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April’s Real Estate News Roundup

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“If you’re looking for demons in the American capitalist system, I don’t think you’ll find them with your local real estate broker,” Warren Buffet said on CNBC, weighing in on the class action suit that most agents we’ve spoken with are closely following.

Since so many of you are talking about it online and off, we won’t rehash it here. If you want to learn more about it, check out the story on MarketWatch.com, Inman.com (it’s not behind the paywall, surprisingly) and HousingWire.com.

Instead, we’ll take a quick look at some of the real estate agent news stories you may have missed over the past month.

Do your fence-sitting sellers hear that the market is changing?

“Half of the country’s 100 largest cities are showing signs of change,” according to Brittany de Lea at FoxBusinessNews.com.

Of course, we’ve known this for months, but, as usual, the media is the last to hear about this real estate agent news. Price cuts, days on the market and list-to-sales ratios are all in flux in many areas of the country.

And, we’re not alone; Stockholm, London, Toronto, Sydney, Milan, Geneva, among others, are all seeing shifts in their housing markets.

While the market, overall, “still largely favors sellers,” according to De Lea, it’s expected to become more balanced in the very-near future.

If you have sellers on the fence, help them down by reminding them that their current upper hand in the market will only last so long.

Remind them as well that mortgage rates, while fluctuating, are still at historic lows and they may not be as rate-locked as they assume.

Zillow tells us which home features sell houses

Does anybody else find Zillow’s ‘2019 Home Features that Sell Analysis’ a bit misleading? In their press release about the study, they claim that for-sale listings mentioning ‘steam oven’ or ‘professional appliance’ “sold for up to 34 percent more than expected.”

In fact, homes with steam ovens “saw the highest sale premium of all the keywords analyzed.” They were, however, slower to sell, remaining on the market “22 days longer than similar homes in the same metro and price tier.”

Not once does the author mention “luxury homes,” in connection with this feature, yet even the extended days on the market scream “a steam oven is a luxury home feature!”

In fact, it’s probably safe to say that that you won’t find “steam oven” on the wish lists of most starter home buyers.

The analysis did study starter home features, yet the features they found most profitable were in-demand in the most expensive markets in the country, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

I highly doubt that the starter home in the Bay Area with a wine cellar (the third most profitable keyword for entry-level homes) is anything like what most Americans think of as a “starter home.”

So, while a pot-filler may be in great demand in starter homes in New York City, a young couple purchasing their first home in Des Moines probably has no use for one.

Location, location, location. Funny how it all comes back to that, right?

Real estate agent news – March was a lousy month for new home construction

“U.S. homebuilding dropped to a near two-year low in March,” according to Lisa Mutikani at Reuters.com. She goes on to claim that this suggests “the housing market continued to struggle despite falling mortgage rates.”

Lisa, Lisa, Lisa.

On the very day her piece was published, Andrea Riquier was over at MarketWatch.com telling us that mortgage application rates are skyrocketing, hitting a “nine-year high, even as rates ticked slightly higher.”

This suggests not only that consumer confidence in the market is at all-time highs, but also that the housing market is NOT “struggling.”

It is adjusting in areas across the country, but obviously when mortgage apps hit a nine-year high, the market is far from “struggling.”

It’s irresponsible stories such as this one that scare real estate consumers. And that’s the LAST thing we need in a correcting market.

Your job is to list and sell real estate, not battle against the misconceptions spread by the media.

In a nutshell, real estate markets are adjusting, nationwide. We’ve known this for months, so it’s nothing to freak out about.

This real estate agent news does, however, present an opportunity for listing agents to remind potential clients that they need to get moving NOW, rather than later.

Drive more leads to your website with these real estate website hacks

Grow your organic traffic with this little known blogging trick:

The post April’s Real Estate News Roundup appeared first on Easy Agent Pro.

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Meet the Real Estate Tech Founder: Demetri Themelis from Knock CRM

In our latest real estate tech entrepreneur interview, we’re speaking with Demetri Themelis from Knock (Rentals/CRM).

Without further ado…

Who are you and what do you do?

Knock is a CRM for property managers. We give them all the tools in one place to stay organized and engaged with their prospects and residents. Improving their engagement improve the experience for renters and the performance of apartment communities. 

What problem does your product/service solve?

Depends on who you ask. For renters we’re enabling a much better experience as they move through the customer journey (on-demand appointment setting, text notifications, more engaged property managers). For leasing teams, who are tasked with managing hundreds of relationships with residents and prospects, we reduce the burden of mundane tasks freeing them to engage at a much higher level.  For owners, we provide a degree of transparency into the sales and marketing performance of their multifamily portfolios they’ve never had before, allowing them to make much smarter decisions around marketing spend and staffing.

What are you most excited about right now?

In order to really dismantle some of the longer term cost structures associated with leasing, data is key. We’ve built an incredible data engine that will only become more valuable over time for our clients. 

What’s next for you?

We can’t do what we do without great people, the bulk of the money we’ve raised in this series A will be used to grow our team in almost every department. Software development, sales, marketing, account management and support – we have a quickly growing client list that are banking on us to keep delivering value to them. It takes a village. 

What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?

Mentorship for sure. I am always surprised by how willing people in positions of influence and power are to share their experience with youth. I am equally surprised at how few young people seek out their guidance. I enjoy opportunities where I can share any of my experience with students or new graduates entering the world of adults. If I can help them achieve their goals more quickly, or can help them avoid any of the mistakes we’ve made I think that’s a huge win and super fulfilling too. We’re planning on launching a formal mentorship program here at Knock, and if I had any spare time I would love spending it with students teaching them about the business world – because school doesn’t teach you everything. 

Thanks to Demetri for sharing his story. If you’d like to connect, find him on LinkedIn here.

We’re constantly looking for great real estate tech entrepreneurs to feature. If that’s you, please read this post — then drop me a line (drew @ geekestatelabs dot com).

The post Meet the Real Estate Tech Founder: Demetri Themelis from Knock CRM appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

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April Monthly Radar

[Note from editor: We publish a Weekly Radar for Geek Estate Mastermind members with a range of curated links and analysis/commentary that comes out every Friday morning along with member news to peruse. This is a summary for the month of April.]

Mastermind Summary

April was full of events. I spent three weeks on the East Coast, and produced the first Geek Estate Mastermind Soirée in New York City hosted at MetaProp’s new office space, PropTech Place. There, 30 attendees discussed the future of the industry while making new connections. Thank you to MetaProp for the use of their space.

Additionally, I attended CREtech Future in Boston, organized two group lunches in NYC, and Zillow Group hosted our monthly lunch in Seattle.

– Drew Meyers

New Members

Andrea Ballarini from Fabrica

Daniel Corkill from Follow Up Boss

David Chesnosky from Veritas Investments

Chris Lewis from Massive Property Group

Ash Zandieh from CREtech

Elie Finegold from MetaProp

Warren Lee from Addressable.AI

Erez Cohen from Knock

Member News

Congrats to Ritesh Bansal for launching Verus AI.

Keyo launched a Guarantee which guarantees rental income to residential landlords for tenants placed with their platform.

Zillow announced home loans and a new Premier Agent logo & scoring system (locked).

You’ve probably read about the commission sharing class-action lawsuit. Here is Russ Cofano’s take.

Congrats to Buyside for partnering with RE/MAX Results to bring buyer demand insights to Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Avail announced a $2.5 million round of funding led by Cultivation Capital.

Congrats to Sam DeBord for his new role as CEO of RESO.

Restb.ai announced a partnership with Tri-State Area marketplace to identify and display every floor plan within their 300K+ property image library.

Zvi Band released Success is in your Sphere, a new book with all proceeds going toward Giveback Homes. Talk about cool.

Congrats to Dave Zirnhelt for launching Top Rated Agents of 2018 for 49 Canadian cities.

BHGRE Metro Brokers Launched Buyside to over 2,400 Agents

Transmission Topics

Subscription models offer the diversification that brokerages desperately need.

The certain, total liquidity coming to houses and streets near you.

A one week hiatus to produce the first Geek Estate Mastermind Soirée.

Re-imagining the ground floor of real estate tech innovation.

APRIL MONTHLY RADAR

There are 5 links and analysis included. While we published the full November Monthly Radar, going forward we’re only delivering the full version via email. If you’d like to receive the February Monthly Radar (for free), ensure “Receive Monthly Radar/Transmission” is set to YES in your email settings by tomorrow morning.

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A PRIVATE GROUP OF INDEPENDENT THINKERS, FREE FROM SPONSORED MESSAGES, SALES PITCHES AND NOISE

There are four parts to membership:

Long form articles covering the spectrum from shipping container co-living spaces to the battle for listing acquisition in the first iBuyer world war (Weekly Transmission). A sample Transmission is here.

Curated real estate, startups, & built world links & analysis blended with out of the box ideas (Weekly Radar). A sample of the links and analysis is here.

Special reports (our first is a category review of Small Landlord Prop Mgmt Software).

Networking opportunities with 165+ innovators from across the globe through the private forum & in-person gatherings.

Membership is $97 / quarter

OUR MEMBERS PROMISE

We deliver an exclusive, objective lens into the trends, companies, people, and ideas shaping real estate technology with thought-provoking analysis and conversations that keep you inspired every week.

We help you make better, more well-informed decisions to help grow and support people and companies making a difference in real estate.

We enable discovery and meeting others with shared interests online and in person (whether they live near you or are traveling to the same conference).

We’re looking for the best and brightest founders, operators, innovators, & investors in the industry…

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The post April Monthly Radar appeared first on GeekEstate Blog.

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What is farming in real estate? (Part 2)

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In part one of Real Estate Farming we talked about how to choose your geographic farming area, determining the best size and doing the research necessary to ensure that it’s a viable marketing area. If you missed “Real Estate Farming” Part 1, you’ll find it here.

Today we’ll take a look at how to build name or brand awareness in your geographic farming area and ways that specific agents are using geographic farming in their real estate businesses.

But, before we dive into all that, take a minute to ensure that no other agent is farming the area you’ve chosen. Check the MLS activity for any agent’s name that pops up frequently. The last thing you want to do is waste time and money in an area in which another agent has an established presence.

Create a dedicated website or landing page for your geographic farming efforts

Before you start marketing to your geographic farming area, create an online “home” for your leads. This is where you will drive all your marketing. While a squeeze page works well for this, give Easy Agent Pro’s InstaFarm app a whirl.

You’ll find an example of how one agent used the app in this Easy Agent Pro video (at :35).

By the way, use basic online writing best practices when you enter the text below the header. The text in the video example needs way more white space. Shorten your paragraphs to no more than 5 sentences (less is better).

Avoid words such as “cumulative,” empty adjectives such as “great” and the word “families” (for obvious reasons). And, despite what Kelvin Krupiak (the video’s narrator) claims, you know better than to use crime statistics, right?

If you’re spending the time and money to drive people to this page, ensure that it’s compelling and readable.

How to build name or brand awareness in your geographic farming area

Next, head over to your neighborhood’s NextDoor.com online community. While you must be a resident of the neighborhood you choose, the platform includes posts from nearby neighborhoods that you are free to participate in.

Be sure to read the Community Guidelines – direct marketing to neighbors is considered spam and isn’t tolerated. You can, however, mention your services in responses to anyone looking for an agent.

The most important aspect of your participation, however, will be getting your name out there as someone who is knowledgeable and involved in the neighborhood.

2 Most popular marketing methods used by geographic farming agents

Now it’s time to become the “mayor” of your geo-farm area. Remember, like most marketing you won’t become an overnight success. This is going to take time, consistency and commitment before it starts to pay off.

Keep that in mind too, that when choosing marketing vehicles, go with those that you’ve been successful with in the past and those that you won’t mind doing repeatedly.

Door Knocking

For some agents, this includes door-knocking while other agents would quit farming if it was a requirement. Thankfully, it’s not, but it has been successful for many agents.

You don’t even necessarily have to knock—print up some door hangers with a marketing message driving the homeowners back to your InstaFarm page. Prospects Plus sells door hangers as does Vista Print.

We ran across a 2013 YouTube video produced by TopAgentInterviews.com. It includes an interview with Arizona agent Joshua Smith, who prints up 10,000 “cheap” doorhangers, delivers them to his farm and “lists 7 -15 homes per month.”

He teams up with a local title company to help defray costs and says he ends up paying about “10 cents a door to have them delivered.”

Direct Mail

When I was selling real estate, I relied heavily on direct mail for marketing to my farm. Back then, I had lots of competition. Today, more agents are choosing email, leaving less competition in mailboxes for agent messages.

And, the bonus is that people prefer direct mail marketing messages over email. See the stats for yourself and get some real estate direct mail marketing tips, here.

Additional ways to dominate your geographic farming area

Any online platform that allows you to target by ZIP code, is worth consideration. The two most popular among agents are Facebook ads and Zillow Premier Agent.

Then, join some online groups popular in your geo-farm. For instance, I belong to a Facebook gardening group specific to my city and you wouldn’t believe how many posts are from local gardeners asking for advice on how to move their plants if they decide to sell their homes.

Like NextDoor, these groups aren’t necessarily for marketing your services. Being visible in them helps get your name out there and humanizes you as one of their neighbors who, oh-by-the-way, just happens to be a real estate agent.

Offline, start getting involved in local events and groups. Sponsor the area’s kids’ soccer or baseball team. Throw an event, or help sponsor one. Volunteer to help clean up the park, walk dogs at the animal shelter or give talks on your hobbies at the area elementary school.

Geographic farming is ideal for the new real estate agent but don’t rule it out if you’re a veteran. Either way, consistency is key.

Learn from the best – here’s what the top 10 real estate agents are doing with their websites

Here’s some great tips to help your farm pages rank higher on Google:

The post What is farming in real estate? (Part 2) appeared first on Easy Agent Pro.

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New Agent 101: What is farming in real estate? (Part 1)

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One of the most confusing aspects of being new in any industry is learning the lingo. And, as you probably know by now, the real estate industry if full of jargon.

Today, we’ll dive into part 1 of a discussion of geographic “farming” in real estate: what it is, how agents go about the process of geo farming and how you can successfully implement farming in your marketing plan.

It’s not the Old McDonald stuff

Although you won’t wear dungarees, drive a tractor or slop the pigs, some aspects of traditional farming are analogous to geo farming.

For instance, the farming agent cultivates a geographic area (or a niche), plants seeds of interest in potential clients and nurtures those seeds until they become leads and (hopefully) clients.

The practice traces its roots back to the birth of the real estate industry and it involves various aspects of traditional real estate marketing, depending on the agent. These include door knocking (again, geo farming methods vary) and direct mail.

But it’s not all old-school. Agents amaze us with the fresh ideas they come up with and their willingness to share them with their colleagues.

The first steps to choosing a real estate farm

Before you can choose your ideal area for geo farming, you’ll need to know what type of real estate client you hope to attract. Typically, a farm yields both buyers and sellers.

But, is it condo clients, luxury home clients, golf course community clients or something else?  In real farming, crops are chosen on the basis of how profitable they are. It’s no different in real estate.

By “profitable,” we’re not talking large, expensive homes. Condos can be quite profitable if there’s a large turnover in your market.

Then, learn everything you can about the homes and the people who typically choose them. Condos, for instance, are attractive to retirees and young professionals (if they’re located close to work).

Depending on the community’s affordability, they may also attract a large number of first-time buyers. Speaking of which, if these buyers are the ones you choose to pursue, create a tenant “farm.”

Marketing to both tenants, as buyers, and their landlords, as sellers, can be a lucrative farming niche.

These preliminary steps will be invaluable when it comes to determining your marketing methods.

The type of home you want to list or sell will help also narrow down your choices of geographic areas to farm.

Crunch the numbers whengeo farming

Choose several areas that you’d think you’d like to farm and analyze their profitability. Questions to get answers to include:

What’s the average homeowner tenure?

How many of the homes are rented?

What is the vacancy rate for rented homes?

What is the average rent in the area? Does it exceed 30 percent of the typical tenant’s income?

What is the average sold price?

What is the turnover rate?

Last year, the median homeowner tenure rate, nationwide, was a smidge over 13 years. Younger homeowners, however, tend to move more often, staying in their homes only six years, according to the NAR.

The rate my vary by city as well.

Vacancy rate is an important statistic as well. Cities with high vacancy rates (typically more than 7 percent) may have a number of landlords wanting to sell.

From determining turnover, year-to-date sales and absentee ownership, your MLS is a gold mine of much of the information you need to help you build a farm.

The Census Bureau can provide you with all the information you need to determine the total number of homes in an area, the number owned vs. the number rented, an area’s vacancy rate, the year the householder moved into the home and more.

Enter your city or ZIP Code in the box on the United States Census Bureau, American Fact Finder website and click “Go.”

Then click on “General Housing Characteristics (Occupied or Vacant, Year Built, Rooms, Own or Rent, Home Value).”

Determine the size of your farm

Once you’ve chosen a general area for geo farming, take a look at your budget. If you’re a new agent and money is tight, go for a smaller farm area.

Coach Tom Ferry recommends 250 to 500 homes when you first start out and from 500 to 2,500 homes for the established agent. He also recommends that the ideal farm has a 6 percent or better turnover rate.

How much money you’ll need also depends on which marketing vehicles you choose. We’ll get into that next time.

We’ve merely scratched the surface of real estate agent farming. Check back for part 2 to find out how to hit the ground running in regards to geo farming.

Generate more leads with these 53 tips and 1 secret that will blow your mind

Here’s a simple farm page video strategy you can use to get leads to your website:

The post New Agent 101: What is farming in real estate? (Part 1) appeared first on Easy Agent Pro.

from theokbrowne digest https://www.easyagentpro.com/blog/new-agent-101-farming-real-estate-part-1/

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People are on the move. Where’s your relocation guide?

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Americans are on the move. Florida cities, for instance, took the top 15 places in a Lending Tree study of homebuyer migration. Texas and Michigan came in second and third, respectively, among homebuyers looking for homes in a different state.

States with the highest rates of residents looking to move away include Alaska, Hawaii and California. More than half of the residents of California say they are seriously considering leaving the state, according to SFGate.com.

Narrow that down to Millennials, and the state may lose 63 percent.

What are you doing to attract these new residents? Especially if you live in a southern or southwestern state, creating a strategy to attract folks relocating to your area is a must. Here are some relocation guide ideas to help get those movers in your funnel.

DIY or delegate?

When you decide to create a relocation guide , your next decision is to whether you’ll write it or you’ll hire someone to do it for you.

Making this decision depends on how much free time you have, how long the guide will be and how professional you hope it to look. If you already have some relocation guide ideas and it’s something brief that you’ll slap on your website you can probably do an admirable job on your own.

If, however, you want a magazine-style layout, a guide in E-book form or another medium, you’ll be better served hiring a professional writer.

Take a look at these agent relocation guides to determine which format fits your needs:

GreatLasVegasHomes.com uses a relocation guide published by a local title company (this most likely cut their costs significantly). Sadly, they aren’t asking for contact information to get the guide.

BIG missed opportunity. How will they follow up with these people seeking to move to their area if they’ve no way to contact them?

San Diego’s Team Aguiler offers an attractive, instantly downloadable PDF guide but, again, asks for nothing in return.

Then, there’s a bare-bones version from Odessa, Texas agent Steve Oliver and another from Colorado Real Estate Group.

Relocation guide ideas: Here’s what NOT to do

For an idea of what not to do when putting together your relocation guide, see Reid Real Estate’s version. If I’m relocating to a new area and land on this page, I would probably click away.

No offense; Reid Real Estate is most likely a fine company to work with.

But, using local jargon to identify the location you serve is dangerous. I, for instance, have no idea what “The West Sound” is and many folks relocating to Washington may be just as unfamiliar with it.

Nothing tells me which city’s or region’s relocation guide I received. Is it the one I asked for? Who knows?

Then, the next few pages are spent promoting the brokerage. Regardless of how badly I want information on a city I may be moving to, I’m not going to skim over marketing messaging to get to it.

Especially since other brokerages offer just the information I need, without the sales hype.

Finally, be mindful of the photos you use. They should be in-focus, compelling and, if possible, represent your city at its most drop-dead gorgeous.

Avoid the use of photos that may offend. Such as the animal cruelty photo masquerading as a sporting event in the aforementioned relocation guide.

Finally, after the time, energy and money you’ll put into producing the guide, don’t just give it away. The people who want it are warm leads. To not ask for contact information in return for a copy of your relocation guide is nuts.

What do these relocators need?

Do a quick outline of the content you’ll need in a relocation guide. And, as usual, the first question to answer is “What is the most pressing information someone moving here from out-of-town needs?” Here are a few relocation guide ideas to get you started:

Utility company names and contact information

Cable, satellite TV information

Internetservice providers in your area

Pet licensing information

Driver’s license requirements for new residents

School district info

Public transportation options

Information on area recreation, shopping, dining and entertainment options

Senior services

Neighborhood information

How to find and reach them?

One of the most brilliant ways to reach people who are relocating to your area is with a landing page. Here, they can enter their information and instantly download the guide, or have it emailed to them.

An excellent example of this comes from Jakovak Real Estate in Boise, Idaho. The only problem with it is that, after filling out the form, I never received the guide. I tried the same with a Raleigh, NC agent and, again, got only a spammy email and no guide.

Don’t let this happen to you. Let us know if you need help setting up your landing page or check out this blog post and the information available to you in our Beat Zillow Facebook group.

Other ways to reach relocators to your area is via targeted Facebook ads and, of course, Google PPC.

Then, beef up your website with lots of content (with targeted keywords) devoted to them. Use relocation-related blog posts, or set up a relocation section on the site. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Services for Baby Boomers in Greensboro, North Carolina

Best neighborhoods for commuters in Seattle, Washington

Preschools in Columbus, Ohio

How to find a new home in Henderson, Nevada

Wichita’s largest employers

Why we love living in Birmingham

What’s it like living in Omaha?

“When we break down the types of websites movers visit, it’s no surprise that they’re 2.8 times more likely than average to visit Utility sites,” according to research from Hitwise.com. They also find that the sites most searched by movers are in the insurance, travel agency and real estate industries.

In fact, movers are 20 percent more likely to visit real estate sites than average. So, get yours up to speed, start thinking of some great relocation guide ideas, get that relocation guide and landing page done and lure in the movers.

Looking for other ways to generate leads? Here are some techniques to help you land more deals and drive more traffic to your site!

Take your website’s SEO to the next level with this free hour-long webinar:

The post People are on the move. Where’s your relocation guide? appeared first on Easy Agent Pro.

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Your 2019 real estate direct mail guide

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Remember when “they” said that video killed the radio star? If so, then you must also remember them claiming that Y2K would cause worldwide blackouts and that email would replace direct mail for real estate marketing.

About 44 percent of direct mail pieces do end “up in the trash without being read,” according to the folks at 41pounds.com, a group devoted to “saving the environment 41 pounds at a time.”

But, instead of looking at the glass as half empty, the truth, at least according to their statistics, is that the glass is quite full – 56 percent of direct mail doesn’t end up in the trash without being read.

Then, compare that with email statistics. More than 75 percent of email is never opened. We would imagine that agents who force people to divulge their email addies before giving access to listings have an even higher failure rate.

So, while more than half of direct mail doesn’t get tossed, almost all business emails end up in the trash.

Is there another marketing channel that offers comparable odds for brand exposure as direct mail? If there is, we haven’t heard of it.

If email isn’t working as you’d hoped, it may be time to cough up a few bucks, find an active farm area and incorporate at least a bit of direct mail in your marketing plan.

Why use real estate direct mail when email is free?

Email is free, or low-cost, depending on how you use it. But what good is your drip campaign doing your business if nobody (or very few recipients) actually opens those emails and reads them?

You can go online and find tons of advice on how to increase your open rate – everything from changing your subject line to finding that just-right time of day to send your emails.

The bottom line is that consumers are bombarded by email to the point where “Today, it’s not unheard of for an individual to receive 1,000 messages a day,” according to Dave Crocker of emailhistory.org.

Think about your inbox. How many business emails do you actually read? If you’re like most of us, they get deleted immediately.

One thing we can say with a great deal of confidence is that few, if any, consumers get 1,000 pieces of snail mail a day. In fact, it’s doubtful they get that much direct mail in 6 months.

Because of this, real estate direct mail pieces don’t have the competition that emails do. In fact, all that talk of the death of real estate direct mail as a marketing method caused a drop-off in the volume of “junk mail” that consumers receive, according to the U.S. Postal Service.

Most of your competition is still laboring under the idea that real estate direct mail marketing is “old school.”

Don’t set them straight.

“If competitors are abandoning the mailbox, they’re leaving you with a huge opportunity to dominate the channel that achieves the highest response rate,” says Debora Haskel of IWCO Direct.

Less competition for your marketing message is a good thing.

Real estate direct mail and consumer trust

A couple of years ago, the people at MarketingSherpa.com interviewed 1,200 consumers about how they felt about various forms of advertising.

The question before them was “In general which type of advertising channels do you trust more when you want to make a purchase decision?”

Before you slap your next ad on Facebook or shell out for a PPC ad, check this out:

The study finds that ads consumers receive in the mail are the third most trusted, behind TV ads (at number two) and print ads from newspapers and magazines (number one).

Wait, aren’t “newspapers and magazines” on the death list mentioned at the beginning of this post?

But I digress. While 76 percent of respondents trust direct mail ads, 61 percent trust search engine ads and 43 percent trust “ads embedded in social media.”

Those pop-up ads everyone despises? Naturally they came in last, with only 25 percent saying they were trustworthy (gotta wonder who these people are, right?).

Volume down, response rate up

Ok, so real estate direct mail pieces get more eyeballs than email marketing pieces. What’s even better is that, as the volume of marketing messages via direct mail has decreased, the response rate has skyrocketed.

The statistics are breathtaking

“Direct mail still pulls a higher response rate than any digital direct marketing medium,” according to the number crunchers at Data Targeting Solutions.

Citing studies from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), they go on to say that direct mail’s “response rate ranges from about five to nine times greater than that of email, paid search, or social media.”

So, yes, a real estate direct mail campaign may cost you more than your email drip campaign. In fact, ANA figures that each response will cost you $49.20.

Considering your possible net from each response, we’d say that it’s money well-spent.

Nail your marketing with these 200 tips every agent can use

Get your real estate website ready for Spring with these tips:

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Beginner’s guide to social media for real estate (part 2)

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Is LinkedIn for real estate agents? How about Twitter and Pinterest?

Last week, we ran down the details on how to dissect a social media platform’s numbers to determine whether it would be a good fit for real estate marketing.

If you specialize in representing buyers, look for a social media platform that:

Boasts a large percentage of U.S. users

The largest percentage of those users includes those who are at least 45 years old.

Those users earn $88,000 a year or more.

Listing agents should ensure that the social media platform:

Has a large percentage of U.S. users

The largest percentage of users includes Americans age 40 and older

These users earn at least $90,000

The users primarily live in the suburbs

In part 1, we dove deep into Facebook and Instagram statistics. Today we take a look at LinkedIn for real estate agents, along with Pinterest and Twitter. Which social media platforms are right for your lead generation effots?

LinkedIn for real estate agents

LinkedIn is, at its core, a networking platform. Many agents believe that it’s only good for B2B leads or employee recruitment.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

“LinkedIn is the hottest B2C social media platform in town” according to Geraint Evans at Econsultancy.com.

In fact, Amazon, Target, Starbucks and Sony Music Entertainment use the platform to reach consumers, not other businesses.

While its user base is largely international (only about 25 percent reside in the U.S.) its other demographics pencil out perfectly. Unless you’re chasing Millennials because only 13 percent of the users are members of that cohort.

The primary LinkedIn users fall in two age groups: between 30 and 49 years of age and 50 to 64 years of age. They earn more than $75,000 a year and “41 percent of millionaires use LinkedIn,” according to Omnicore Agency.

Omnicore also finds that “the average CEO has 930 connections” on LinkedIn. And, as we all know, CEOs buy and sell homes like everyone else. All in all, using LinkedIn for real estate agents seems like a solid way to find clients.

Pretty Pinterest

Nearly half of Pinterest users hail from the U.S. The median age of a user is 40, although most who actively “pin” are younger.

Other demographics of interest to the real estate agent looking for real estate leads include:

40 percent earn more than $100,000.

The largest pool of users (34 percent) live in the suburbs, but nearly as many are city dwellers.

Although 80 percent of current Pinterest users are female, 40 percent of new users are male, according to Omnicore.

Pinterest is a dynamite lead generator if used consistently (almost daily). Is it dynamite for a service business, such as real estate? Some agents swear by it.

To get an idea of what they pin, visit Hopkins, Massachusetts agent Bill Gassett’s boards or those of Rochester, New York agent Kyle Hiscock.

Yes, Pinterest is a time- and labor-intensive platform but the learning curve is quicker than Instagram’s and if you use an image editing site such as Canva, you can pop out your pins quickly.

By the way, the experts at Omnicore say that the top category in the U.S. right now is “Art, Art Supplies & Hobbies.”

Caroline Forsey at Hubspotclaims that, last year, the third most popular category was “DIY home renovation projects.” Now that’s a subject fit for real estate boards.

Twitter – overrated?

If you listen to the hype surrounding Twitter you may think that it’s the end-all, be-all when it comes to real estate lead gen.

Wrong.

First, “80% of Twitter’s users aren’t American,” according to Paige Cooper at HootSuite.com. But, that’s just the beginning of why you shouldn’t waste even a minute of your precious marketing time there.

Most users are between the ages of 18 and 29

Only 20 percent of users who are within the age range of a typical home seller use Twitter

The largest share of users lives in cities

“Emarketer predicts that Twitter will only add 500,000 American users in 2019,” according to Cooper.

The largest percentage of Twitter users earn between $50,000 and $74,999 according to Pew Research.

Twitter “Usage among U.S. adults drops as age increases,” according to Shannon Tien at Hootsuite.com.

Unless those in their late teens and early 20s are members of your target audience – your most likely real estate client –Twitter should be last on the list of social media lead generation vehicles, well behind LinkedIn and Pinterest.

There are a lot of ways to waste time and money in real estate marketing. To get the best ROI, choose your social media platforms wisely. Determine which attracts your target audience and you’ll find the best fit.

Running out of marketing ideas? Here are some fresh ways to get new leads and listings.

How do you use Facebook to get the most out of your business? In this video, we explore how every agent can use some simple tips to grow their business and get more leads:

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Beginner’s guide to social media for real estate (part 1)

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So, you got into real estate because you wanted to be the master of your own universe, creating your own schedule and making at least a small fortune.

And that’s the beauty of the real estate industry – it offers those opportunities and more. Do it wrong, by not mastering your time and money, and you’ll end up among the nearly 90 percent who wash out of the business.

Or, among the majority of agents who earn a gross income of $39,800 per year (NAR).

Rich agents don’t spend hours creating pretty pictures for Instagram or Pinterest because “someone” told them it’s a good place to generate real estate leads.

Instead, a big part of social media for real estate agents is determining the platform that will give them the highest return for the time invested. And they don’t rely on anecdotal “evidence,” or old or non-authoritative information when choosing them.

In fact, they have a well-researched social media strategy, based on hard numbers and on how much time, effort and money they have to invest. Most of all, successful real estate agents base their strategy on an expected ROI for all that time, effort and money.

In January of 2018, we dove into the various social media sites, looking at user demographics to determine which ones would do just that, from a real estate perspective.

It’s 2019 and it’s time for an update. If you’re new to real estate, or even if you’ve been around for a while and are new to using social media to generate real estate leads, read on for some tips.

What statistics to look for when you dive into social media for real estate agents

It’s easy to find social media user demographics online. They’re in-demand by businesses large and small, so it’s worth the money it takes to conduct studies.

Keep in mind, however, that very few of those you’ll find, or find quoted, are real estate-specific. I’ve yet to find one that is.

So, while the fact that Instagram has “1 billion active monthly users” is compelling for Nike, Amazon and other global companies, the real estate agent needs to dig deeper.

Take no social media statistic at face value, because it doesn’t apply to your real estate business.

So, how do you drill deeper to find the nuggets that are relevant to social media for real estate agents?

First, make sure the stats you’re looking at are recent–at least within the past 18 months. Internet technology changes so rapidly that social media user stats from 2017 are useless.

Many sites will quote and (hopefully) link to another site’s stats, regardless of how old they are. Yes, it takes time to follow links all the way back to the original source, but this is your livelihood we’re talking about. Take the time.

Ensure that the source of statistics is credible. This is another “follow the links” game. If the author of the piece you’re reading doesn’t cite his or her source, don’t rely on the numbers.

Then, don’t buy into the hype of a social media platform’s overall visitor count. What you need to concentrate on is the number of AMERICAN visitors and then dig deeper into specific demographics, such as age and income.

For instance, Twitter boasts 326 million active monthly users and 100 million daily active users, according to FastCompany.com. That’s quite impressive on the surface.

Dig deeper and you’ll learn that 79 percent of Twitter accounts are based outside the United States.

So, your starting point when researching whether or not Twitter is a viable lead generation vehicle is to realize that real estate consumers in the U.S. comprise a significantly smaller pool. Drill down to your region and the number is most likely quite tiny.

Unless you’re selling international real estate, that number doesn’t bode well for someone who works in a location-oriented industry, looking to generate leads.

Finally, take a look at the demographics, particularly age and income. We’ll get into that in detail, in part 2.

The takeaway? When it comes to social media for real estate agents:

Find out how old the statistics are

Find out who made the claims

Dig deeper into total user count and demographics

Who do you want to work with?

When trying to figure out which social media platforms to use for real estate lead generation, it helps to have a profile of your ideal client.

If you’re going after first-time homebuyers, look for a platform with a large number of Millennial users. According to the New York Times, the average age of a first-time buyer is 32 and the average salary is $72,000 a year.

If you’re going after “the typical buyer,” target consumers who are around 46 years old with an average annual income of $91,600, according to the NAR (that would be Generation X).

The NAR says that listing agents will want to focus on consumers who are 55 years old and earn $98,800 (older Gen Xers and baby boomers).

Your social media strategy isn’t the place to throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks (especially if you’re buying ads). Get specific about your target audience.

Facebook for real estate lead generation

Facebook is the most widely used social media platform in the U.S., and its users span a wide range of age groups (with the exception of Americans age 65 and older).

In January of 2018, the largest age group on Facebook was between the ages of 35 and 54 and they earned more than $75,000.

Pew Research’s latest social media polls finds the largest age group on Facebook are those between the ages of 18 to 29, with the second largest group between the ages of 30 and 49.

What this tells us is that Facebook’s largest user pool most likely isn’t interested in the real estate market. If you’re buying ads, target them to the older demographics.

The average user’s income statistics haven’t changed from last year, with the bulk of them earning more than $75,000 per year. Of course, this is user-reported income, so it’s likely inflated.

How many 18-year-olds do you know who earn in excess of $70,000 a year?

A second large group earns between $30,000 and $49,999, according to Pew Research.

As we said back in January, “When it comes to Facebook, there is simply no reason why all agents shouldn’t include the site in their digital marketing mix.” You’ll need to use Facebook’s tools, however, to narrow your focus and target by age.

Is Instagram a good place to generate real estate leads?

Instagram hit a huge milestone in 2018: 1 billion active monthly users. Sorta makes you want to jump on the Instagram bandwagon, right?

Hang on a sec.

Only 10.5 percent of those users live in the U.S. and, of those users, only 21 percent are within the average age range of a typical home seller.

In fact, “Social platforms like Snapchat and Instagram are especially popular among those ages 18 to 24” according to Pew Research Center.

Instagram, then, is not exactly Nirvana for listing agents.

Unless this age group is buying and selling houses, it doesn’t make sense for the agent who hopes to generate real estate leads on Instagram.

Then, there is the labor-intensiveness involved in using Instagram.

“The average amount of time it will take you to create an Instagram post is 30 minutes to an hour and 25 minutes!” according to Jenn, a self-described “globally recognized [sic] expert in Instagram marketing,” at JennsTrends.com.

Instagram does fare a little better with users within the age range of the typical homebuyer and the first-time buyer than it did the last time we researched it.

Another noticeable change from the early 2018 numbers is that Instagram is beginning to attract users with higher incomes. In 2017, the average user earned less than $30,000 per year.

New statistics show that to still be the case, but the group of users earning $75,000 a year is growing.

When one considers how much time and effort must be expended to use Instagram, unless you have a social media manager on staff, the “financials” (time is money, remember) of Instagram use don’t pencil out for the real estate agent.

But, because the site is growing in popularity, it’s worth it to keep an eye on the numbers when discussing social media for real estate agents.

That’s it for today. Curious about how LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest stack up when it comes to real estate lead generation? Check back next week as we crunch the numbers for you.

Running out of marketing ideas? Here are 200 marketing ideas to keep your business fresh all year long.

Need more advice for how to get started with social media? Check out this useful video below:

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April real estate news you can’t afford to ignore

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Sure, you may have heard snippets of this April real estate news, but we doubt it — you’re busy. So, read on to learn what the media says is happening in your industry.

Do you ever read the housing market news at CNBC.com?

If you do, you’ll probably agree with me that it is almost always negative. It’s as if they look for the negative tidbits and play them up, in stereophonic sound and in living color.

This week their kvetch is that “There’s still a huge supply problem in the housing market.”

Really? It’s early spring… the market is barely underway, and these fools are going about scaring off consumers.

Yet, the sites that devote themselves only to real estate claim that  “Real estate agents say housing market is favoring buyers”(HousingWire.com.)

The RealDeal.com says that “US home sales drop as inventory grows in February: report”

“DFW House Prices Dropping & Inventory Rising,” according to KLUV.Radio.com.

I found more than a dozen similar articles about rising inventories in a cursory Google search.

Does CNBC get a kickback for depleted interest in the housing market because I swear they are over-the-top Debbie Downers.

The reality is that agents across the country are reporting that the market is “correcting.”

Inventories are rising (slower in some regions than others) and it’s beginning to look a lot like a buyers’ market (which we forecasted months ago).

I feel for you agents who have to deal with the ramifications of uninformed media reports. These people have a much bigger megaphone than you do.

My suggestion is to combat them with your social media posts, your newsletters and direct mail pieces. And, don’t you dare use any variation of “Now’s a great time to sell!

Let them know that only those who deal in real estate every day know what is really happening.

THAT is one of the few leverage points agents have left so, dammit, USE IT.

Nobody knows the truth about the housing market more than the boots on the ground—the real estate agent. So spread your first-hand knowledge.

Just when they thought it was safe to enter the housing market

All that jolly news for homebuyers doesn’t extend to some entry-level buyers hoping to get an FHA-backed loan. Even some loans in the pipeline since March 18 may be kicked to manual underwriting or out of the market completely.

In all, FHA’s tightening of standards may affect “40,000 to 50,000 potential borrowers,” according to Ben Eisen of the Wall Street Journal.

HousingWire.com’s Jessica Guerin reports that the changes come as a result of tumbling credit scores (an average 670 for FHA applicants last year) and DTI ratios above 50 percent.

Well, this is some interesting April real estate news

“Housing market cools down as homebuilding takes a dive” claims HousingWire.com.

Yet, over at TheRealDeal.com you will learn that “Home-builder shares are bouncing back thanks to lower mortgage rates.”

Wow. I can’t even wrap my head around the difference here. If you work in new home sales you may be able to reconcile this dichotomy. If so, please share.

“Economists expect rental prices to jump over the next year”

That there is a marketing opportunity staring you in the face. I mean, IF you need real estate leads.

Go after tenants.

But, be aware that this information comes from a “reporter at Business Insider.” Her real estate and housing market credentials are unknown.

She bases her conclusion on “Falling construction activity and housing shortages across the country.”

I think we’ve already concluded that housing shortages are a media construct. We know that’s not necessarily the case.

But the doom and gloom may just be doing you a solid on this one by steering tenants to home ownership.

The rest is up to you. Target tenants in condo and apartment communities. Then, laser focus your direct mail campaign to absentee owners. Get tips here.

We love listing agents

I used to be one. So, I have a present for you. Actually, it’s not MY present, but Clever Real Estate’s. And, bless them for doing surveys that the rest of us can learn from.

Did you have any idea that almost half of homeowners don’t know that they pay the buyers’ agent commissions? They think the buyer pays it.

And, no, this isn’t some study from 20 years ago, but one that was conducted in February of this year.

Oh, and nearly 40 percent of home sellers feel that artificial intelligence can do a better job than you can.

I don’t even know where to begin to offer suggestions on how to combat that one.

Going after Millennials? There’s only a 7 percent chance they will work with an agent.

Did you read that?

Here’s some tragic April real estate news – 93% of Millennials think you have nothing of valuable to offer

“They’re also 2x as likely to say a real estate agent was unimportant or not important at all to the home selling process,” according to Thomas O’Shaughnessy at ListWithClever.com.

Be prepared for a massive influx of FSBOs as current Millennial homeowners sell their homes if that one holds true.

The most important nugget from this study for listing agents, in my opinion, is that “65% of respondents said they’re willing to wait longer for a better price versus 35% of respondents who said their number one goal was to sell as quickly as possible.”

Read that again

Consumers seem to have an inherently better handle on the market than we do. So, take a cue from this April real estate news and push price over time.

And beat all those investors who are vying for listings by assuming that a homeowner’s number one hot button is a quick sale.

Real estate news isn’t something you can control. It seems as if everyone has an agenda.

The best you can do is be earnest, sharing the truth as you know it. After all, YOU are the expert.

Want more leads? Here are 53 tips ANY agent can use to get more leads.

Speaking of breaking news – LeadSites just released a new app! Learn all about the new vendors app in this video:

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3 Ways to manage buyer expectations

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I used to love watching the opening segment of a particular TV show about first-time buyers. I can’t for the life of me remember the name of it.

It opened every episode with the same agent, but a new buying couple each week. The agent had asked them which neighborhood they had chosen and then takes them on a walking tour of it.

As they pass homes for sale, she casually asks the couple to take a stab at guessing the list price.

As many times as I watched that show, I saw not one couple get anywhere near the list price and all of them underestimated it.

You no doubt deal with this particular misconception daily in your real estate biz. Buyers who long to live in a certain neighborhood or have their hearts set on a certain home style or size have huge expectations about you and the process.

The time for them to be set straight is before they look at homes. If that doesn’t work, drastic measures might, such as a showing them (during the consultation) a stack of MLS listings of homes they can afford.

But delusions about how far their FHA loan (with a 580-credit score) will take them aren’t the only real estate buyer expectations they have.

Are you helping feed into their real estate buyer expectations?

Despite the rhetoric from the housing industry and individual agents, now is NOT always “a great time to buy a home!”

We’re not saying you should enthusiastically advertise a crappy real estate market, but there is a middle ground in there somewhere.

You, as your buyers’ trusted advisor, are expected to give your clients an accurate picture of what they’re up against in the current market. It’s your job to help manage real estate buyer expectations.

Then, let them in your plan on how you and they will handle whatever comes their way.

Gently shoot down those “we need a circular driveway in front of our mega-mansion” wishes of the first-time buyer who can barely qualify for a mortgage.

Unless, of course, you love driving aimlessly around town, weekend after weekend, because their delusions don’t (and won’t) match reality.

The seller ain’t your daddy

You’ve no doubt experienced the homebuyers who insist on submitting a lowball offer and then ask for concession after concession. Not only are these offers insulting to some homeowners, they’ve just about said “aloha” to anything else they hope to get from the seller.

Let your buying clients know that, unless the sellers are desperate, they’re going to fight for every penny of their money just as hard as they are willing to fight to get a share of it.

You know what to do here, but for newbies: before you submit a lowball offer, run the comps and then share them with your buyers, explaining what the numbers mean.

If the home isn’t overpriced and, depending on the market, they may just need to strike a compromise between requesting concessions or submitting a lower offer. Again, we all know that neither may be acceptable to some sellers and utter insanity in some markets.

You can’t afford move-in ready in that price range

One of the things I remember most vividly about my daughter’s childhood was taking her with me when I was house hunting. We’d drive through neighborhoods looking at the exteriors of homes with for sale signs.

At one point, from the back seat (in her little, tiny voice), I heard her sigh and say “For sale, for sale – isn’t there anything for gives?”

That pretty much sums up real estate buyer expectations. The old “champagne taste and a beer pocketbook” mentality.

Many would never walk onto the showroom floor of the local Mercedes dealership and offer to pay half price for the 2019 S560 when the only Mercedes they can afford is of the, really old, high-mileage pre-owned variety.

Yet they think nothing of insisting on a raft of amenities in a home that is “move-in ready.” Sure, we’re all guilty of longing for instant gratification, but nobody is going to sell their turnkey, $350,000 market-value home for $250,000.

“It’s sort of the scourge of HGTV – [buyers] think that move-in ready means that it’s going to be completely to [their] taste, and fixer-upper means just change around some carpet, maybe some paint. And that’s not the case at all,” District of Columbia Redfin agent Dan Galloway tells USNews.com.

These clients require that unpleasant conversation wherein you explain that they are not going to get “flawless” at starter-home prices.

Surprisingly, you’ll avoid this whole mess if you’re working with Millennials. A recent Clever Real Estate study finds that nearly 70 percent of our youngest buyers “would put an offer on a home in need of major repairs.”

If your clients are in one of the older generations, prepare to have “those” conversations with them to help manage their real estate buyer expectations and avoid disappointment.

Improve your real estate website in minutes with these easy-to-use tips

Recommending vendors to your clients? See how LeadSites makes it easy with the all new Vendors App:

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Real Estate SEO Keywords For A Healthier Blog

When you blog or post to social media or write anything for your real estate business, are you aware of what matters to your audience?

Do you know what’s important to them?

To know that requires that you first know who these people are.

If you’re a generalist agent, you have a mighty huge group of people to get to know. Niche agents will have a much gentler learning curve and an even easier time determining the best real estate blog SEO keywords for their audiences.

Figuring out exactly who you’re targeting will help you to understand their intent when they perform real estate-related searches.

Not an easy feat, but well worth it if you hope to compete with the Google-first-page-hogs.

What’s their intention?

While once the holy grail of anyone trying to reach page one of the search results, real estate blog SEO keywords have taken on a secondary role to user intent. Known as “semantic search” – it’s an important aspect of SEO.

In fact, “Identifying keywords is no longer enough,” according to Aleh Barysevich at SearchEngineJournal.com. “Hummingbird ensures that ‘pages matching the meaning do better, rather than pages matching just a few words,’” he continues.

Hummingbird, by the way, is Google’s 2013 update. It was followed two years later by RankBrain, a machine learning/AI system that offers up search results that are, in its estimation, responses “to a query even if it doesn’t contain exact words from the query.”

It’s those frustrating results you get that have nothing whatsoever to do with your intention when you typed in a search term. Yeah, it’s not perfect yet.

Hummingbird, on the other hand, “ensures that … pages that better match searcher context and intent will rank better than pages that repeat context-less keywords ad nauseam,” according to Aleh Barysevich at SearchEngineJournal.com.

I’m more a tech dunce than a wizard, but even I can understand that finding mere “ real estate blog SEO keywords ” is no longer enough.

But, it’s the place to start.

Keep it local

There is no way you’ll outrank Zillow, Realtor.com and the rest of them for broad real estate blog SEO keywords, so stop trying. You don’t really want all visitors who are using that search term anyway, do you?

If your aim is to attract people who want to buy or sell a home in your market, make your aim more precise by using local real estate blog SEO keywords .

Start with basic real estate keywords: House vs. home

The keyword phrase “Sell my house” gets more than four times the clicks as “sell my home.” “How to sell your house” gets more than 13 times the clicks as “How to sell your home.”

In fact, the word “house” outperforms “home” most of the time in real estate-related searches. This holds true for buying as well as selling (“buy a house,” vs. “buy a home.”)

To verify what we learned about this from Google, we fired up the EAP random U.S. city generator and were given Stockton, California.

What we found sounds discouraging: there is simply no room on page one for an agent’s website, UNLESS, that agent’s site is amazing (which requires far more than keywords, as far as Google is concerned).

Make it a longtail keyword phrase, however, and you’re in business. “Buy a house in Lincoln Village West in Stockton CA” is not only SEO friendly, but it’s an easy phrase to incorporate into your content.

Which, again, brings us back to the reality of what it takes to snag a page one spot: your content that includes your real estate blog SEO keywords needs to be high-value and overall brilliant.

Here are some additional basic real estate blog SEO keywords to get you started:

Do I have to pay taxes when I sell my house in [name of city or neighborhood]

Should I sell my house in [name of city or neighborhood] or rent it

How to sell your house in [again, use the localizer]

How to sell my condo in

Depending on your market, however, some of the best real estate longtail search terms may not work. The search phrase “Sell my house fast in Dallas,” for example, has exploded 300 percent, according to Google Trends.

Use that keyword phrase, or anything like it, and you’re competing against a slew of cash-buyer investors.

When all is said and done, however, examining the search terms that led your visitors to your site is still one of the best ways to come up with keywords.

Whatcha gonna do with those real estate blog SEO keywords?

So, you have a handful of keywords for which you hope to rank in Google (or whatever search engine you’re targeting). Now what?

If you haven’t changed the template wording on your website to include local keywords this is the first place to concentrate your attention.

“This is a key part of the equation that is often overlooked when content is produced, it’s great that you want to rank for a specific term but the content has to not only be relevant but also satisfy the user intent.”

And, at least according to NAR studies, real estate users are searching, heavily, for hyper-local content (such as at the ZIP Code or neighborhood level).

Create pages that answer the questions your visitors are asking. “What’s it like to live in the Lovely Knolls neighborhood?”

“How much will it cost me to sell my house in the Oak Hills subdivision?”

Get to the meat of your answer toward the top of the page and give the details below that.

“It’s time to stop creating content around keywords,” warns Barysevich. Use the questions asked by visitors when your site popped up in their search results as barometers of what your audience is looking for.

16 real estate website hacks that drive more leads and listings

Your keywords influence more than just SEO. In this video, Josh explains how he used Keywords to reduce his adspend tenfold:

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Real Estate Slogan Ideas & Examples

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Branding sucks. It’s probably one of the most challenging aspects of starting any business, including a real estate biz.

Coming up with your unique selling proposition, brand values, colors, logo and tagline – who has the time and energy for all of that given the number of things an agent does in a typical day?

Which is why too many agents either lack a brand identity or have half-heartedly gone about building one. Most have what one marketer refers to as “nonsense branding.”

It’s really rather sad. After all, branding is supposed to help you stand out, right?

The reality is that as long as real estate agents refuse to delegate to experts the marketing aspects of their business that they aren’t good at, there will be embarrassing listing descriptions, really bad blog posts and they’ll use lame real estate slogan ideas.

Do you really need real estate slogan ideas?

While answering the question “Can a Tagline Help Communicate More About your Brand?” the folks at Franke+Fiorella, brand identity designers, claim that “Your tagline should educate and reinforce what’s unique about your brand.

And if you can do it on an emotional, impactful level, all the better.”

But, wouldn’t the space you use for the tagline be better filled with a kick-hiney testimonial? Or, as the folks at KendallCopywriting.co.uk ask: “Why give people riddles when you can give them answers?”

Then there’s the fact that with the explosion in mobile device use to access the internet, your marketing space is much smaller than it used to be. Are you going to fill that dinky spot with your opinion of your services (which means nothing to consumers) or with a client’s words, singing your praises?

A brilliant testimonial will do everything Franke+Fiorella hopes your tagline will do, only better.

It will educate and reinforce your brand. And, because it comes from someone who has actually used your services, it’s more believable than some made-up slogan that may not even convey what you hope it does.

However, if you feel you simply must have a tagline, let’s dig into ways to come up with one that doesn’t suck.

What your tagline should do

Taglines aren’t meant as a vehicle to do cute stuff with your name or to promote your hobby. It doesn’t matter that your last name is “House,” or that sailing is your passion. Some of the worst real estate taglines are plays on the agent’s names or allusions to their hobbies. “Allow me to sail you into homeownership?” Come on.

Done right, a tagline “can help a company communicate its purpose, difference and value.” Since taglines should be short, replace the word “and” with “or” in that sentence and Gary Slack nailed it at B2BMarketing.net.

You can’t do all three, so pick the one that you feel is the most important to convey when you’re looking for real estate slogan ideas. Hopefully, you’ll choose “difference,” because it is truly one of every agent’s most sought-after qualities.

To stand out in a sea of other cellular service companies, Verizon set itself apart by being the one with the clearest reception: “Can You Hear Me Now?”

Now, compare that to “Everything I Touch Turns To Sold,” “I’m never too busy for your referrals!” and “Coming soon to a closing near you!”

See what I mean? Lame, lamer and lamest.

Differentiating yourself is important, but it’s not easy. Especially if you do things the same way everyone else in your market does them. If, however, you do something different, then your tagline should convey that.

For instance, you provide full service to your listing clients. You don’t just mention staging, you pay for it. You pay for a pre-sale home inspection. You may even hire a handyman to fix stuff for your client or a house cleaning company to get it ready for the market.

What you do different is that you provide “Full Service, not Lip Service.” Yeah, you can have that one for your collection of real estate slogan ideas.

Real estate slogan examples

Since my sincerest hope for your real estate slogan ideas is that they aren’t boring and that they’re different from everyone else’s, I refuse to regurgitate the stuff from the various and vacuous online lists.

OK, so some of these real estate slogan ideas are tongue-in-cheek, but, hey, they might work, if differentiating yourself is your aim.

I’m Really Good at What I Do

Like Match.com for People and Homes

When Average isn’t Good Enough

Real Estate Made Simple

Home Selling Made Simple

Home Buying Made Simple

It’s Not Full Service if you have to Pay for Everything

Lucky You — Your Search for a Real Estate Agent Just got a Lot Easier

I Return Phone Calls

Hope Doesn’t Sell Homes. Marketing Does.

The Real Estate Rockstar

Forget the Rest, You’ve Found the Best

Let’s go Look at Houses

My Past Clients Say it Best

Simply Accomplished

I’m Fun to Work With

The Only Proactive Realtor in Town

Real Estate, Redefined

Home Selling, redefined

We put the ‘Real’ in Real Estate

I’m Different

Peak Performance Real Estate, Driven by Experience (thanks, Fabian Geyrhalter)

Because Not all Real Estate Agents are Alike

Taking your Home from Staged to Sold

Ask me about my Brilliant Marketing Plan

How can I Help?

The Bay Area’s Real Estate Marketing Mastermind” (insert your town)

Remember, a tagline or slogan won’t help anyone decide whether or not to use your services, but it may help them remember you.

Need more ideas for great branding? Learn from the top 10 real estate websites.

Looking for some great examples of real estate branding done right? In this special webinar, we explore how some EAP clients branded their businesses in creative and unique ways:

The post Real Estate Slogan Ideas & Examples appeared first on Easy Agent Pro.

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[theokbrowne]

Real estate agent news roundup

Gather ‘round the old virtual water cooler, agents. It’s time for the real estate agent news roundup.

Tired of cold calling? Take the free course and learn new lead gen strategies:

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Real Estate Agent News – Home prices up

Don’t you hate it when you read a national news item that is totally at odds with your local reality? You just know that your about-to-be listing clients are reading the same thing.

Redfin, for instance, put out a press release:

Redfin Report: Home Prices Up 0.6% in February, the Smallest Year-Over-Year Gain Since March 2012

Underneath that, they claim, in smaller font, that “Prices fell more than 8% in San Francisco and San Jose. Newark, Milwaukee and Buffalo saw prices rise more than 10%”

So, your client in Laurel Heights in San Francisco, calls, excited about the increase in home prices in February, obviously missing the small print that effectively says “Yeah, they rose, but not for you, Skippy.”

Then comes the “real estate is local” lecture. For instance, in Denver, at least according to the MLS, inventory shortages are easing but sellers haven’t caught on that they now have competition because prices are up significantly.

What happens when homes are overpriced? “ … homes are sitting on the market longer,” according to an excellent blog post from Englewood CO agent Jim Brown. And, the same thing is happening in pockets throughout the country, like Orlando, Austin (even though February sales were the highest on record) and Detroit.

Despite the trends, only 10 percent of consumers think that prices will come down this year, according to Fannie Mae’s National Housing Survey. So, sellers continue to wait for their home values to increase even more, as they, in reality, are starting a slow downhill slide.

There’s a marketing message in there for listing agents to spread to potential clients.

Get those buy vs. rent marketing pieces ready

Speaking of marketing, you may want to put together a cool infographic about buying vs. renting. According to our favorite queen-of-real-estate-doom-and-gloom, Diana Olick at CNBC.com, rents “… are now rising at the fastest pace in nearly a year.”

She goes on to say that the median monthly rent is now $1,472, which is an increase of $400 per year for the “typical renter.”

Marketing to tenants will be a particularly brilliant marketing strategy for agents who work in and around Orlando and Tampa, Florida; Phoenix, Arizona; Riverside, California and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Real Estate Agent News – Bad boomers

Imagine, a bunch of older Americans, who worked their butts off for decade after decade to buy their dream home who now happen to live in it and who also want to live out their days in it. Olick calls this a “trend.”

“The trend is removing an estimated 1.6 million homes from a housing market already in critical need of more homes for sale.”

Ok, wait.

How can homes that aren’t ON the housing market be “removed” from it? A pity she doesn’t explain that.

But, what’s bad news for the real estate market is sending the home improvement industry to the moon. Not only do many baby boomers want to stay in their homes until death they do part, they also have the bucks to do so.

Households headed by Americans age 55 and older spend significantly more money on home improvement than other groups, according to a recent study from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

In fact, that group accounts for “half of all current home improvement spending,” according to Jessica Guerin at HousingWire.com. Most of the work they’re having done will help them live in the home into their 70s and 80s.

What, we wonder, will the lowered sinks, the lifts and the lowered windows do to the home’s market value when the boomers’ kids go to sell these homes?

Real Estate Agent News – Bad a$# real estate agents

Did you read about the father-son agents in Hamilton, Ohio who caught the bad guy that broke into one of their listings?

Gun-control advocates aren’t going to like this one. The robber said he was armed, with both a gun and a knife and punched the younger agent in the face.

As you can imagine, that ticked Dad off big time, so the senior agent pulled out his own handgun.

That and pinning the bad guy to the ground was enough to subdue him until the police arrived.

Both agents have concealed-carry permits and practice at the shooting range once a month. And, in this case, at least, it paid off. We didn’t have to see real estate agent news about dead agents.

Wishing you a gloriously productive spring!

Running out of marketing ideas? Here is a list of 200 marketing ideas to get you more leads next month.

Looking for tricks to help boost your Facebook marketing? In this webinar, we analyze a successful Facebook ad and share tips you can use to get more business:

The post Real estate agent news roundup appeared first on Easy Agent Pro.

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TIC UNIT FOR SALE | 4214 Franklin Ave. | $715,000

Los Feliz Modern Private Oasis

4214Franklin.com

Nestled in prime Los Feliz near the iconic Shakespeare Bridge, is this completely detached and bright two bedroom home ready for you to call home.  The living room boasts bamboo floors which run throughout, two sliding glass doors providing an abundance of light and views out onto your own personal patio/yard with mature landscaping and enclosed by lush, tall hedges for privacy. This is indoor/outdoor living at it’s finest. This home has updated touches but still maintains mid-century charm with tray ceilings and clean lines. Spacious open floor plan, well lit bathroom with skylight, two generous bedrooms, in unit laundry, newer double pane windows, central AC with Nest thermostat and off-street parking for two are some of the features. Ideally located in the Los Feliz hills near all the shops and restaurants on Hillhurst and Vermont Avenue, moments away from hikes in Griffith Park and close to all on Hyperion but yet feels like a hidden oasis worlds away from the city. This is the first residence available in a four unit compound, each with their own private garden patios.

This is a new TIC community in Los Feliz! TIC communities are rapidly emerging in LA. For more information on TIC ownership, see www.andysirkin.com. TIC units are a great option for 1st time homeowners or entry-level buyers. Financing available – with as little as 10% down thru Sterling Bank, Henry Jeanes, HJeanes@sterlingbank.com. Contact listing agent more more information or to view.

Intimate 4-unit community with low HOA dues. 

4214 Franklin Ave.

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Details:

 4214 Franklin Ave.

2 BED/ 1 BATH

SQUARE FEET:  884 sq. ft. 

LIST PRICE: $715,000

HOA: $225/month

Off Street Parking for two cars

For more information, contact Listing Agent:

Liz McDonald, Broker TRG Realty Company, Inc. The Rental Girl Sales 323-313-5780 Cell liz@therentalgirl.com BRE #: 01449897

MORE FROM THE RENTAL GIRL ON TIC OWNERSHIP:

Read more about TIC ownership HERE

View all our current TIC offerings HERE

View The Rental Girl’s current properties for sale HERE

Visit Andy Sirkin’s website for more research on TIC sales HERE (Andy is the TIC attorney who pioneered TIC sales in the early 80’s in San Fran. His website has a wealth of info on TIC ownership).

Interesting in purchasing a TIC? Contact an experienced TIC Realtor®

Elizabeth McDonald, Broker & TIC Specialist liz@therentalgirl.com TRG Realty Company, Inc. The Rental Girl 323-313-5780 / Cell BRE Lic #: 01449897 

ABOUT THE RENTAL GIRL & HOW WE GOT INVOLVED WITH TIC: 


The Rental Girl (therentalgirl.com) is a full service Real Estate brokerage specializing in residential leasing and sales. We have been serving renters and landlords since 2004. We work with thousands of Los Angeles renters each year, and many of these renters are qualified to buy, but can’t afford or find a home in a neighborhood they want to live. In 2016, a client of ours introduced us to TIC ownership and we saw immediately how many renters and entry level buyers in LA could benefit from a TIC market here. We met with Sterling Bank, who was working actively to pioneer a TIC market in LA, and other San Francisco vendors. And so began our research on TICs. Since then, we have helped bring many TIC units to the market, and we have many new TIC communities coming soon. With every new TIC building that hits the market, more renters, landlords and realtors are discovering TIC sales and the TIC movement is growing rapidly. We love to share our accumulated knowledge, and support our real estate colleagues, landlords and renters and the TIC community. 


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How to Rock your First Listing Presentation

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One hundred milliseconds. That’s a thousandth of a second – one third of the amount of time it takes to blink an eye.

And it’s the amount of time you have to create a first impression on a real estate listing presentation.

“We decide very quickly whether a person possesses many of the traits we feel are important, such as likeability and competence, even though we have not exchanged a single word with them,” according to Princeton University psychologist Alex Todorov.

Rather scary, isn’t it?

Especially when we consider that homeowners only spend one day choosing a listing agent.

Knowledge, however, is power. So now that you know you’ll have less time than a camera’s flash to give off that authoritative, trustworthy vibe, use it wisely.

Do the groundwork before the real estate listing presentation

Feeling pretty amped after that invitation from a homeowner to come out and show your stuff?  It is exciting, but have you figured out where to from here?

That first phone call requesting a real estate listing presentation presents the perfect opportunity to do two things:

Prove your professionalism without the snap judgement of your face

Get critical information about the potential client and his or her home

In essence, this phone call may be more important than the listing presentation itself. Keep a list of questions to ask these leads on your smartphone so that you can refer to them quickly.

The NAR offers up a few suggested questions:

Why are you selling?

When do you need to move?

In your opinion, what do you think the home is worth?

How did you hear about me?

Have you made any major renovations or repairs to the home?

Who else is on the home’s title? Will he/she be present when we meet?

Don’t just jump into the next question after the prospect answers. In fact, take notes so that you can refer to the answers later. You don’t want to show up at the listing appointment and ask any of the questions you asked during the pre-qualification call.

Now it’s time to check out the prospect’s neighborhood. Tour every home that’s on the market within a 1-mile radius. Take notes on how it may compare or not compare to the prospect’s home.

Then, grab a list of sold comps you’ll use in your listing presentation and do a drive-by, again taking notes on the home’s exterior, location, condition and anything else that may be important.

Finally, do a drive-by of the subject home, taking note of its location and any nearby amenities that may help boost the price, such as a park, quality school, Starbucks or Whole Foods Market.

By this point you should have enough information to compile a thorough CMA for your new listing.

The real estate listing presentation

Listing presentations come in various forms. Some are completely digital while others are bound and some, created on the fly.

But it’s your demeanor that will be in the spotlight. Here are five things to not do during the presentation:

1. Don’t be late. Don’t EVER be late for a real estate listing presentation.

2.Prepare, prepare, prepare. Your lack of experience giving listing presentations will never be evident if you rehearse what you plan to say until it flows naturally. Have a question ready to use if you get stuck and don’t know what to say next. As they answer the question, take some deep breaths to calm yourself.

3. Plan on exuding confidence and one of the best ways to do this is by being prepared. Then, ensure that you are consistently making eye contact.

In fact, according to Forbes.com’s list of the 10 worst body language mistakes, not making eye contact signals either “deception or a lack of respect.” Looking down during the presentation may make you “look weak,” they add.

Sit up straight, look the prospect in the eye and ask questions frequently during the presentation.

4. Don’t bring another agent with you on your real estate listing presentation, even if it’s a member the team. More than one agent evokes suspicions of a tag-team tactic, making the prospect feel ganged-up on and uncomfortable.

5. Show the homeowners you’re engaged by nodding your head when they speak, smiling, asking questions and ensuring they understand what you’re explaining. Another way to show them you’re listening is by taking notes. Even if you don’t think you’ll ever use them, the act of nodding your head and writing down what they’ve just said is powerful.

Your real estate listing presentation isn’t to present the CMA (although you’ll do that); it’s the presentation of YOU. Although they’ll be interested in your research findings, understand that they’ll also be scrutinizing you.

We have every confidence you’ll walk out of that house with a signed listing agreement.

You absolutely can generate more leads online – here’s how.

Want more sellers? Target them on Facebook with this handy trick:

The post How to Rock your First Listing Presentation appeared first on Easy Agent Pro.

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