What Can I Offer Sellers?

In the REAL Talk Real Estate Experts Digest a REALTOR named Joe says he's looking for something he can offer sellers so they'll fill out his Capture Form then he can follow up and get the listing. Following are my comments.

Joe,
Do you have a listing presentation? What do you offer that other agent's don't? For instance, I'm putting together an expired letter, it'll read something like this:

Dear Mr and Mrs Seller,

Your property with XYZ Company recently expired. This is a really tough market. Do you think it would have made a difference if your property had been marketed? Really, seriously and deliberately marketed with:

• Visual Tour hosted on YouTube
• Syndicated Online Exposure (3,000 plus feeds)
• Hyper-Local Print Marketing (with the Real Estate Book and Homes and Land)
• National Franchise = National Exposure on Specialty Websites
• Local, Regional, and National Website distribution
• Franchise advertising in 60 magazines and 100 newspapers to drive on and offline buyer leads
• Personalized URL with QR Codes 

This, in addition to what nearly every REALTOR offers: local MLS listing with an IDX feed and a yard sign, online photo hosting and syndication to Zillow, REALTOR.com, Trulia...

You can build a capture form around nearly any criteria. Who in your market do you want to list? Are you looking for any seller or a specific group of sellers? What would be an item of value to them? Information? Service? A Guarantee? Home Warranty? Answer these questions and you'll be well on your way to targeting your market and creating a capture form that will attract the clients you want to work with.

I rarely use lead capture and I do NOT use Lead Capture on the website I maintain for my buyers. I hate to be captured and I'm not going to do any capturing. Internet shoppers want to find what they're looking for. Toward that end I push my listings as far as possible, with as much power as UnitedCountry.com and their publications can put behind me and with as much power as I can get from my own syndicates. I PUSH listings, via several vehicles I manage. It's called funnel marketing, I don't have time to go after people. I am using search engines to drive traffic to my listings. People come to me. I field phone calls from self-qualified customers instead of running down targeted market leads. I help people, instead of convincing them. What I do involves no coersion, it involves overcoming no objections, it involves cooperating with and helping people to get what they want. It involves bringing together two halves of a real estate transaction with skill and finesse. It involves negotiation skills, tactical skills, human relations skills, and technical skills. If you acquire these skills, you'll be plenty busy without capturing leads.

Home Staging Tips

Friday, May 11, 2012 and I was meeting with a home owner to discuss staging her home for resale. Her home is absolutely lovely, in a desperate reach to find something wrong I suggested that she refold the towels in her linen closet so they would be tidy when you opened the door. "When buyers open doors," I said, "and they find towels folded, precisely, just so, when they open closets and they find clothes hung on identical hangers, just so, they feel like they're buying from a persnickety homeowner and they trust that the meticulous attention to detail carries over into everything, mechanical, and maintenance, and usually it does."

In an effort to help her with some staging tips, and this sort of seller needs no help, the house is immaculate, I dug around online and found this absolutely brilliant offering with a share button. Thank you twice Julea, once for writing the piece and again for sharing it.

10 Home Staging Tips to Make Your Listing Look like a Model Home 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Interior stylist Julea Joseph produces the blog “Reinventing Space” and is a home stager and interior designer based in Chicago. Joseph launched her home design business, Reinventing the Space, in 1999. She also stages model homes for builders and has appeared on HGTV’s “My First Place.” Learn more about Joseph at her web site and blog.

Realtor Magazine has some great online material too. Home Staging Guide: http://realtormag.realtor.org/home-and-design/staging-tips here you'll find several links to articles that, if you're preparing your home for sale would make sense to peruse. Some of them will be interesting, as with anything, take what you want and leave the rest. I saw one about curb appeal, I think I'll pop back over there and read it.

Call me if you have questions.

May 2012 - Newsletter For Sellers

I’ve set all of the sellers I work with up with List Hub and you should begin hearing from them the first of every month. I expect to get online viewings if we’re not getting showings. I’ve been working this area for about 10 years and we have always had Internet interest. Sometimes a picture might need to be changed – when you go online to look at property and you keep seeing the same ole - same ole - it's boring, you've seen it, it's market stale – a listing that people aren’t looking at. I don’t care how old your pictures are if you’re getting clicks! Sometimes people WANT to see a spring time picture in the dead of winter or a fall picture in the summer. The point is to get your listing in front of as many eyeballs as possible. And clicks are eyeballs, click throughs are looking for more information.

As you know, price ALWAYS sells so the one way you can guarantee a sale is to reduce your price by $10K every month until you have multiple offers. That’s how the foreclosures sell. The asset management firms reduce, reduce, reduce, and reduce until they have bidding wars. Trust me, it’s effective, it works every time. For those of you who can not or do not want to go there, let’s hang in. I am building inventory and hope when things begin to turn around that I have to hire assistants.

It’s a lot easier to do the newsletters since I left Constant Contact. Although it was a super program, it wasn’t as easy as typing a note. If you want to see what I’ve been up to with bells and whistles visit me online at my real estate blog from there you can go to my website and over to Golden Valley. I’ve been using some of Home and Land’s visual tours to supplement my YouTube tours – they’re online at my United Country Real Estate Website, I look a little smug, in that picture, I was probably trying not to laugh. Listings are in order by price, wait for yours to flash by and click on it, or use the scroll key to fast forward and click on it.

I held a Broker’s open house this week at Smokey’s Den and served lunch. We had made to order deli sandwiches, with pickles, chips and called drinks. I fixed sandwiches in the kitchen while the Broker’s toured the house. Luckily I think this is great fun! I’m fortunate, you see. I love taking pictures of houses, I still haven’t opened a door and not been curious to see what lay behind it. I love houses, I love land, I do not, however, love chiggers and I’m getting over being slam eat-up with ‘em. I picked them up setting signs and checking lots. Consequently, I’ve contacted a landscaping firm to see about getting some of your lots cut. The grass is growing and it’s high, too high in some cases to drive into. So, I went around with a maintenance sheet and have made a list of lots to revisit with my local landscape guy, Clayton Self. We’re going to see what it’s going to take to clean up your road frontage (and maybe more). I’ll be in touch if your lot needs work and I hope I have a price for you. Several of you have already had your lots cleaned up, thank you! It’s hard to show property when potential buyers are scared to walk on the lot.

I choose Clayton because he lives in the area and has been in the business for years. He’s good, he can readily follow up with his crew, their work is excellent, he has experience, equipment, and last but certainly not least insurance. The same may be said of Brad Ford at BRS Landscaping, Brad's firm handles a lot of Fall Creek's Developments and he's good, too. Located between Rutherfordton and Lake Lure, BRS has a lovely roadside location, and a public storefront is in the works.

The Zillow reports came in, as did Trulia, and List Hub, and they’re all screwy, mostly on account of all of the account maintenance I’ve been doing. Your property is online, the reports I’ve signed you up for will arrive automatically.