Over the years working with new Realtors® I notice there was no roadmap to ensure they covered all the steps to be a successful Realtor® so I broke down all of the tasks, prioritized them and added a recommended time frame.
Click on this image at the bottom of the slide show to increase the size.
I have written before about open houses and while I cannot speak for every city, every market, every country and every price range I can’t imagine why a Realtor would not hold an open house.
To be fair and balanced in this blog the arguments against open houses are usually:
I have visited thousands of website in the last 18 years and I think is the first buyer-centric website, at least in Canada. Yes, a website designed to attract buyers. If this is the only website targeting buyers there is little or no competition. As Realtors® you know the pros and cons of working with sellers and buyers and there are fewer Realtors® wanting to work with buyers than sellers, but the Walker Ottawa team see things a bit differently. Click here to view the live website.
The concept was to make it as easy as possible for a buyer to drill down to the home, condo or townhouse of their dreams.
On the Home Page you have three choices. Are you looking for a house, townhouses or condo? That’s it!
According to data published by Realtor.ca here are the top keywords searched in West Vancouver.
Keywords are gathered from what a visitor enters into the keyword search field, found in the “filters” section of REALTOR.ca
Realtor reviews on social media leave a lot to be desired. Not only is every agent sporting a nearly perfect five stars on Facebook, but for realtors, acquiring leads from their friend list is a near-impossible endeavour. This is why social media marketing is a pay-to-play game, but it doesn’t guarantee any sales.
Realtor review sites are changing the game in terms of how buyers and sellers find their agents, and how agents get leads.
Along with peer recommendations, review sites like Yelp and Rate-My-Agent.com are where most people start their search for realtors in a new area, a new property type, or when first getting into the market. A survey by BrightLocal found, 76% trust online reviews as much as recommendations from family and friends.
We recently completed two real estate Landing Pages for the Fincham Team of Magnetawan, ON. One is strictly for new listings in Muskoka and the other is for new listings in the Parry Sound area. These sites will be supported by blogging, Adwords and Social Media advertising.
A while back we wrote an E-book titled How to Make Real Estate Direct Mail More Effective.
What are the top 3 ways to improve the effectiveness of your direct mail program?
#1: Use Headlines That Grab Attention
#2: Scheduling
#3: Mix it Up
Click here to download the E-book. How to Make Real Estate Direct Mail More Effective
Great post on MailMunch comparing these to Contact Management solutions.
MailChimp and Constant Contact are two of the most popular email marketing service providers .
It can be difficult to decide which one to choose if you’re not familiar with them.
That’s why we are comparing both tools in this post and explaining in full detail what they have to offer.
Both MailChimp and Constant Contact are rich in features and functionality that can help you become an expert at email marketing.
However, there are some differences that are worth discussing in this chapter.
The article goes on to detail the pros and cons:
Wordtracker published an excellent post about how to use Google My Business to achieve the best results. The Infographic below was designed by Headway Capital.
Google My Business is a powerful tool for business and a way to stand out from the local competition. You can control what appears about your business on the search results, present key information and manage your brand reputation.
With 80% of customers using search engines for local information and 70% of customers visiting a store or making a purchase after a search, it’s a really effective way to get your business visible and translate online searches into actual visits and sales.
If you are a Realtor reading this it might seem obvious that you should sell the house to the potential buyers, but are you doing it effectively?
Other than the owner you know more about the house than anyone else and you may have put some of the information into a Feature Sheet or an Enhancements and Improvements Sheet, but when the person most interested in buying the home is walking through it are they going to appreciate all of the subtleties of the home?
If you are walking them through the house and remember all of the features you can point them out, but here is a better idea.
Type or write out the features on a small, plain index card or tent card and place or tape the Feature Signs around the house.
For example if there are self-closing drawers in the kitchen you could have a card that reads “I am self-closing – Try Me” taped to the drawer. If a closet door leads to extra large storage space place a sign on the door that reads “More than a closet – 80 square feet of storage“.
Think of all of the buyers that wander through houses appreciating only the tip of the iceberg.
