Most real estate agents were shocked enough when they heard that The National Association of Realtors and two brokerage firms were liable for $1.8 billion in damages, for allegedly conspiring to keep commissions artificially high. But when subsequent lawsuits started rolling in naming individual brokers, it got a lot more concerning.

It had agents asking themselves (and each other) a lot of questions, such as:

• How did NAR lose that argument, considering all the disclosures people have to sign, the listing contracts they willingly agree to, and the fact they can sell their own house and don’t have to hire an agent at all?
• How is it OK for the lawyers representing sellers to take a huge cut of the money, likely leaving the actual sellers with dimes on the dollar… yet the industry is accused of charging high commissions?
• And, most importantly, do I need to worry about getting sued personally by sellers I helped?

1 Out of Every 4 Agents Gets Sued in Their Career

While you have every right to be concerned, keep in mind that this isn’t the first, last, or by any means only time agents have gotten sued. In fact, according to this article, 25% of agents get sued in their career for a lot of other reasons, such as:

• Not disclosing a material fact.
• Failing to recommend getting appropriate inspections.
• Failing to identify potential issues that should have been obvious to an agent.
• Not properly reviewing or advising a client about the terms of a contract.
• Making exaggerated claims about the features of a property.
• Not putting enough emphasis on a disclosure, or not explaining it thoroughly enough.
• Not living up to promises they made to a client.
• Issues over missed contractual timeframes and deadlines.
• Working with clients in an area they are unfamiliar with, or not qualified to handle.

But that’s not really news to most agents, so much as it’s a reminder that it can happen. The fact that an agent can get sued is something they drive home in licensing school. But as you spend some time in the field with clients, it kind of fades into the background for the most part. At least until something like these lawsuits hit the news, you make a mistake, or simply have a client that’s difficult to deal with. Then the fear creeps back in.

7 Tips Lawyers Give to Prevent Getting Sued

The bottom line is you need to take some precautions to protect yourself and try to avoid lawsuits as much as possible. For instance, here are 7 tips the lawyers at Provident Law specifically recommend to help real prevent estate agents from getting sued, and protect themselves if they do:

1. Incorporate. Setting your business up as an LLC or corporation won’t stop you from getting sued, but it’ll at least protect your personal assets if you do.
2. Make sure you (and your clients!) disclose everything. Failing to disclose something topped the list above, and it’s also what these lawyers claim is the cause for most litigation. So make sure every appropriate disclosure form is filled out thoroughly and accurately, and that each party acknowledges that they have received and reviewed it.
3. Don’t represent both parties in a transaction. While dual agency is certainly legal in many areas if both parties understand what they’re getting into and consent, it’s still risky. While clients may say they understand what they’re agreeing to, and even sign something saying so, conflicts of interest can easily arise, and have you facing a lawsuit.
4. Don’t ignore complaints. Getting hit with a lawsuit usually doesn’t come out of the blue. If someone brings up an issue, concern, or complaint, listen carefully and make sure they know you are listening and will do what you can to rectify the problem immediately.
5. Make sure you document everything. If it’s not in writing, it’s pretty difficult to prove something. So make sure to memorialize anything you speak about with a prospect or client in writing, and then keep all of your emails, notes, and text messages for years to come.
6. Stick to giving advice you’re qualified to give. Don’t give legal or financial advice; leave that to lawyers and accountants. And while you may go to hundreds of home inspections, unless you’re a licensed inspector, don’t give advice on what is wrong or not wrong with a house.
7. Get insurance coverage. In the least, make sure you have errors and omissions (E&O) insurance, but also check with your insurance agent or company for other recommended insurance coverage you can purchase in case you are sued.

All solid advice you’ve probably heard before…

…But How About Adding This to the List?

It’s almost impossible to dictate exactly how a relationship with a prospect will unfold from day one all the way through closing day. Even the most methodical, process-oriented agent has to roll with the flow when it comes to the path a buyer or seller takes with them.

But there’s always a beginning — a first point of contact, or meeting. Nobody can turn into a client or follow any route to the closing table without at least meeting you for the first time in some way, shape, or form.

More often than not, you’re not going to seal the deal with a prospect on that first contact. Unless it’s a rare client who’s in an absolute rush — and/or you’re a harcore closer — you’re unlikely to get a potential buyer to sign an exclusive agency agreement, or a seller to sign a listing agreement the first time you communicate.

Because each journey is different, it’s easy for an agent to forget, or simply not have the opportunity to discuss, things that a client should know about the process of buying or selling a house. Things that could help avoid misunderstandings, or outright mistakes that lead to a lawsuit in the future.

Which is why you might want to consider creating buyer and seller guides that you can give prospects as early on in the process as possible. That way you can make sure everything you want a client to know about the process is in writing, and in their hands, so you don’t have to worry about some aspect or nuance falling through the cracks.

Here are a few tips for creating your own guides:

1. Plan on having at least two of them; one for sellers, and one for buyers.
2. Jot down everything you can think of that you want every buyer or seller to know about the process. Don’t just stop at the basics, dig deep and get into how they might think and feel during the process as well! Get into things that you know buyers and sellers struggle with, or question, even if they don’t say it out loud sometimes. Answer things they’ll never even think to ask.
3. Put the ideas and topics in some logical order and create a table of contents.
4. Write as concisely as possible about each topic, but write as much as you need to make sure you are clear and they’ll truly understand what you need them to know. People don’t want or need a long-winded book. They’ll be more likely to read it if you keep it short and to the point.
5. To encourage them to read it, make sure your writing is conversation, and perhaps even fun to read. Of course you need to keep it professional and authoritative, but that doesn’t mean you can’t sprinkle in some personality!
6. Format them so you can send them digitally as a PDF, and also as printed booklets.
7. Give or send every buyer or seller prospect a copy of your guide as early on in your relationship as possible, ideally the first time you speak.
8. Have them acknowledge receipt so you have some proof that you gave one to them. That way you can at least show that you try to make sure all of your clients know what to expect throughout the process, and have done your best to fully inform every person you work with.
9. While you can’t make them read your guide, you can certainly encourage them to by creating a series of follow-up emails to send them after you’ve given them a guide, with each email touching on a particular topic in the book. Not only will this encourage them to read what you sent, but it also creates an opportunity for back and forth conversation about the topics.

Even if they don’t read it, at least you can show that you give each client something that explains the process, and shows that you care about them being fully informed.

But, if done well, you’ll be amazed at how many clients actually refer back to things you cover in your guide during the time they work with you! They may even forward it, or lend their copy to someone they know who is thinking of buying or selling.

Once you have a universal guide for sellers, and one for buyers, you may even want to drill down into some niche types of guides, such as ones for:

• First-time buyers
• Buyers who are looking for new construction homes
• Sellers who are downsizing
• Buyers who are relocating from out of area
• Sellers who are relocating out of area
• People who are selling their home after having their listing expire with another agent
• Sellers who are going through a divorce
• Beginner investors looking to buy their first investment property

Don’t be overwhelmed by all of the potential options, though! Just having a solid buyer and seller guide to give out is better than most agents have.

But if you like the idea of having all of those at your disposal, and would like to skip past all of the work it’d take to create them, you should check out our Inner Circle membership.

As a member you’ll have access to not only an amazing seller guide and buyer guide, but all 20 of our Branded Booklets, including all of the ones listed above, and each one has a series of pre-written follow-up emails for you to send after giving one to a prospect.

All of those guides can be ready for you to offer buyers within a few minutes, by just entering your own contact information and branding so it looks like you actually wrote them. You can also edit every one of them to your liking, but they’re written in a fun, interesting, conversational tone that your prospects will enjoy reading, so the chances are you won’t even want to.

In addition to the Branded Booklet guides, you’ll also have access to tons of other marketing content you can add your own branding to, like:

• Our signature Lighter Side memes, and exclusive ones only available to our members
• Witty postcards
• Over 1,500 articles you can use to entertain or build credibility and authority, with new ones published each week
• Hundreds of other email and letter templates
• Access to our members-only Facebook group where some of the nicest, coolest agents in the business share marketing tips, including how they have used the Branded Booklets themselves

All of that content can be used for you to educate and entertain clients from before they’re even an official client, and to constantly stay in touch and top-of-mind years after their closing.

Obviously, if you do something absolutely wrong that hurts a client financially or otherwise, a lawsuit is always a possibility. But using helpful guides and a robust content marketing campaign can help to create a more educated client, and a more trusting relationship between you, which will hopefully help you avoid lawsuits by creating a better, deeper, more communicative relationship with your clients.

The post Creating Your Own How-to Guides Might Just Help You Avoid Lawsuits as a Real Estate Agent appeared first on Lighter Side of Real Estate.

Being a buyers’ agent is a total crap shoot, yet the vast majority of agents find themselves constantly rolling the dice, hoping to get paid.

Right now you’re probably thinking this is going to be a bash piece trying to tell you it’s stupid to work with buyers, and how you should concentrate on finding listings instead. But it’s quite the opposite actually. This is an article hoping you will continue to work with buyers as we move into the possibly erupting, evolving future of buyer agency… and get paid handsomely to do it!

The reason so many people in the industry preach working with sellers is because you can work with a lot more of them at a time, they typically take less actual work and time, and you have much higher odds that your time and effort will end up in a closing.

On the other hand, you can only work with so many buyers at a time, they take tons of time and effort, and there’s usually no guarantee that you’ll get paid, or how much you’ll even make if you do.

And now, due to recent lawsuits, how you get paid as a buyers’ agent might be changing entirely! If it wasn’t easy being a buyers’ agent before, it’s starting to sound like it’s going to get even more difficult in the near future…

…or is it possibly the best thing that could’ve happened for you as a buyers’ agent?!

It’s Business as Usual for Most Agents

When the news about the verdict in the first commission lawsuit hit, it seemed like every agent was talking about it, and were concerned about how it would impact the future of buyers’ agents. It raised a lot of questions, such as:

• Will the industry be forced to change how they get paid for working with buyers, or will the industry change on its own?
• Will buyers just start going straight to listing agents if they have to pay their own buyer’s agent?
• Will commission amounts be lower if buyers have to pay agents directly?
• Will agents just be required to give more detailed explanations to sellers about how and why they should offer buyer commissions, and things will proceed as they have been but with more disclosures to sign?
• Given the choice, will some sellers offer commission to buyers’ agents, while others will not?

The problem is, there aren’t any answers to those questions yet, and probably won’t be for years to come, because the verdict will be appealed, and nobody knows how it’ll ultimately play out. In many ways, there’s nothing buyers’ agents really can do to change how they do business right now. Nor do they have to.

Which is probably why the concern and chatter amongst agents seems to be dying down, even as more and more copycat lawsuits are being filed across the US. It seems that, at least for now, any threat to the existence of buyers’ agents or how they get paid, is far enough away for agents to put it in the back of their mind and go about business as usual.

Buyers Might Not Realize How Crucial Agents Are

No matter how (or if) things change in terms of how buyers’ agents are compensated, there’s no arguing that they’re crucial, and should stand the test of time and any changes that occur.

Some people minimize their role to glorified door openers, and merely a means to get into the houses a buyer self-selects by doing their own property search online. But, as agents know, they provide many more services that often go underappreciated, such as:

• Upfront education and consultations to help prepare them for the process of buying a house.
• Making sure clients don’t overlook a house they may like, even if they are able to search property listings on their own.
• Showing them as many properties as they need to see, in order for them to make the best decision.
• Helping them hone in on their best options, and make the best decision by getting to know them and giving them insight and guidance based upon their experience working with other buyers.
• Acting as an objective third party in what can be an emotional and personal process.
• Analyzing the market and data to help them determine how much to offer for a property.
• Crafting and writing their offers.
• Reviewing documents and disclosures, and any relevant due diligence the buyer would likely never know to do on their own.
• Using their experience and negotiating skills to get them the best deal possible on the house they decide to buy.
• Coordinating with many other related professionals involved with the transaction, and making sure everyone is getting their job done in a timely and accurate manner.
• Helping them figure out what to ask for, and what not to ask for, based upon the home inspection report, and then negotiating to get as many things repaired, replaced, or credited as possible.
• Keeping the deal together when someone or something threatens to kill it.
• Making sure their clients are prepared to close on time, and if there are issues, helping to resolve them in a timely manner.
• Being a resource for their client even beyond the closing, and are living in their new home.

That’s a fairly exhaustive list, but any agent reading this could probably add several other things to it and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration. So it’s not that buyers’ agents don’t serve a purpose or deserve to get paid, but it might be something buyers need to be educated about and understand more thoroughly — especially if they’re potentially going to be asked to pay their agent more directly for their services in the future.

This Is an Opportunity for Some Buyers Agents

Before the 1980’s, the role of buyers’ agents wasn’t quite so dedicated or defined as it is today. While many buyers thought their buyers’ agent was representing their interests, oftentimes they were actually looking out for the best interests of the seller, even if they weren’t the listing agent. Fortunately, the role of buyers’ agent changed and evolved, and by the 1990’s buyers could rest assured that they had someone looking out for their interests if they chose to work with a buyers’ agent.

That doesn’t sound like too long ago when you think about how crazy it is that they didn’t have that kind of protection until then, but it’s still a few decades, and today’s buyers may not even know or appreciate how different things were back then. In other words, they might take buyers’ agents for granted, particularly if they’re choosing between paying for the services of one or not.

Heck, even the ones who have a full understanding and appreciation of what a buyers’ agent brings to the table may question whether it makes sense (or if they can even afford to) hire their own agent, if things drastically change in terms of how their agent gets paid.

If the way commissions are paid to buyers’ agents changes, and buyers are more focused on how you get paid, and that they may be responsible for you getting paid, here are a few things they might decide to do instead:

• Just go directly to the listing agent and forgo having their own independent representation.
• Attempt to negotiate ridiculously low commission rates with their agent.
• Choose to work with the buyers’ agent that agrees to charge them the lowest commission, as opposed to the agent who will do the best job.
• Have unrealistic expectations of their buyers’ agent because they want to feel they’re getting what they paid for.

But it might not come to that…

Perhaps nothing will change, or the changes won’t be that drastic. And if they do, it’s still some time before it happens, so why worry about it, right?

Well, that’s one way to approach it. And probably the approach most agents will take.

But that’s where the opportunity lies for some buyers’ agents…

The trick is to take the time you have now and not squander it waiting for things to unfold. Build your value with past clients, current clients, and prospects now, so that they not only insist upon hiring you for your services (and pay you for it), but also become advocates for you, and refer other clients to you as well.

The best way to do that is by educating buyers, and establishing the value you bring to the table. Make them appreciate what a buyers’ agent can do for them, and want you to be involved with their home buying process! Doing so will help you justify why you get paid, and how much you get paid, whether the way you get paid changes drastically or not!

And a great way to do that is by creating truly informative buyer guides that buyers will actually read, and even pass along to a friend or family member who’s thinking about buying a house.

Have a Library of Hyper-Specific How-to Guides to Offer Buyers

The problem with most buyer guides agents use is that they’re often surface level, and pretty boring and dry. They’re also often a one-size-fits-all guide for buyers in general, but not specific to the type of buyer they are.

While a general buyers’ guide is great, you also want to drill down to specific types of buyers in order to appeal to more people. The more something speaks to a specific situation someone is in, the more likely they are to want the information.

For example, here are some ideas for a library of guides you might want to create and have to offer different types of buyers:

• A broad buyers’ guide that applies to any buyer. But instead of making it boring and filled with general information, dive deep into things most agents would never think to share with them.
• One for people considering buying a FSBO. This might sound like a silly thing to help a buyer do, but the reality is that type of buyer will likely end up buying a house on the open market anyway, and even if they do, if you write the booklet well, they’ll realize they could certainly use your help even if they do buy a FSBO!
• An objective guide that helps them figure out if renting makes more sense than owning. Give them solid thoughts that help them make up their own mind about what makes sense for their life and personal circumstances. This is a great way to help renters get into the right mindset, and nurture them into home buyers, without them feeling like you’re trying to convince them to buy a house.
• A guide about the importance of hiring an agent when buying new construction. Many buyers think they have to work with the builder or their rep directly, and others just think it’ll get them a better deal. Use this guide to show them why having their own agent is important, and make sure they know to have you with them the first time they even visit a model home.
• One for relocation buyers. If buying a home locally is complex and stressful, think about how thankful someone considering making a move across the country would be for the help in understanding the process, which is much more involved and difficult. Help them weigh the pros and cons of a potential relo package offered by their employer, and that they have the right to choose their own agent.
• A guide for first-time investors. Investors have to start somewhere, and if you help them when they’re just getting started, you could have a client who buys multiple properties per year as they grow their portfolio of properties.
• One about the potential mistakes buyers make by going to open houses. It’s easy to lose a sale because a buyer doesn’t know better and just makes an offer through the listing agent, or whatever agent happened to be sitting at an open house. Give them information that’ll make them want to avoid going to open houses, or at least have you by their side when they do go.

Just looking at that list as an agent makes you realize how much depth of knowledge a buyers’ agent has to offer! Imagine how it’ll impact buyers.

It’ll certainly take some time to create all of those different types of guides, so pick one of the niches you’d prefer to work with, or that has the most potential in your area, and start with that one! Then add another. Over time you’ll have a library of guides to offer that will attract many types of buyers, and help to mold them into ideal clients who appreciate your expertise, want your assistance, and will be willing to pay you for it even if they have to pay you directly, while other buyers’ agents just hope the potential changes won’t affect them.

If you need some tips on how to create your own how-to guide, this Hubspot article is a pretty good soup-to-nuts explanation.

But if you’d rather just skip to dessert, we can save you a ton of time and effort for less than it’d cost you to buy enough coffee to fuel your writing campaign. Check out our Inner Circle membership, where we have 20 Branded Booklet how-to guides already written for you, including a version of every single one of those guides suggested above!

You can literally have all of these guides ready to offer buyers within a few minutes, by just entering your own personal information and branding so it looks like you actually wrote them. Or you can also edit every one of them to your liking, but they’re written in a fun, interesting, conversational tone that buyers will enjoy reading, so the chances are you won’t even want to.

The membership will also give you access to tons of other marketing content you can add your own branding to, like:

• Our signature Lighter Side memes, and exclusive ones only available to our members
• Witty postcards
• Over 1,500 articles you can use to entertain or build credibility and authority, with new ones published each week
• Hundreds of email and letter templates
• Access to our members-only Facebook group where some of the nicest, coolest agents in the business share marketing tips, including how they have used the Branded Booklets themselves

No matter which way you choose to go, just make sure you get started soon. Don’t waste the time you have between now and whenever the dust settles from the commission lawsuits. Take control of how buyers perceive you, and value your expertise and service. Do that and it won’t matter if things change drastically or not!

The post How to Get Buyers Who Want to Work with You (and Pay You!) Even If the Way Buyers’ Agents Get Paid Changes appeared first on Lighter Side of Real Estate.

Real estate agents are very familiar with making offers on behalf of clients, since they’re often writing them for buyers. But very few agents are great about making offers in their marketing, in order to gain clients.

Many agents take a fairly passive approach to marketing. It often amounts to more of a branding effort, than an attempt to get someone to take action. For instance, there’s the classic “Contact me if you or anyone you know is thinking about buying or selling.” But that’s not an “offer” or very effective call-to-action; it’s a request. It relies on someone seeing that message often enough, and close enough to the time they do take action for it to really do an agent much good… if it even compels the person to contact them.

Not to psycho-analyze agents with a broad stroke, but many likely take this approach because they’re afraid to come across as pushy or desperate for business by being more direct. Or perhaps they’re just being polite in a way. It’s ironic because agents are often portrayed as being pushy and selling themselves, yet the vast majority are the opposite and stray away from even the slightest amount of directly asking for business.

Fortunately, using compelling offers in your marketing is an easy way to get people who are thinking about buying or selling in the near future to contact you, without you coming across as pushy or desperate.

Let’s Define “Offer”…

An “offer” can mean a lot of different things in marketing, but the type we’ll focus on here is offering people something for free that they’ll find useful or valuable enough to gladly give you their contact info.

Years ago, the go-to “offers” agents had at their disposal were to offer things like:

• “Interested in knowing how much your home is worth? Contact me for a FREE market analysis!”
• “Thinking about buying a home? Let me know the area and price range you’re interested in, and I’ll send you hot new listings as soon as they hit the market!”

Those seem so quaint and outdated now, considering anyone with a phone or computer can get all of that information easily and for free right on the internet, without your help. Granted, there’s still ways to massage those offers into something valuable, by positioning your valuation as more accurate, or suggesting you could send them listings they may be overlooking or missing somehow. But people just aren’t as hungry for those kinds of offers, since they have enough access to that information on their own.

You need to be offering them some next-level, insider information that’ll help make their purchase or sale go more smoothly, and help them get the best results possible.

How-to Guides Are the New Go-to Offer

Just because people have the basic information people want at their fingertips, that doesn’t mean they have everything they need to make the best decisions and go about buying or selling a house, given their particular situation.

For example, they may be able to find out how much their home is (allegedly) worth online, but do they know how to accomplish getting every penny of that amount? Or, even though they can see all of the houses available to buy online, that doesn’t mean they know the things they need to do to put themselves in position to buy it at the best price possible.

Heck, they probably don’t even realize how much more information they could use! But you do…

You have knowledge and insights that the average homeowner or buyer could benefit from. Of course they’ll get the benefit of your experience when (and if!) they end up working with you, but there’s often a gap in time between when they begin thinking about selling or buying a house and when they actually reach out to an agent, and they’re trying to figure out a whole bunch of things they’re not sure about during that time. Which makes having an array of how-to guides to offer people the perfect thing you can offer them for free to get them to give you their contact info, and start building a relationship with them before they start talking to other agents, and until they’re ready to buy or sell. (Plus, they’re a great way to establish credibility and authority with prospects as well!)

16 Ideas for Different Types of Guides You Can Offer

There are so many types of guides you can offer people interested in buying or selling a house. The more you have to offer, the more prospects you can appeal to.

But if you have to choose two to start with, you can’t go wrong with these:

• A home seller’s guide
• A home buyer’s guide

Those two alone are perfect all-around guides to start with since you can offer them to anyone buying or selling a house.

But when you’re using offers in marketing, the more specific you are to addressing the concerns and needs of the prospect, the more likely they are to take you up on the offer. Here are 14 more ideas to get your wheels turning:

• How to prepare your house for sale
• Things to consider if you’re thinking about downsizing
• A buyer’s guide specifically geared toward first-time buyers
• Tips on how to sell a house for sale by owner
• A guide for people who are thinking about buying a FSBO
• One that helps renters figure out if owning makes more sense than renting
• Insider tips for anyone who wants to buy new construction
• Things sellers need to know when they’re offered a corporate relocation package
• Things buyers should know when they’re offered a relo package
• Advice on what to do if your house didn’t sell and their listing “expired”
• How to handle selling the real estate of a loved one who passed away
• Dealing with having to sell a house when getting divorced
• A guide on becoming a real estate investor
• What to do if you’re facing foreclosure

See how that would be even more appealing to someone seeing your offer? They still are all essentially buyer and seller guides, but they truly speak to the needs and concerns of a specific type of buyer or seller.

It probably sounds daunting to write, edit, and format that many guides, but once they’re created they’ll work for you day in and day out for years to come, so they’re definitely worth the effort. Just pick one or two to start with that would appeal to an ideal prospect you’d like to work with in your market, or you think would appeal to the most potential clients. As you have time, create more you can offer.

7 ways to Offer Them the Offer

The guides are what you have to offer, but you still need to make people aware of the offer, and build in something they need to do for you in order to get their hands on it! They won’t do you any good if people don’t know about them, or don’t have to give you at least their contact information in order to get it.

There are endless ways to offer people your guides, but the key is to make sure you’re offering them to people on a daily basis! So let’s get you started with a week’s worth of ideas to make people aware of your guides:

• Post about them on social media: Make an announcement whenever you have a new one available, and occasionally remind people about a guide you have available.
• Run ads on social media: Posting on your profile is great for reaching people you’re connected to, but running ads will allow you to target and reach people beyond your sphere.
• Write blog posts or articles: Use a specific topic within one of your guides to write an article or blog post you can post on your website, and add an offer for a free downloadable guide throughout the blog post.
• Print out copies to put out at open houses: Have a sample that people can flip through, and offer a copy they can take home in exchange for their contact info.
• Send an email to your sphere-of-influence and past clients: Look through your database and choose specific people you think may benefit from a guide you have to offer.
• Respond to people in local online forums: When you see someone posting on a local forum asking for recommendations for a real estate agent, or the scoop on houses for sale, rather than just being yet another agent who comments that they’d be glad to help them with their real estate needs, offer them a link to download a free copy of one of your how-to guides.
• Send out a postcard: Got a neighborhood you’re farming? Send them a postcard with an offer to download a seller’s guide. Is there an apartment building filled with renters in your area? Mail them an offer to download a buyer’s guide.

Remember, much of your competition probably isn’t even out there making an offer, let alone making several offers on a regular basis. By constantly having as many guides on offer out in the world as possible, in as many different ways as possible, you’re increasing the odds that you’ll know about prospects before many other agents even know someone in the area is thinking about buying or selling, giving you time to develop relationships with them until they’re ready to buy or sell.

Here’s an Offer for You to Take Advantage Of…

If you want to fast-forward to the fun part, check out our Inner Circle membership and get your hands on all 20 of our “Branded Booklet” how-to guides! With just a few clicks of your mouse you can make every single one of them look like you authored them within minutes.

Each one of them has a landing page you can use to offer them to people, and a series of follow-up emails you can use to nurture the relationship with them after they receive it.

You’ll also be able to turn on a “lead gen” button that offers up one of the booklets when you share one of the over 1,500 articles we have for you to share.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! You’ll be able to brand even more types of content than the booklets for less than you spend on a daily cup of coffee per month!

Whether you take us up on our offer to make making offers easier on yourself, or you decide to go the DIY route and write your own guides and lead gen content, good luck and make making offers something you do on a daily basis!

The post How to Use the Art of the Offer to Find Real Estate Clients Without Coming Across as Pushy or Desperate appeared first on Lighter Side of Real Estate.

Agents learn early on in their career that listings are the name of the game. Unfortunately, no matter how much sense that makes, it’s still difficult for many agents to ever get enough of them (if any) to truly feel like they can refer to themselves as a “listing agent.”

If you think about it, there are exactly the same number of sellers as there are buyers every year — one of each per house sold. Yet many agents focus more on finding and working with buyers because it’s supposedly “easier” than finding sellers to work with.

It’s pretty easy to passively stumble into buyers to work with as an agent, since they often make themselves known because they want to see houses that are on the market. And they can work with agents without much commitment until they’re actually under contract to buy a house. But in order for you to even have a shot at working with a seller, you need to:

• Know they’re thinking about selling before they list their house with someone else.
• Be given the opportunity to do a listing presentation.
• Successfully convince them that you’re the best agent to get the job done, and get them to sign a listing agreement.

When you put it that way, it doesn’t actually sound so difficult, does it?! If only it were that easy.

Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy because unless you have a crystal ball, it’s almost impossible to predict who might sell their house in the near future. So in order to find prospective sellers you either have to…

• Have other listings that cause people to call you because they see you as a local go-to listing agent.
• Have a well-developed sphere-of-influence.
• Do a lot of consistent marketing to a large farm area, or entire city or town for a long period of time.
• Pay for seller leads from a lead gen company.

…or a combination of all of those things, which can take a lot of time, money, and patience.

And that’s in a normal market! But over the past few years, there’s been a crisis-level shortage of listings for the number of buyers chomping at the bit to buy a home. Landing a listing is even more of a slam dunk guarantee you’re making money, while working with buyers has become even more difficult due to the lack of listings and intense competition.

Fortunately, there’s a potential end to the listing drought in sight, and it’s the perfect opportunity for you to more easily pinpoint potential seller prospects and list more houses.

Boomers Have Been a Big Part of the Listing Shortage…

There are a lot of reasons why there aren’t enough listings on the market:

• Mortgage rates are higher than they’ve been in years.
• Anyone who owns a home has a low interest rate, and is hesitant to give it up.
• There’s not enough homes to buy even if they did sell, let alone one they really want.
• They’d have to compete with a lot of other aggressive buyers for the few homes on the market.
• Many houses are still selling for over asking price, despite interest rates being much higher than they’ve been.

But what hasn’t helped things at all, is that an entire generation of homeowners has basically thrown everything off by defying predictions for many years, and continues to do so.

Older Baby Boomers — and even some of the Silent Generation before them — have been described as an incoming “Silver Tsunami” for years. It’s a slowly approaching wave of homes that will hit the market all at the same time as people in those generations start selling.

In many ways, they’re causing much of the housing shortage by holding onto their homes for much longer than anticipated. And not only are they holding onto “forever” homes younger generations want to move up to, some of them have also scooped up second homes over the years.

So, why haven’t they been selling?

Well, the good news is, people are living longer, healthier, more active lives than ever before and are able to live in their homes longer. Many have remained in their homes to stay close to family. They likely own their houses outright and have plenty of equity. If they have a mortgage, it’s most likely at a very low rate. And many of them continue to work, or are collecting social security, and possibly even a pension.

…but Boomers Are About to Be Your Best Chance at Becoming a Listing Agent

Despite people enjoying longer, more productive lives, eventually age catches up with everyone. According to this National Mortgage News article, a recent report from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Research Institute for Housing America predicts that 4 million Baby Boomer homes should hit the market each year between now and 2032.

Let’s put that into context. Check out this chart from Statista:

Four million homes was pretty much the total amount of volume for an entire year — or at least a good chunk of it — for many years over the past two decades!

So if you’ve been waiting for an opportunity or way to become a listing agent, you might want to set your sights on Baby Boomer homeowners. While other agents continue to cast a wide net for anyone who might be thinking about buying or selling, you can capitalize on a niche market that’s about to explode by targeting Boomers, reaching them before they decide to sell, and positioning yourself as an expert!

Here Are 4 Articles to Help You Find Boomers Who Want to Move

You could certainly create an elaborate marketing plan to go after Boomer business, but you also don’t have to overcomplicate it. It’s not like you have to reach all 4 million of them who are likely to sell in the next year — you just need to get enough of them in your area and network to identify themselves to you. Some simple content marketing is a solid, cost-effective way to market to them…

Writing content might not be your cup of tea, so we hand-picked 4 of our articles to get you started. You can share these for free on social media, or with your email list, to show Baby Boomers you’re an expert on real estate topics that speak directly to them, and generate some interaction and engagement with ones who are thinking about selling.

1. Baby Boomers Can Capitalize on the Aging-In-Place Trend

   This one’s a great example of a “market news” piece to show you have a handle on the nuances of the real estate market, while giving them some insight and incentive to take advantage of current market conditions before they disappear.

Pro tip: Make sure to check our “Market News” section on Wednesday of every week for the newest article to see if it’s a good one for you to share with Baby Boomers.
2. 7 Signs It’s Time To Downsize

   Bite-sized “listicles” like this one are a fun and easy way to get someone’s attention, and get them thinking about whether it’s time for them to finally downsize…

3. 6 Questions to Consider When Downsizing

   …and then you can follow up with this one to give them some thoughtful things to consider when they decide to sell their home and move into something smaller.

4. Could These Backyard “Granny Pods” Be The Evolution Of Senior Living?

   And here’s an example of an article that might inspire them to hit up their kids to make room in the backyard for a little retirement home, so they can finally list their “forever” home with you and move onto the next stage of their life!

Those are just to get your juices flowing and give you a jumpstart. In order for content marketing to produce results, make sure you regularly share content that will appeal to the Baby Boomer market.

If you want access to even more of our articles as soon as they’re published — and be able to add your branding to them as if you authored them — check out our Inner Circle membership.

When you join, you’ll also get access to 20 different how-to guides we call Branded Booklets, which you can customize and add your branding to, and one of them is perfect for marketing to Baby Boomers!

Our “Things To Consider Before Downsizing Your Home” booklet is a great tool for you to use as a lead magnet for Baby Boomers who are thinking about selling in the near future. Offer it as a hard-copy print version they can request and you either mail or drop off to them in person, or as a digital download when they give you their name and email address.

The post Baby Boomers Are about to Be Your Best Chance at Becoming a Listing Agent appeared first on Lighter Side of Real Estate.

“Let me know if you or anyone you know is thinking about buying or selling a house in the near future!” Sound familiar?

Even if you haven’t said those exact words, you’ve probably witnessed other agents making the plea. Most agents cast a wide net and try to appeal to anyone who might be thinking about buying or selling. Yet even though they’re eager to work with anyone, many agents struggle to do much business.

The reason most agents don’t do a lot of business boils down to some basic math: there are too many agents competing to sell the number of homes that get bought and sold each year.

According to this Homelight article, there are currently over 3 million active real estate licensees. Are they all truly “active” agents working full-time? Probably not. But most of them would probably like to be! And every single one of them will gladly handle the buyer or seller side of any sale in a given year, which takes away from the number of sales other agents could have made.

Now, if you look at this chart below from Statista, you can see that the most number of homes sold in one year in almost two decades was just over 7 million. But every year since has been lower in sales volume. Over the course of those years, the average number of sales was right around 5 million sales. Even if every one of those houses sold had two separate agents representing the buyer and the seller, that would only be an average of 10 million “sides” to be divided up amongst 3 million agents.

Find more statistics at Statista

Taking all that into consideration, it might sound ridiculous to limit the number of real estate prospects you’re marketing to…

…but whether you’re doing tons of business or not, focusing on a smaller segment of the market than “anybody-who’s-thinking-about-buying-or-selling-a-home” might be your ticket to doing more (and better) business!

Standing out from all of the other agents is difficult with a one-size-fits-all marketing approach. There’s not much for “anybody” who’s thinking of buying or selling to distinguish you from any other agent, unless you have a huge marketing budget and can afford to blast them from every angle possible with your branding and advertising.

On the other hand, if you focus on a “niche market” — a very specific type of buyer or seller — it’s a lot easier for you to stand out from other agents! While you might be ignoring a lot of other potential buyers or sellers, you’re a lot more likely to get noticed by the smaller market segment.

What Is Niche Marketing?

We’ll dig deeper into the specific types of niches you can work with in real estate later on, but before we dive into how you can take advantage of niche marketing, let’s make sure you have a general understanding of what it is.

Niche marketing is when you focus on a specific segment of the market, rather than trying to appeal to the entire population. By concentrating your efforts on a defined group, you can tailor your message to cater to the unique needs and preferences of the target audience.

6 Benefits of Niche Marketing

Here are six benefits to niche marketing:

1. Easier to target clients. When everyone is a potential prospect, it’s difficult to figure out who might actually buy or sell a house in the near future. But when you focus on a specific type of buyer or seller, you can more easily pinpoint people who are likely to buy or sell a property in the near future.
2. Easier to reach them. If you know who you’re looking to attract, it’s easier to figure out where to find them and focus your marketing efforts using social media platforms, online advertising, or search engine optimization (SEO) to target your ideal clientele.
3. You can catch them earlier on in the buying or selling process. The sales cycle for people buying or selling a home begins well before most people pop into an open house, or ask agents over for a listing presentation. Many agents envision it as they start looking at listings online, which is likely a part of their process, but for people who are moving for specific reasons, or circumstances in life, they’re more likely to begin by looking for more specific help and advice most agents aren’t addressing.

   While most agents are simply trying to find people who are looking to buy or sell a house, you can use niche marketing tactics to find people who are way earlier in the process than actually looking for houses to buy, or for someone to list their house. In fact, depending upon which niche you focus on, many types of buyers and sellers don’t begin their journey even thinking of themselves as such. A lot of times they’re looking for information on life events, not real estate related advice or services.

4. Creates a sense of connection and understanding. Because many eventual buyers and sellers begin by looking for information related to a life event, you can help them figure out how to navigate what may be a confusing or trying time in their life, which can give them a sense that you understand what they’re going through beyond what other agents in the marketplace do, and help them feel connected to you.
5. Positions you as an expert. People often judge an agent based upon how much business they do; it can be more of a popularity contest at times than it is a true hiring process. But when you separate from the pack and focus on a niche, you can build a strong reputation and brand identity without even having the most sales or years of business under your belt. Rather than competing based upon name recognition or sheer number of sales, you can tip the scales in your favor against even the highest-producing agents by being seen as an expert in a particular market segment.

11 Specific Real Estate Niches You Can Focus On

While other agents are waiting to work with any old buyer or seller that may come along, here are 10 real estate niches for you to focus on and go after some business:

1. First-time buyers who need help figuring out where to even begin the process of buying a home.
2. Renters who aren’t even sure if buying or renting makes more sense. Help them figure out which makes more sense for them, and some guidance on how to go from being a renter to a homeowner.
3. People getting divorced who’ll need to figure out whether or not they can keep their home, or have to sell it, and then navigate the process with someone they probably aren’t getting along with.
4. Downsizing brings up a lot of questions, emotions, and family issues that need to be thought through and dealt with before they sell their house or buy another one.
5. New construction appeals to many buyers, but they are often unaware of the dangers they could face by going directly to a builder or their reps. Help them avoid the pitfalls while setting yourself up to be the advocate they bring with them on the first visit to a new construction site.
6. Some agents offer to “help” FSBO’s as a means of getting in their door to sell them on listing their house, but if you can be a genuine go-to resource for them and truly want to help them succeed, you’ll gain their trust (and future referrals) whether they sell their house on their own, or you end up listing it for them.
7. Or how about helping people who want to buy FSBO’s? People who think they’ll get a better deal by buying a FSBO are out there all the time and agents aren’t focusing on them nearly as much as the people trying to save a buck by selling their house FSBO.
8. Expired listings aren’t always plentiful if the market has been hot, but there’s always listings that expired quite some time ago that other agents have long forgotten and aren’t following up with.
9. People don’t go through foreclosure overnight, and are often waiting far too long to get help or to sell their house because they’re embarrassed and scared. If you can offer hope, understanding, and guidance, you may be one of the only people they’ll answer the phone or the door for during that difficult time.
10. Investors don’t start out owning a bunch of buildings; they all need to start somewhere. Be a patient and useful source of information and encouragement for the ones just starting out, and you’ll have a loyal client who buys and sells more houses in a few years, than the average client does in a lifetime.
11. Get in with relocation clients before they accept their relo package by offering insights they’re likely looking for about the process before they even decide to take the offer. This will help you get business typically being funneled to one of a few “relo” agents in your area by corporate, and you may be even able to do it for a lower (or no) referral fee than they have to pay, if you establish a relationship with the client before a relocation company gets their hands on the client.

Here’s a Step-By-Step Plan to Capitalize on Real Estate Niches

Unfortunately, just saying you specialize in helping a certain type of real estate client doesn’t just make them appear in front of you. You need to do something to attract them, help them, gain their confidence, and ultimately convert them into a client.

Fortunately, it isn’t quite as hard as that last paragraph made it sound!

While it will take some time and effort, here’s a simple step-by-step plan for you to go from being an agent who’s helping “anybody-who’s-thinking-about-buying-or-selling-a-home”, to an sought-after niche expert:

1. Pick a niche you want to focus on and dominate. You can always add more niches as you get one up and running, but start with one. (Pro tip: When you add another, try doing one that is complementary to the other, like focusing on investors and foreclosures.)
2. Create a how-to guide, or some other valuable type of thing — like a checklist — that would be helpful to people in the particular niche you chose.
3. Offer the guide as a giveaway that people can download so you get their email by posting offers on social media, running ads, putting the offers in articles, etc.
4. Create a follow-up series of tips you can send to them after they’ve downloaded your guide, so you have a helpful way to stay in touch.
5. Keep in touch and nurture the relationships until they’re ready to buy or sell a house.
6. Do an incredible job helping them buy or sell a house… obviously.
7. Rinse, lather, repeat. Keep doing this and building up clientele in the niche you started with, and add new ones as your process becomes smooth and manageable.

Here’s How to Make That Step-By-Step Plan Quicker and Easier…

If you want to save yourself some time, or just aren’t into writing your own guides and follow-up tips, check out our Inner Circle membership. In addition to gaining access to tons of other marketing content, we have a “Branded Booklet” guide for each of those 11 niche ideas mentioned above — plus another 9 guides in addition to those — already written, and just waiting for you to add your own branding and personalized edits!

But wait, there’s more…

…every one of our Branded Booklets comes with a series of follow-up emails ready for you to send to your prospects after they download your free guide. They’ll save you a ton of time and effort for less than the price of your daily cup of coffee!

The post 11 Specific Real Estate Niches with Prospects Just Waiting for You To Guide Them appeared first on Lighter Side of Real Estate.

It’s almost impossible to avoid being exposed to news nowadays. Besides being on TV and radio 24/7, people get notifications on their cell phones, in their email, and see it on social media.

Unfortunately, it’s often filled with doom and gloom and can easily affect how people think and feel about people, life, the world… and real estate.

Real estate is almost always on the news to some degree, and they either seem to be stoking peoples’ fear of missing out because the market is so hot, or the fear that there’s a “bubble” about to pop and the market will crash.

Of course the news isn’t entirely responsible for creating market conditions, but how they frame the market affects how potential buyers and sellers think and feel, which can affect your business.

On the flip side, many agents try to frame the market as always being great. But that can come across as unbelievable and self-serving. Of course agents want people to think the market’s great!

But the truth is usually somewhere in between those two ends of the spectrum. The reality is, the real estate market is rarely good (or bad) for everyone, but it’s always good for someone.

The trick is to break through the noise and make sure the people it is good for aren’t swayed by the negative headlines, and are made aware of how the market benefits them so they feel confident enough to buy or sell a house… ideally with you!

People Prefer Bad News…

News is often sensational, controversial, and upsetting by design. The truth is, people have what’s called a “negativity bias” — a psychological tendency which makes people more attracted to negative or scary sounding news. So they’re just giving people what they’re more likely to subconsciously want, because it’s more likely to get someone to watch or listen longer, or click through to their website, which in turn makes them money from ad revenue.

It’s interesting and good to know, but that doesn’t really help you though, does it? That still leaves you with potential buyers and sellers who are willingly flocking toward fear, whether they know it or not. They’re allowing their brains to be filled with reasons to be afraid, and give them reasons to not buy or sell a house.

…but You Can Turn Bad News into Good News (For Some People)

As much as people have a negativity bias, they’re also susceptible to a “confirmation bias”, which causes people to look for information that confirms how they think and feel, and reinforces what they want to do.

While negative headlines may create an overall vibe about the real estate market at times, there are always people who want or need to buy or sell a house. They just need proof that it’s not only OK to buy or sell in the current market, but that they’re actually making a smart choice. The gravy on top is if they feel like they’re in on some inside scoop that their peers and potential competitors aren’t in on.

But it needs to be balanced against their negativity bias, especially if it’s coming from someone who has an interest in getting them to buy or sell a house… like an agent. Again, of course it would make sense that an agent wants people to believe it’s always a great time to buy or sell a house.

Unfortunately, that nuanced approach isn’t something most news outlets are going to craft. They don’t necessarily care if people buy or sell a house or not; they just want peoples’ attention for as long, and as much as possible.

But that’s great news for you, because it’s the perfect opportunity for you to piggyback off of their negative news, and twist their negative headlines into a positive spin… for some people. You can simultaneously give people the negative headlines they’re attracted to, while also signaling that it’s actually a hidden blessing to the people who actually want to buy or sell a house.

Here are some tips on how to do it:

1) Actively look for real estate news and headlines.

Make an effort to consistently search real estate news online, and look for news or headlines that you think might affect how potential buyers and sellers think, feel, and act. A good way to gauge it is if it’s something that gets under your skin, and makes you feel like it would make people feel like it isn’t a good time for them to buy or sell a house.

2) Formulate an opposing view.

Whatever the news is saying is negative for some people, there’s likely another type of person who it benefits. In simplest terms, if it isn’t a good time to sell, then it’s probably a good time to buy. It won’t usually be that plain and simple though. Sometimes you have to get super specific about what type or buyer or seller certain market conditions are better for. But that’s the beauty of it; the more specifically it “speaks” to someone’s situation, the more likely it’ll resonate with them and prompt them to read and take action.

3) Write your own article… or just share the original article.

If you want to get the most out of doing this, writing your own articles that cite and link back to the original article you’re writing about will give you more authority and credibility with your audience.

But if writing a full article isn’t something you have the time or ability to pull off, you can always just share the original article on social media or with your email list, and write a short blurb giving your own thoughts and perspective.

4) Illustrate the silver lining.

Begin your article by introducing the issue and perspective of the original article. Acknowledge what is true and real about what they’re saying. But then pivot from the original negative sentiment into your alternate point-of-view, and paint a picture of who can benefit from the way things are, how they can do it, and why they should.

5) Don’t be (obviously) self-serving.

As much as you ultimately want to encourage the reader to either buy or sell a house, make sure you don’t come across as trying to sell them on doing so. Give them room to feel like it’s their decision and choice to take advantage of the market conditions if it makes sense for them, or not.

It’ll take a little time — and some writing chops — to find topics and write these on a regular basis, but it’s worth the effort if you want to:

• Build credibility and authority. Your friends, family, followers and past clients will see that you have thoughtful, objective opinions about the market, even if they don’t read every word you wrote.
• Set yourself apart from other agents. How many agents do you know who are out there commenting on, or creating news pieces? Probably not many, because there aren’t a whole lot of other agents willing (or aware enough) to put in the effort to do so.
• Develop more leads and business. By re-framing the tone and narrative, you can prompt people who were just thinking about buying or selling, or outright hesitant to do so, to take action.

Here Are Some Good Examples… (And an Easier Way to Do It!)

Sometimes seeing a good example is the best way to learn. So here are a couple of examples of market news articles where we used this exact technique — one geared towards buyers, and the other to sellers:

Example #1

Why Millennials and Gen Z Feel They Need to Win the Lottery to Ever Own a Home

In this one we used a Yahoo Finance article, which painted a dismal picture for potential Gen Z buyers, and used it as an opportunity to show them that their situation isn’t anywhere near as bleak as they make it sound, and the empowerment to buy a home if they want to.

Example #2

Some Homeowners Will Benefit from Other Sellers Going on a So-Called “Strike” This Spring (Are You in a Position to Take Advantage?)

And to be consistent, here’s another one where we used a Yahoo Finance article to pivot off of, but this time they made it sound like it was an awful time to sell. Again, there’s no reason for a news site to dig into who could benefit from so many sellers refusing to list their house, but it was perfect for us to use to point out why it’s a perfect time to sell a house… for certain types of people.

Hopefully those helped you get a feel for how to turn negative real estate news into something positive. But if you want more examples than those two, feel free to browse the News & Trends section of our site. You can also subscribe to our “Snacks” newsletter which has a link to the latest Market News piece we published each week.

And if you like the idea of doing this, but aren’t keen on actually having to search for topics and write articles, check out our Inner Circle membership. For less than the price of your daily cup of coffee, you’ll be able to share all of our Market News articles with your name and branding on it in no time, with the click of a few buttons! In addition to the new weekly Market News article, you’ll also get access to:

• Over 1,500 existing articles, with more added weekly. We have ones for each season and many holidays you can use each year, but also ones that are entertaining, or resourceful you could share and re-share for years to come.
• Close to 2,000 memes. These range from funny and witty, to useful ones that give tips about buying and selling.
• 20 how-to booklets you can use to generate leads by offering the free booklets on the articles you share.

The post News about the Real Estate Market Is Hurting Your Business (But You Can Use It to Your Advantage) appeared first on Lighter Side of Real Estate.

When you’re in the middle of working with a client, you’re touching base with them constantly. You can actually get pretty close to them, and can’t imagine ever losing touch! But once their closing comes along, you don’t have to call, text, email, or see each other every day and it’s easy to let a little time slip by without talking to them.

Maybe you figure you’ll give them a week to settle in and then give them a ring. The week goes by, but you forget to call because you have your hands full with other clients who you’re touching base with constantly, and there isn’t a minute to spare. No worries, you’ll touch base next week!

Then the next week comes and goes and you have plenty of legit reasons for not reaching out to them. Same thing the next week, and then the next week, and then… Well, you get the point. Before you know it, you’ve let months—maybe even years—slip by without touching base!

It gets to a point where you almost feel weird about reaching out to them!

If that sounds all too familiar, don’t think you’re alone. A lot of agents find themselves letting too much time go by without touching base with people, and the longer it goes, the more awkward it feels to reach out. Here are few of the most common hangups that go through agents’ heads after too much time has gone by:

• They’re not sure how they’ll be received.
  • Will the client be mad that I haven’t been in touch?
  • Will they think the relationship we had when we were working so closely together wasn’t genuine? Do they think they were just another “sale” to me?
  • Will they think I’m just looking for business?
• They’re not sure how to reach out.
  • Should I call?
  • Text?
  • Send an email?
  • Send a letter or postcard?
  • Pop by and say hi?
• Will I be able to keep staying in touch once I reach out to them?
  • Is it even worth reaching out if I’m not going to be able to stay in touch with them on a consistent, regular basis moving forward? Maybe I should wait until I know I can commit to staying in touch!

After you’re finished nodding your head in agreement with the list above, we can dive into each of those issues one by one…

…ready?!

You’ll be received just fine!

It’s only human to worry about how past clients will react when you reach out after some time has gone by. But the truth is, they probably aren’t sitting there thinking about how you haven’t been in touch, and would be pleasantly surprised and happy to hear from you! Any negative reaction you think might happen is probably just in your head.

To prove that point, check out these two posts by The Lighter Side’s Inner Circle member Rob Hernandez:

As much as he was embarrassed and putting off getting back in touch, he was well received by his past clients and was glad he did so. But wait, it gets better! Check out this post he made a few years later…

If that doesn’t give you the confidence to reach out to your past clients…

…maybe start out by sending this letter!

Picking up the phone and calling people worked out well for Rob, and would probably work just as well for you. But, if you’re looking for another way to reach out and break the ice, we’ve got just the thing for you!

Here’s a letter from our Inner Circle stash that you can swipe for free:

That letter was meticulously crafted to:

• Make your client feel like you still remember and think about them often.
• Give them a reason for why you haven’t been in touch, which also paints a picture of you being busy and successful.
• Show that you’re also being considerate and thoughtful about their time and privacy.
• Give them a call to action by asking them to reach back out to you with several options.
• Set the stage for staying in touch here on out.

So copy and paste that bad boy onto a doc or email template and send it out! Then…

…all you have to do now is stay in touch!

The hardest part is over once you’ve finally made the initial contact. But now you can’t let another bunch of weeks and months (or years!) go by without touching base with them and have to go through this all over again! So make sure you call, text, pop-by, or send them an email on a regular basis!

Check out our Inner Circle membership for exclusive access to:

• Dozens of fun, useful email and letter templates to follow up with. (Like we allude to in the P.S. of that letter above!)
• The Inner Circle Facebook group, where you can pick up tips like Rob’s and network with some of the most helpful, non-judgmental real estate agents on the planet!
• Tons of other useful content you can use to not only stay in touch with past clients, but also brand and market yourself to new clients!

The post How to Get Back in Touch with past Real Estate Clients When You Haven’t Touched Base in a Long Time appeared first on Lighter Side of Real Estate.

Statistically speaking, the majority of real estate agents don’t make it beyond a couple of years, so don’t feel bad if you’re thinking about giving up being a full-time agent. But no matter how long you lasted, how much business you did, or why you’re moving on, the last thing you want to do is let your license lapse!

It took time and effort to get your license in the first place, so you should at least maintain it just in case you decide to do a little business here and there, or want to come back full-time at some point. It’d be a waste to have to go through licensing courses and testing again in the future.

But an even better idea is to deliberately use your license to continue to make money as a referral agent—possibly even more money than you were making as a full-time agent!

Think about it:

• Most agents are desperate for leads and business.
• Entire companies exist just by generating and selling leads to agents.
• And that’s despite the fact that most agents hate paying for leads.
• Yet almost any agent would much prefer to pay you a bigger referral fee for a lead upon closing, than paying a lead gen company up front for a bunch of iffy leads.
• Think about how much money a 25% referral fee (or whatever you think you can get in your area) would put in your pocket
• Now think about being able to make that amount of money doing a fraction of the work you did as a full-time agent.

So yeah, there’s definitely good money to be made just by having your license and sending referrals to active agents!

Referral Agents Make More than Full-Timers?!

If you go by this article on Indeed.com, the average referral agent makes $48,930 a year! Considering the median gross income for agents was $43,330, according to 2021 data from The National Association of Realtors, you might be better off being a referral agent.

Let’s be real, though; data and stats can be so misleading—median and average numbers don’t paint the truest picture. The reality is, many agents don’t make enough money as full-time agents, which is why they become referral agents. And most of them probably don’t make a dime off of referrals in any given year. (In fact, having their license probably costs them money to maintain.) And it almost always boils down to the same reason; they don’t do much (if any) marketing or lead generation.

That may have just felt like an attack…

Most Agents Don’t Have the Time or Money for Marketing

According to this Real Trends article, 53% of agents spend “less than $5,000” on marketing per year. And by “less,” many of them are probably referring to “zero” dollars.

Another 11% “aren’t sure” how much they spend, which is a good indication that they don’t spend much either, since an agent who is spending thousands of dollars on marketing is likely aware of how much they’re spending.

To be fair, most agents don’t have enough time or money to devote to marketing.

It’s not easy to carve out time to work on marketing when you’re so busy going out on appointments, holding open houses, attending inspections, and everything else an agent has to do. And none of that work is guaranteed to result in compensation. So when an agent has a little down time, it’s easy to use it as a breather—especially since it’s usually just a random hour here or there, and probably won’t be something they can do consistently, so it seems pointless to do. But even if they want to, it can be hard to spend money when they’re never sure when their next closing will be. Which leads to a lot of busy, broke, and burned-out agents who decide to find another way to make a living.

So when an agent makes their exit from the business, and finds another way to make a living, the chances are they’re most likely not going to start doing any marketing at that point!

And that’s exactly why there’s a huge opportunity for you to make some good money as a referral agent! You have very little competition.

But in order to cash in, you’re going to have to spend some cash and do some consistent marketing—which may not sound appealing, or even possible. If you didn’t have the time or money to do it before, what makes now any better or easier?

Here’s the good news: You don’t have to spend a ton of time or money on marketing. There are plenty of low-cost ways to do marketing, and none of them have to take much time out of your schedule. You just have to be dedicated to doing it consistently.

3 Quick and Affordable Ways of Marketing

Marketing can cost a lot of money. Mailers, print ads, billboards, or radio and TV ads can cost a small fortune. Years ago you had to spend money on those types of things, but the internet and social media has made it easy for real estate agents to get in front of a lot of people for free, or at a very low cost.

So let’s take a look at 3 ways you can stay top-of-mind with people whenever they think about buying or selling, even when you’re not actively selling anymore.

1) Share memes

Real estate memes are a great way to remind people that you’re in the real estate world. They’re entertaining and easy for people to consume without feeling like you’re badgering them for business.

It takes almost no time to share a meme or two a day on social media! And you can find plenty of them to share for free on our Lighter Side of Real Estate Facebook page.

2) Share market news

Sharing news about the current market not only reminds people that you’re an agent, but it also gives you an air of authority with people.

You can find plenty of articles online to share for free. The problem with so many articles about real estate is that they can be too dry and technical, or even scare people. Plus, most of the ones you can find on mainstream news sites certainly aren’t written to get people to take action and buy or sell a house.

So you may want to check out the market news articles we publish each week on our website. These are written to make agents sound knowledgeable, but are easy (and enjoyable) for consumers to read, and they often encourage the reader to buy or sell, without sounding pushy or alarmist.

3) Share fun articles

News doesn’t appeal to everyone, so make sure to share some fun real estate articles that’ll give people a laugh while reminding them you’re in the business, while actually teaching them a thing or two.

We also publish a free weekly newsletter, which has a bunch of things each week for you to share:

• A meme of the week
• A “weird”, funny, or unusual real estate related article
• A real estate trivia question
• A real estate fun fact meme

Forget about the referral agents you’re competing with, just doing those three things alone will go way beyond what many active agents are doing to market themselves! And you can do it all for free and in very little time.

But if you want to save yourself even more time, check out our Inner Circle membership. For less than the price of your daily cup of coffee, you can have access to way more content to share (with your branding on it), and you’ll be able to sit down and schedule your posts for months in advance!

The post Considering Leaving the Real Estate Business? Keep Your License and Become a Referral Agent appeared first on Lighter Side of Real Estate.

So let’s take a look at 5 things people often take into consideration when hiring an agent, so you can make a more informed decision the next time you do:

1) The car they drive

Real estate agents are often portrayed as driving nice (often expensive) cars, and many do. Some make more than enough money to spend lavishly on a sweet set of wheels that enhances their image, while others can barely afford to, but buy or lease as high-end of a car as they can.

However, a nice car isn’t necessarily an accurate sign of whether or not the agent you’re hiring is a good agent or not. An agent who drives a rather boring, but reliable car, or even a rusty, dented, used one may be a phenomenal agent who can get you the highest price on the sale of your home, or the best deal on the home of your dreams.

2) The number of sales they do in a year

High sales volume is certainly a good sign that an agent is successful, and probably doing pretty well for themself, but that doesn’t mean he or she will necessarily get you the best results possible when buying or selling. An agent who does fewer sales than the local “top producers” may very well be able to give you better service and get you better results.

3) The brand they are with

Just because a company happens to have more for sale signs in the area, more agents, or cool marketing, does not mean you should hire an agent from that company. Hire an agent based upon their skills, not the color of their sign or company logo. An agent with a smaller, lesser known brand in your area may be the best choice for you.

4) How old they are

This can go both ways. If an agent looks too young, you might wonder if they’re old enough to have even bought a house of their own, or gotten much experience in the field. On the other hand, an older agent might be seen as someone who isn’t up on the latest technology. Or, an older one may be presumed to have more experience and sales under their belt, when a younger one actually does. Don’t make a snap judgment based upon how old an agent is. Give them a chance to show you what they know, and how well they can help you buy or sell a house.

5) How many years they’ve been in the business

Experience is certainly an important factor when considering an agent. But just because an agent has been in the business for 17 years doesn’t mean they’re definitely a better agent than the one who’s been an agent for 3 years. Take the amount of years they’ve been in the business into consideration, but don’t make a choice entirely based upon it.

The post 5 Things That Don’t Matter as Much as You Might Think When Hiring a Real Estate Agent appeared first on Lighter Side of Real Estate.

If you’ve been wondering if you can start out as a real estate agent part-time until you can get enough business to go full time, the short answer is yes you can.

However, you’ll probably also hear that you can’t (or shouldn’t) from people within the industry. Real estate brokers, managers, trainers, gurus, and agents alike will invariably tell you that in order to succeed, you really need to do it full-time. It might even start to sound like you’re not welcome in the industry, and only those who go full-time from the get-go have the right to succeed.

Feel free to ignore all of that…

Not to scare you, but very few agents succeed. In fact, most don’t even last a year or two, even when they do it full-time. So it isn’t like everyone telling you to go full-time is doling out the secret to success.

In theory, giving real estate your full, undivided time and attention can and should help increase your odds of success. But with the majority of agents getting into the business failing to succeed year after year, it’s a pretty good sign that it isn’t fail proof.

So if you need the safety and security of another job, or need to phase in over time because of other responsibilities in your life (like raising a child), you have every right and the ability to make it happen. There’s no one way or “right” way to get into the business.

If anything, starting part-time may be what increases your chances of succeeding! You might even have an advantage over full-timers

Here’s where you have an advantage…

Most agents who start out full-time fill all that time doing things that feel productive, or are perhaps just more fun. They should be prospecting, marketing, and branding themselves, but instead, many spend their time learning how to write a contract, open lock boxes, search the MLS, etc.

What many people don’t realize is that the most important job of being an agent is finding clients to work with. You can know everything there is to know about how to work with a buyer or seller, but if you don’t have enough of them to work with, you’re not going to make a full-time career of it.

They’re often so hungry to work with people and make some money, they fill their days over-working for the client or two they have, or working with less than ideal prospects. They fill their days with busy-ness that feels productive, but marketing almost always takes a back seat.

In their defense, most new agents don’t have a ton of money to spend on marketing, so they often rely on the hope that friends and family will need to buy or sell a house and work with them, until good old word-of-mouth gets them more business. Friends, family, and word-of-mouth are all huge sources of business for agents…eventually. But it takes time — time that many agents can’t outlast before needing to get another job.

Regardless of whether you’re a full-time or part-time agent, it takes time for friends and family to trust you with their business. Some people need to feel like you’ve been in the business a while before trusting you with their biggest asset or purchase they’ll make in life.

But as an agent starting out part-time, you have the time and ability to focus on marketing and developing that trust with your friends and family, until you gradually build up enough clients to go full-time.

Here’s the best part: You can do it without spending tons of time or money.

3 Low-Cost Ways To Market, Brand Yourself, and Build That Trust

Years ago you had to spend a lot of money on many different forms of marketing in order to build your business. There are still agents who spend big bucks on mailers, print ads, billboards, or radio and TV ads, but the internet and social media has made it easy for you to get in front of a lot of people for free, or at a very low cost, so don’t worry about needing a big budget and marketing campaign.

So let’s take a look at three ways you can market yourself to build your brand and business as a part-timer, without spending a lot of money…or time for that matter!

1) Share memes

One of the things you want to do is just constantly remind people that you’re in the real estate business — ideally without being boring or annoying. A lot of agents lack subtlety (especially when they’re desperate for business) and almost outright beg for business without any nuance or style.

Real estate memes are a great way to subtly remind people that you’re in the real estate world, without getting on peoples’ nerves. They’re entertaining and easy for people to consume (or ignore) without feeling like you’re harassing them for business. And they’re a great way to show that you’ve got a sense of humor! People want to work with someone who not only knows their stuff, but also has a good personality.

And the best part is, considering you’re juggling another job along with building your real estate career, sharing a meme or two a day on social media isn’t going to take you more than a few minutes! Creating (or finding) memes to share is probably the most time-consuming part about it, but you can easily find plenty of them to share for free on our Lighter Side of Real Estate Facebook page.

2) Share market news

Establishing credibility and authority is always important for an agent to gain trust (and business), but it’s even more critical when you’re starting out part-time. People need to see that you’re serious and have your thumb on the pulse of the market, and can give some good advice before they trust you to actually give them advice on the market.

If you have the time and skills, writing your own articles about what’s going on in the market will certainly establish credibility and authority. But that can take time, and not everyone is a writer. So you can just find articles about the real estate market and share those. Just make sure to add your interpretation of the article so people can get a sense of your opinion and intelligence.

One issue with many articles about real estate that you’ll find online is that they can be too dry and technical, or even scare people. And most of the ones you can find aren’t written from an agent’s point-of-view or to get people to take action and buy or sell a house.

So you may want to check out the market news articles we publish each week on our website. These are written to make agents sound knowledgeable, but are easy (and enjoyable) for consumers to read, and they often subtly encourage the reader to buy or sell, without coming across as pushy or alarmist.

3) Share fun articles

Let’s be honest, real estate news doesn’t appeal to everyone, so make sure to share some fun real estate articles that’ll give people a laugh, while reminding them you’re in the business, and possibly even teaching them a thing or two.

You should also sign up for our free weekly newsletter, which will hit your inbox every Saturday morning with a bunch of cool things for your to share each week, like:

• A meme of the week
• A “weird”, funny, or unusual real estate related article
• A real estate trivia question
• A real estate fun fact meme

Keep in mind that it takes time and constant exposure to become the agent people think about when it’s time to buy or sell a house, and most agents don’t have the time or patience it takes. You don’t have the pressure someone who is full-time has to generate enough business as quickly as possible, which is rarely quick enough for many agents.

So be patient and diligent about posting, even if it feels like nobody cares or is noticing. Before you know it, your friends, family, and followers will know you as the agent in their life, and you’ll start getting some business lined up.

Pro tip: If you just do those three things consistently, you’ll probably be doing more marketing and branding than most full-time agents!

The REAL Secret Sauce…

If you want even more content to choose from, check out our Inner Circle membership. For less than the price of your daily cup of coffee, you can have access to exclusive content you can share with your name and information on it, to amp up your branding even more! And you can sit down and schedule your posts for months in advance, to help you be more efficient as you juggle your transition from part-time to full-time!

No matter how you go about it, good luck building your career!

The post The Secret to Starting Part-Time Until You Can Become a Full-Time Real Estate Agent appeared first on Lighter Side of Real Estate.