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Real Estate Do’s and Don’ts for 2017

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Real Estate 2017 PredictionsFor the real estate industry, 2017 promises to be the year when agents embrace technology in a meaningful way. Real estate has remained slow to jump on board the digital revolution, despite  technological leaps forward in other industries. Paper flyers, open houses, physical paperwork all remain staples of the business of selling real estate. However, the tide is turning. More and more agents are realizing that integrating technology into their practice yields a range of benefits and increased profits. As agents look forward, there are a number of Do’s and Don’ts to keep in mind that could make or break the year ahead.

Mobile Devices

In 2017, agents need to establish a strong presence on mobile. Why? Because today’s buyers and sellers use their mobile devices for everything, and real estate is no exception. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) expects more millennials to buy a first home in 2017 than ever before. This is a critical demographic for real estate agents, and this demographic spends more time on mobile devices than any other generation. The NAR’s Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends Report 2015 revealed that more than half of Gen Y and Gen X buyers used a mobile device during their home search. Among those who did, 31 percent of Gen Y and 26 percent of Gen X found the home they ultimately purchased via a mobile device.

Agents can and should leverage mobile devices in multiple ways. First, a mobile responsive website is key. Agents that don’t ensure their listings are as accessible and user-friendly as possible on mobile will lose valuable business. Buyers need the capacity to whip out their phones when they are out-and-about to browse new or nearby listings and look up information they need.

Real estate professionals also need to implement mobile communication tools, like SMS. Millennials would rather text than talk, and communicating with clients on their own preferred terms is essential to cultivating a relationship. Agents can even automate some of their mobile communication and follow-ups using AI-powered CRM software (but more about this later).

Self-Service

Thanks to the “Google-ification” of the world, customers today are used to pulling up information on-demand and conducting research on their own. This tendency towards self-service has changed the sales cycle because home buyers rarely show up wanting to start from square one. According to the NAR, 90 percent of home buyers search online at some point during their home buying process. People want to be active participants in the process—especially millennials. They want to control their search based on their specific parameters and easily compare their options.

It’s important for agents to accommodate this shift in preferences and behavior. This means making as much information as possible online and integrating listings dynamically into a website. NAR surveys have found that 83 percent of buyers find including photos improves listings and 79 percent find detailed information about properties to be useful. Interactive maps, virtual tours, neighborhood information, and videos are necessary components of a modern real estate website. Agents can also set up property alerts for their customers so they receive the most up-to-date listings as soon as they hit the market. They can also enable customers to create and optimize their own property listing alerts, which has the added benefit of keeping agents in the know about what their clients want. These alerts can and should be optimized for mobile.

On the agent side, real estate professionals can further take advantage of the shift towards self-service by deploying digital marketing campaigns that are tied into online searches. If someone is searching for a home in an area you regularly serve, use that as an opportunity to engage.

Social Media

Social media is hardly a new phenomenon, but it’s one that many real estate agents have yet to fully leverage. Today’s home buyers, as well as sellers, are active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat. Each of these platforms opens up effective ways to connect with new prospects and maintain existing relationships. 2017 is the year to invest in a compelling social media presence, if you haven’t already. Get creative and develop an authentic voice. Social media is about cultivating a personality, engaging with people, and establishing yourself as a resource. Do publish neighborhood news, helpful blog posts, and striking images. Don’t directly promote yourself or your service, because people are on social media to have fun, not to be sold to.

For example, Kenny Truong from ClimbSF has created a brand around being a “Fast Agent.” His Facebook page and all his content is centered around this theme, and he sends out engaging and entertaining content each week to his customers. By crafting a strong, unique and compelling brand, and leveraging social media to promote it, he has become the king of real estate social media.

CRM

Traditionally, the real estate sales process has involved a lot of paperwork and mundane tasks. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software automates significant parts of this process so agents can focus more on selling and less on nitty gritty details. CRM solutions put data at the center of sales to help agents make smarter decisions, as well as reduce the burden of grunt work, like follow-ups or sending documents. They help agents to identify leads, track their activities, and build relationships based on that information. Tracking and automation means that agents have more time and energy to dedicate to their clients. This year, be more efficient and effective by adopting a CRM system. Don’t waste time doing work you don’t have to.

It’s not too late to set or start working on a New Year’s Resolution. Succeeding in 2017 will require agents to adapt to the evolving needs of their customer base and reach prospects where they are. Following these best practices, and avoiding these missteps, will ensure your real estate business rings in the sales for years to come.

 

Social Media Strategies for Real Estate Agents

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Social Media Tips for Real Estate AgentsReal estate agents are some of the more active clients at my company, Expose Yourself Public Relations. Agents need to be seen through every medium as much as possible, to help reinforce their brand. The most popular and cost effective medium is Facebook. Every real estate agent has a Facebook page, but many of them are underutilized. Agents should be posting open houses weekly as well as home improvement articles. One thing we always notice is that these pages are posted on infrequently and as a result, followers might only see one post a week and think that the agent isn’t active. It’s also important that the agents stay involved in the communities that they serve. We encourage clients to post community based articles such as a simple congratulations to the local high school football team on a recent win.

Another underutilized aspect of Facebook is the interaction factor. Facebook isn’t just about posting information and hoping that people see it, agents need to be involved in the follow up, especially when it comes to listings. Posting is only half the battle, answering follower’s questions is just as important, but can be hard to keep up with. After posting a new listing, someone might comment that they think the house is too expensive or too small. You then have to find a diplomatic response and answer in a timely manner in order to engage the audience.

While many real estate agents are selling homes they need to be cognizant, there is a new generation that will soon be storming the market. The oldest of the millennials are on the cusp of home ownership, and some of them are looking for more than an agent with just Facebook. Instagram is a great way to showcase homes and cultivate more followers. Instagram is pretty easy, because you can take a picture of a house you are selling and post it to Instagram with the caption, open house information and call to action to come on down. As people scroll through their Instagram accounts, they will see what new houses their agents have to offer. This is especially helpful on weekends, for instance, when a couple doesn’t have plans, they see a beautiful house on Instagram and on a whim decide to take a tour. The other nice thing about Instagram is how easy the posting process is. The act of taking a picture and uploading it while adding a short caption takes no more than minute. That is if you aren’t getting crazy with the multitude of filter options. Filters can honestly make or break your Instagram game. You can transform a dark and dingy house on murky day and make it look as if the siding sparkles and the sun is shining. Don’t let the filters intimidate you, but they definitely should be used when marketing a home.

If you are a real estate agent with a lot of ideas and love home improvement projects, Pinterest is where you should be setting up camp. On Pinterest you can showcase projects that you find interesting, or that you think your target audience would find interesting. You can find anything from pallet projects to mosaic picture frames. Friends can follow your pins and find new projects. It’s also a great way to keep in touch with the latest trends that other people are posting.

Twitter is helpful in the same way that Instagram is useful for agents. It helps create and establish your brand and the hashtags are endless. Every post made should include their city name and the words real estate. We do this to insure that the maximum number of people are seeing each tweet. Anyone who tweets something related to real estate or your city, will see your post.

A lesser thought of, but equally important social media tool is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great way of showcasing your accomplishments without sounding too braggy. You can list any awards you have one, community events you are involved with and any other groups you support. In addition, listing your education and extracurricular activities you were involved in, will help you connect with like-minded people. LinkedIn is another platform to display your printed work. Articles that you have been mentioned in can be uploaded and shared with friends.

The social media avenues for real estate agents are endless and far too often underused. Making sure our clients are getting the most exposure online is what makes us good at our jobs. The hardest part is remembering that there is a generational gap and not to ignore either generation via social media. Always keep your social media accounts current and update consistently!

The Move into Residential Real Estate: Five Tips for New Agents

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Tips for New Real Estate AgentsThe transition from being a cog in the education, corporate or government machine to an independent agent living 100% off commission is a drastic one. I experienced a lot of growing pains in transitioning into the world of real estate. Here is some advice for green agents trying to keep their heads above water in the fast-paced real estate industry.

1. You learn before you earn, so pick great teachers and learn fast

Come into the job with your eyes open. You can potentially make a lot of money relatively quickly but until that first sale closes, you are living off savings or the good grace of others. Don’t expect a pay check during your training period.

Find a firm who will pair you with a good mentor, team or program to get you started. Pair up with a seasoned agent and offer him or her a split in the commission. Your first few contracts are about learning and not earning so make sure to ask your new partner or broker every possible question and write down the answers for future reference. Find people who are busy in the office and ask to help. Go to every meeting and training and talk to someone new. A lot of agents would love a helping hand for a small fee and you need both the experience and any dollar you can get.

2. Look into groups or teams

Who is going to be your first, second and third client? If you don’t have an answer, find people who know who their next 10 are. Teams are the natural expansion a good agent takes after reaching the point where he or she has more business than they can handle. With a good team you will jump in as an administrative assistant, be in charge of coffee runs, be an agent and handle various transactional duties the team leader presents to you. Observe the inner workings of a successful business and team and soak what you learn in like a sponge. The more you know, the faster you’ll move up within the group and eventually adapt these systems into your own program. Learn from the best and you will save a lot of time you may otherwise waste.

3. Treat those first few clients like royalty

Find out what is important to your clients in their home search and in their lives. Then visit every listed residence that looks like it might fit and take videos and pictures for them. Do this faster and better than any other agent could; what you lack in experience, make up in delivery and quality. Sit down with your client and review the options and identify the pros and cons of each. Then take them on a tour of the selected properties and bring with you all the items you discussed in advance so you can check off the wants. These first few clients will likely love you for the effort and recommend you to friends and family.

4. Chase every lead but be prepared those leads can fall through

Can you tell if someone is sincere? I would have answered “yes” before I started in real estate but quickly learned that isn’t the case after taking more than one client on their sixth home tour. You want to help everyone but can only guide those who are serious about buying or renting to the finish line. The process should start broad and then narrow down to the home that best fits, but if your clients waiver, expand areas of the home search, talk about completely new home types or discuss the realities of their wish list v. their budget. Be upfront about the value of your time, make sure your clients get pre-approved and have decent credit and politely decline business if they look to be dragging their feet.

5. Don’t sell a price, sell a process

On your first few listing appointments you’ll be as nervous as you were at your third grade poem recital. Relax, prepare with your mentor and anticipate a few specific questions like:

How much do you think we can get for our house? How fast will it sell?

These questions are inevitable landmines and inseparably linked. Do not promise a price or a timeframe. However, do promise a system to maximize the former and minimize the latter. Have a set plan based off recent movements in the market, taking into account different pricing strategies, your clients’ needs and then list a few options before making a firm recommendation. If you promise them the world they will hire you, hold you too it and then fire you when you cannot deliver. Explaining your marketing strategy and weekly report system should be the bulk of your conversation, not price.

As a Real Estate Agent Are You Using the Right Technology to Target Your Market?

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Are you using the right technology to target your market? Marketing AdviceWe’re just over halfway through the calendar year; a time you’re likely looking back at your stats and numbers to try and understand what’s working and what’s not while there’s still time to adjust your strategy and finish the year strong. If you are a real estate agent and your digital advertising strategy isn’t performing as well as it should be, let’s take this moment to reevaluate what you’re doing and how to get back on track.

We are all plagued by the vast options we’re forced to decide between when it comes to digital advertising. Those in the real estate and mortgage realms aren’t exempt from the struggle associated with finding the right tactics and technologies to reach their target market and, effectively engage those consumers. The truth is, there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy for attracting new home buyers or reengaging existing ones. What’s missing is an education of what’s out there and how it fits into your online strategy. We often hear buzzwords like content marketing, native advertising, and CPC, but each company must determine what tools best suit their needs. There are certain tools available through platforms like Vantage Media Marketplaces that directly enable professionals in this field to execute their own campaigns to not only target consumers looking for real estate and mortgage services, but those who are actively looking right now.

As an real estate agent or mortgage broker when selecting the best technology to use to engage with your target audience, create a checklist of questions to ask yourself to find the best strategy for your needs:

  1. What are your business objectives?
  2. Who are you trying to engage?
  3. How do they prefer to engage?
  4. How knowledgeable are they about real estate and mortgages?

Think of it like a quiz in a magazine begging the question, “what kind of advertiser should you be?” By answering these questions, you’ll develop a profile of the type of strategy that would be best to employ based on your objectives rather than developing those objectives after the fact. For example, say you respond that your business objective is to find new customers who are in the market for a loan who prefer to interact online and don’t know much about the field. Your magazine quiz would tell you that incorporating a tool like content marketing could be a great way to engage this audience. By creating content that is well-informed by data that has been collected and analyzed for various trends, and strategically placing it on websites you’re aware these consumers are looking to for information, you’re able to provide trustworthy information that not only informs the consumer looking for this service, but leads them back to your website so you can provide that service for them.

For example, data from one of our partnerships where we provide a comprehensive content marketing strategy shows that the click-through rate (CTR) from our content to an ad on the webpage is 2.42% on average. But, the CTR on content that is not part of strategic planning – it is aggregated from related websites – only has a click-through rate of 1.7%. While that doesn’t seem like much, it can be the difference between thousands of dollars for the website owner and hundreds of new customers for the advertiser.

Your first step to building a bulletproof strategy is preparation; things like forging strategic partnerships, and analyzing and using the data you acquire about how people engage with brands and get their information. Our exclusive partnerships, like one with Yahoo! Homes for example, allow us to collect and use reliable data strategically to help our brands reach relevant consumers.  Finding the right digital strategy that fits with your company’s vision ensures that the right content will get in front of the right customers, rather than falling on deaf ears. By creating your own checklist of questions that speak to your business objectives, you can let those answers lead you to the best tools and tactics to reach your goals.

How Realtors Need to Use Technology to Stay Competitive

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How Realtors need to use technology to stay competitiveAs a seasoned Realtor, you know all the tricks in the book. You know how to rearrange furniture to make a room feel bigger and what color paint a front door needs to really pop. And you know all this because you’ve been doing it for a long time, right? According to the National Association of Realtors, the average age of a real estate agent is 56 years old. That’s a lot of experience, which is a great thing. However, your average first-time homebuyer is just 31.

On its face, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. However, homebuyers in their late 20s and early 30s are almost certainly using all kinds of high-tech gadgets and social media platforms to help them find their home, and it’s essential that Realtors – yes, even you baby boomers – can keep up.

With that in mind, here are a few ways Realtors of all ages can incorporate more technology into every aspect of their work:

Get online
In 2014, it’s practically sacrilege for a real estate professional to not have a web presence. According to the NAR, 9 out of 10 homebuyers use the Internet at some point during the process. That’s an overwhelmingly large number, and if you’re not reaching those searching for their next home online, you’re missing out. Even if you’re not tech savvy, there are plenty of resources you can use to make the process of setting up a website easy. It’s a great place to compile your listings, give current and potential clients a place to contact you and show that you’re technologically literate.

Social media platforms increase your Web presence significantly, but they will also give your clients lots of ways to stay in touch with you. Announce successful home sales and real estate news items on your Facebook page, invite followers to open houses on Twitter and post gorgeous pictures from your latest listings on Instagram to stay on homebuyers’ radars. Social sites such as Facebook are beneficial because they open up two-way communications with potential clients. An agent has endless opportunities to get real time information and be able to respond and help immediately. If someone is thinking about moving (which might entail selling their current house), Facebook and other social channels will likely be where they will mention it first. If you are present, you can be the first to respond!

Get gadgets
Now that your web presence is a force to be reckoned with, it’s time to invest in some high-tech gadgets that will both let your younger clients know you’re on-trend with technology and make your job easier in the process. Here are a few devices you should consider adding to your arsenal:

  • Smartphone: This should go without saying. If you still have an old-fashioned flip phone, it’s time for an upgrade. First of all, your clients will see it as indicative of the fact that you’re out of the loop when it comes to technology. Plus, your clients don’t just call to get in touch with you anymore. They are more likely emailing, texting or even Facebook messaging, and if you don’t have a smartphone, you may miss out on important messages.
  • Tablet: Through the use of a tablet, you’ll be able to pull up all kinds of information that’s pertinent to your clients. Before you even get to the house, you can show your clients pictures of the property on your tablet. Similarly, if you’re showing a house and want to explain how close the school is, just pull up a map of the area. Plus, you have quick access to programs like GLADiS, NexTitles’s online ordering service which allows you to order title or escrow papers right in front of your client and receive them in minutes. Not many real estate agents will be able to close a deal right in front of their clients.
  • Apps: Ok so maybe apps aren’t a tangible gadget, but they are necessary to go along with your gadgets.  It’s so true that these days no matter what you are looking for, there’s an app for it.  Walking through a house with a buyer, and they’re having a hard time seeing past the terrible wallpaper? Try the Sherman Williams App called ColorSnap Studio™ for iPad.  You can take a picture of the wall and paint it with any of the Sherman Williams colors to give your clients a fresh perspective on what the room could look like. Most Multiple Listing Services have an app, which you never want to be without.  Holding an open house?  Try the Open Home Pro app, which allows you to create beautiful listing pages for properties on which buyers can leave feedback or get in touch with you with one click.  It also allows you to automatically follow up on leads using proven contact methods that get opened and read more than 2x the industry average.  These are just a few – but the real estate apps are endless.  Search ‘Real Estate’ in your App Store to find these and others that might work for you!

Even if you’re old enough to be the parent of your next client, it doesn’t mean you can’t relate to them and how they communicate with the world around them. By accessing and properly using technology, you can show your clients that you are relatable and have your finger on the pulse of all the latest trends.

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