7,100 views in two months of the video. I am paying for Google adwords to get the video seen by people in the area or relevant viewers like regional golfers.
The home as of the writing is still for sale but we did have three interested parties come take a look today at an Open House.
There are several points to highlight regarding video:
1. 7,200 views on limited budget (less than $300 in 2.5 months) to mostly local traffic is worthwhile viewership. Exposing local Realtors to video is also good because they have 80% chance of bringing our buyer.
2. Seller is well served because we are getting more targeted exposure to property. (In this case, males make up 55% of viewers and ages 35-54 makes up over 50% of viewers)
3. The cost of views for Facebook advertising is more expensive but far higher engagement! On my business page http://www.facebook.com/brianrhodeskelly I experienced a great number of comments and feedback on the video.
4. Mobile devices like iPads, and smartphones are driving video consumption. Over 138 million in the US alone. I hope they are not watching the video while driving to work.
5. Realtors get to project their personality to others and establish some rapport. This is a professional agent’s selfish perception, but if that agent has credibility to buyers and other agents then the seller is well served as well.
6. Some agents are asking their sellers to get involved and tell the story of “why” they purchased the home and hidden aspects and features some folks never realize until they live there a while.
Video to sell your home will be with us until hologram marketing comes out. Time to engage and do it!
Seven home selling secrets that your real estate agent may not share with you are as follows:
1. Open Houses Work. The half truth is that your house will probably not sell to a person that comes to your open house. What is true is that your house will most likely get an offer soon after or before an open house because of “fear of loss”. I wrote an offer two weeks ago with a buyer. She knew that the house was scheduled to be open during the upcoming weekend. She said “I hope that the Open House does not generate another buyer that I will be competing with.” She wrote a good offer and we are scheduled to close soon. She never attended the open house event. Activity, Promotion, Work – Always Good!
2. Color magazines and newspaper ads are for future listing agreements. Much of traditional marketing for agents who sell houses is for them personally. They know that people who are thinking about selling will pick up the latest color magazine at the grocery store to see who is promoting houses like their own. Buyers are generally attached to agents by referral. Buyers do not buy homes from a single small street picture. They start looking on a smart phone app or online. So, you may be proud to see that your agent is spending money to put a picture in the latest color newspaper ad or color magazine. The truth is that the money would have been better spent encouraging other agents to take a look at the special features of your house, agent open house, or sending ads (more than one street shot) to specific potential buyers.
3. Most homes do NOT sell!! What?? Yes, check your local stats, roughly only 50% of “listings” actually sell. You may see yard signs come and go in your area, but moving trucks show up far less often. Why? Most people do not “have to” sell, or sadly in the current market (they owe the bank more money than the home is worth). They are testing the market. If they can get more than their house is actually worth, then they will sell and move. Selling a house is hard work. So evaluate your reason and be honest with yourself.
4. Social and Mobile Media Work. The average age of successful real estate agents is a generation or two “out front” of the average buyer. Changes in advertising have come fast and furious in the last three years. I am writing this in 2013. I have been in real estate industry 23 years. A few years ago I was not concerned how my listing was being presented in a Zillow app or Facebook. Social media requires time and education. The real estate “industry” as current day real estate agents know it is changing FAST! The truth is that social media scares real estate agents because they are making decent money without doing it, and is the work and education worth the effort? Successful agents are plenty busy already, and they never had to worry about Twitter to make a living in the past.
5. Another agent will most likely bring the buyer. The odds are against the listing agent selling their own listing. So, a good listing agent works hard to get fellow agents good information so that they will present your house to their qualified buyers for an income event for all involved.
6. Staging for emotional pull is important. Buying a home is emotional. We are a wealthy country and we have numerous “home lifestyle” options. How someone feels about your house as they step out of the car in the driveway to the walk to the front door is important. Are there projects to be done? Cleaning, weeding, chipping paint, light bulb out? Very few buyers are getting excited about paying a high price for future projects. Involve the buyers senses and imagination as they take time to consider your house. Retail stores spend millions to figure out what causes people to buy. Have you been in a store selling clothes to teens at the mall lately?
7. Getting a contract to purchase is the start of another adventure. Congratulations, you have offers and chosen one to become a contract. You SOLD your house! Not so fast. What about the buyer’s inspection, pest and mold inspection, low appraisal because of the foreclosure down the road, survey showing your driveway on the neighbors property, FEMA flood map moved your house into a flood zone, and not to be out done the sweet loan underwriter looking for the buyer’s changing credit report a week before closing.
Now you know the seven home selling secrets that your real estate agent may be keeping from you. Let’s just keep it between us. Go informed, sell and live big!
Give a Realtor a personal referral and with social media he will sell the world. Play on the Archimedes quote “Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth”. Archimedes was talking about a lever. The new leverage today is social media standing on the internet. Facebook, Twitter and Google+ give everyone long levers. Sales are won with relationship and trust. Communication and relationship are facilitated by social media. The price of admission is time, consistency, and a little money (when you figure out who you are looking for and how to advertise).
