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Looking for real estate listing leads? Target landlords

Oct 16, 2019

Reading housing market news is an exercise in frustration.

For every so-and-so “sees stronger housing market this fall” and stories of the various “hot” real estate markets across the country, there’s a “Housing Market will Probably Slow” and “Housing Market may be at Risk in Recession” article.

The fact is, the housing market is sitting pretty right now, according to agents we’ve spoken with. Who knows better than those wearing the boots on the ground?

Remember, many of those who bought homes during the lowest point during the recession were investors – something the folks at CoreLogic refer to as the “investor buying fury of 2012 – 2014.”

Yes, many of these buyers were institutional investors, but the so-called “mom and pop” investors, bought a lot of homes as well.

Core Logic claims that small investor activity in the real estate market increased their share of the investor buying pool from “48% of all investor-purchased homes in 2013 to more than 60% in 2018.”

There’s your target audience: absentee owners who bought the property from 2012 to 2014.

Realtor marketing postcards for neighborhood updates — The Neighborhood Update postcard is available in the postcard section under the Neighborhood Update Series.

While homeowners may be loath to list during fall and winter, landlords are not. Especially after receiving your brilliant and laser-targeted marketing pieces, convincing them to sell.

They have tons-o-equity

Want to hear something surprising?

People “who purchased a home following the Great Recession have seen their home equity climb by 261%,” according to Alcynna Lloyd at HousingWire.com.

She calculates that the average homebuyer in 2012 “is now sitting on $141,000 in equity.”

Let that sink in. That’s a whole lot of equity, especially for a tenant-weary landlord who just wants out from under his or her investment.

The market is perfect for sellers

It’s only natural to assume that when prices skyrocket, owners sell. This market over the past year or so proves what happens when we make assumptions.

Homeowners aren’t selling.

The reasons are plenty: they’re afraid they won’t find a replacement home, they think their value will continue rising, they’re scared a recession is looming and they have no idea how much equity they have in their homes.

Investors, however, are in an entirely different situation and the bottom line for them is money.

“Investors who don’t have the longest investment horizon, who only want to do this for another five or 10 years may not want to wait and see when the next cycle comes,” Doug Imber, president of Essex Realty Group in Chicago tells Debbie Carlson at USNews.com.

Costs of owning are going up

When home values increase, property taxes do too. That’s a hunk of money that can easily turn a cap rate from good to bad.

ATTOM Data Solutions claims that in 2017, property taxes rose by an average of 6 percent in 2017 and an additional 4 percent last year.

With home prices continuing to skyrocket, it’s a safe bet that the new appraised values will bring an additional hike in taxes.

Just Listed postcards are available in the Postcard section under Just Listed Series.

Then, there’s that recession on the horizon

Landlords who needed to sell their properties during the last recession and had to sit on them instead may be nervous about a coming recession.

Never mind that home values have gone up in all but the last recession (which was largely caused by the bursting of the housing bubble). When it comes to our pocketbooks, common sense leaves the building.

Although most economists don’t expect the coming recession to impact the housing market, nothing is guaranteed.

A recession could very well impact their profit margins. If the competition is lowering rents, it puts pressure on all landlords to follow suit.

And, if mortgage rates remain low and rent high, it makes more sense for their tenants to buy a home instead of rent.

Rents won’t rise forever

Our research into how much rents have risen yielded numbers that were all over the map. ApartmentList.com claims that the national average, year-over-year rent growth is only 1.4 percent.

“Our national rent index fell by 0.1 percent month-over-month,” the report claims. “This is the second straight monthly decline in the index following robust rent growth through the summer, indicating that this year’s peak rental season has come to an end.”

Other points to highlight include:

Rents are outpacing income and that’s not sustainable
Building costs will soon outpace rental rates
The market is set to change, and supply could catch up with or outpace demand

The bottom line in all of your marketing pieces is one question: “Does this particular real estate investment still make sense?”

How to lure landlord leads

The first step in drilling down into the landlord niche is to choose a farm area. This might be a condo community or two or it could be a subdivision or even a ZIP Code.

Then, come up with a strategy:

Ensure your online presence shines.
Determine which marketing vehicles you’ll use to reach out to landlords. Think old-school on this one – postcards are ideal (and, no, not just because we sell them!).
Ask your title company rep for a list of absentee owners in your chosen farm area and take a look at our mailing list options.

Your first mailing can be anything from a current neighborhood update report to a just-listed or sold postcard.

The most important aspect of this lead gen method is to come up with a follow-up plan and then keep to it, consistently, at least once every two months.

The Tired of Being a Landlord postcard is available in the Postcard section under the Rental For Sale Series.

Happy prospecting!

Send the Tired of Being a Landlord postcard to a targeted mailing list of landlords.

Need help targeting the perfect niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list too l to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

PLUS: When you have time…here are Free killer tools to help your success this year!

1. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

Ready to take a vertical leap in your real estate career? If you’re looking for inspiration…and the tools and methods to dominate a market and go to the top in real estate…you’ll find them in this free book. – Click Here

2. “Get More Listings” Free Online Webinar

“Get MORE Listings & Begin to Dominate Your Market!” Free online webinar. Learn the 3-7-27 strategy for explosive growth, why 95% of agents have less than 20% market share, and how to become the agent everyone competes against. – Click Here

3. The 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do when. Four key market segments are included, Niche Marketing, Get More Listings, Geographic Farming, and Sphere of Influence. –Click Here

4. The Free One-Page Real Estate Business Plan

Treat your business like a business it is vital to long-term success in this industry. Some agents may put together elaborate business plans, yet there’s something powerful about keeping it simple. Check out our one page Online Real Estate Business Plan. – Click Here

5. The Free Online ROI Calculator

Consistency and automation are the keys to success. Discover how effective direct mail marketing can dramatically increase your bottom line. Enter your statistics in our Free online ROI Calculator and click the ‘CALCULATE MY ROI’ button to see your results instantly! –Click Here

May $250 Gift Card Contest Winners!

Jun 5, 2019

We have two winners!

A first place $250 Gift Card winner & a second place $100 Gift Card winner!

1.Congratulations Stacey Severn on winning our 1st Prize $250 ProspectsPLUS! Gift Card!

Stacey shared the following feedback with ProspectsPLUS!

“I like the flexibility in the templates, the ability to target accurately, and the fact that I don’t have to print labels or buy stamps, or take the time to put my mailings together.”

“It’s all done for me!”

Stacey’s latest marketing pieces she’s sent out include – Just Sold, Fence Sitters, and Just Closed postcards.

Just Sold, Fence Sitter, and Just Closed postcards (all available in the postcard section)

2. Congratulations Edna Wilson on winning the 2nd Prize $100 ProspectsPLUS! Gift Card

Edna shared the following feedback with ProspectsPLUS!,

“This has been a game changer for me and my business!!!” I highly recommend them for all your postcard and printing needs“.

Edna’s latest marketing pieces she’s sent out include – Get More Listings, Agent Introduction, and Up Load Your Own postcards.

Get More Listings, Agent Introduction, and Open House postcards (all available in the postcard section).

Take the lead from Stacey and Edna and send at least 100 marketing pieces to an area where you want more buyers or sellers!

You might also like to read:

How to Harness the 5 Key Traits of ‘Rock Star’ Agents

Agent Facebook Success: Rules of Engagement

Need help targeting the perfect niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

How to Turn One Listing into FIVE

May 27, 2019

In the words of the ultimate real estate marketer, Dean Jackson, “If you have one listing, you actually have an opportunity for at least five transactions.” Dean Jackson is the founder of GoGoAgent and Listing Agent Lifestyle. The following is his breakdown of how to turn one listing into 5 or more transactions using his listing multiplier method.

What money are you leaving on the table?

To understand your current ability to multiply your listings you need a measurement tool that defines where you stand and what you are leaving on the table. Enter the Listing Multiplier Index, a tool created just for this purpose.

Before you figure out where you stand, let’s review the 5 transactions available to you that all stem from that one, initial listing.

Listing Opportunity One: Your first opportunity is selling your initial listing, which most agents focus their attention, right? You do your job, launch a property, a buyer came along and purchased it and now you celebrate smiling in content at your commission.

Listing Opportunity Two: Hold on, don’t walk away so happy. You missed the opportunity to find the buyer. The person who bought the house you listed. It’s a great way to make twice as much money – find the buyer to buy the house you list.

Listing Opportunity Three: So you are now on the hunt for the perfect buyer for your listing, guess what, you have just opened up another opportunity. That buyer, if not interested in your listing, may buy another house through you, cha-ching, that’s the sound of opportunity number three.

Listing Opportunity Four: From marketing in the neighborhood of your listing, you create an opportunity to get another listing in this same neighborhood. Time to make sure everyone knows who that neighborhood’s expert agent is.

Listing Opportunity Five: The most important opportunity to orchestrate at the time you are setting up your listing is your referral from the seller. Start to plant this seed early on with your seller, so it is a natural occurrence for them to provide you with referrals by the end of their experience.

Related: The Secret to Converting Leads

Let’s check your current listing score

To determine your score, use your last 10 listings. You get one point for selling your listing, one for finding the buyer, one for finding additional buyers to work with, one for getting another listing in the neighborhood, and one for your referral. You have the ability to achieve 5 points for each listing, that’s 50 points total.

How many points out of 50 did you have? The score I find most agents fall into is between 8 and 15. Maybe you ended up with 10 points total, meaning all of your listings sold, but nothing more.

You achieved those 10 listings because your current “system” is set up to get a property on the MLS, stage it, price it right, promote it to other agents and get the property sold quickly.

In the past, you may have celebrated your average 7 to 10 days on market or your 98% of the asking price or 99% or 102% or whatever it is. But the reality is you likely lost a lot of money as well.

What money have you left behind?

Let’s take another look at your initial listing and say that each side of those transactions is worth $10,000. If you’re in an area of $300,000 homes or $350,000 homes, you’re looking at a $10,000 commission times 10 listings, which means you would have made $100,000. But what you missed out on was the $400,000 that you could have had if you had created a systematic way of multiplying your listings.

Just focusing on this fact can make a difference for you going forward. Even simple awareness can change things. Knowing that you’ve lost $400,000 on the last 10 listings that you had is an interesting place to start over from.

How many transactions are YOU missing out on?

Take the score you ended up with above, we’ll use 15 as an example, and divide it by 10 to get an index. 15 divided by 10 gives you an index of 1.5. This means every listing that you take is worth 1.5 transactions. You currently are missing out on three or more possible transactions from that listing.

Now you can see why being focused on this ” listing multiplier” approach is the answer. Rather than focusing on, “I don’t need to do Just Listed/Just Sold cards, infoboxes, or open houses because all of my listings sell so quickly”.

Focus on what NOT doing these things is costing you. Specifically, if your goal is to maximize the dollars you get out of every listing you touch.

The future success of your business

By applying this method, I’ve seen agents go from a 1.0 on the Listing Multiplier Index to a 3.5, with some simple changes and attention to detail. They went from making $10,000 in commission to $35,000 from one initial listing! That’s working smarter at its finest.

Imagine what it will be like to turn every listing that you take into multiple transactions. Imagine what kind of effect that will have if every time you take a listing, instead of getting one transaction, you get three or more.

What kind of impact will that have on your business going forward?

To learn more about the incredible tools and resources Dean has available for agents go to GoGoAgent.com and ListingAgentLifestyle.com.

You might also like:

Become a Market-Maker

More Referrals the Easy Way

Need help targeting the perfect niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

PLUS: When you have time…here are Free killer tools to help your success this year!

1. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

2. “Get More Listings” Free Online Webinar

3. The 12 Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

4. The Free One-Page Real Estate Business Plan

5. The Free Online ROI Calculator

Go fishing on Facebook for real estate leads

May 13, 2019

“Successful marlin fishing involves having the right gear, knowing the right fishing tactics and techniques, and being in the right place at the right time,” according to FishermansOutfitter.com.

The same can be said about anything one is trying to capture, from a mouse or a crook to the perfect photograph and, yes, real estate leads.

The challenge for many real estate agents attempting to capture leads is that, while they may understand tactics and techniques, they lack the proper gear.

So, let’s start with that and then get into how to use that “gear” to lure real estate leads on Facebook.

Mackerel or marlins?

Real estate agents can learn a lot about lead generation and capture from the fishing world. And, the first step is to determine who it is you’re trying to lure. Gone are the days of agents marketing to “anyone who is breathing.” It’s inefficient and ineffective.

Who do you want to work with, buyers or sellers? First-time buyers or repeat buyers? Luxury homeowners or condo owners?

Figuring out what you’re fishing for and then who these people are is key to any marketing strategy, most especially when you’re marketing on Facebook.

Before you do any further planning, head over to Facebook’s Policies to ensure that your promotion follows the rules.

Choose your lure

Watching a video of man- or woman- against marlin, it’s easy to assume that the most challenging part of catching one is the fight. The angler, strapped into a boat’s fighting chair, pumping and reeling, while the huge fish leaps and spins, makes for compelling footage.

But, “big blue” didn’t just stop by and ask for the fight – he (or she) responded to a lure.

And, not just any lure. Depending on species and sea conditions, the boat’s captain will choose from an array of lures he or she feels will be most attractive to the fish.

Premium content might hook them

Premium content is one way to lure Facebook leads. This type of content is different than what you offer by means of blog posts. It’s “a type of digital content that may be accessed for a fee, and is usually of higher quality or more desirable than free” content, say the folks at Techopedia.com.

You won’t, however, be charging a fee for your content. You will, on the other hand, ask for information in return.

And, now that you know who you are “fishing” for, determining the type of content to offer is a whole lot easier.

Remember, it’s called “premium” content for a reason. It’s higher quality than regular content, longer in length and, as the Techopedia folks say, it’s “exceptionally informative.”

An ideal type of premium content is a Free Report. Offer Free Reports in person, through direct mail, email and add to your website as a free download in exchange for an email.

There are a variety of long-form content types from which to choose:

A list and in-depth description of down payment assistance programs
Infographic
Tutorial
Ebook
In-depth guides, such as city guides, neighborhood guides, buying and selling guides, relocation guides.
Reports (basically just 3,000-word articles)
Checklist (staging, moving, loan application, etc.)
Long articles (at least 3,000 words)

Get more tips on creating and marketing with premium content at LinkedIn.com.

Facebook giveaways to lure real estate leads

A prize giveaway is another way to lure Facebook leads.

And, make no mistake, what you’re giving away is key to the promotion’s success. “I mean, who’s really going to take the time of day to like, comment on, and share a post when all they stand to gain is a $15 gift card for coffee?” asks Pat Hiban at ActiveRain.com.

“Almost no one,” he claims. Take the time to carefully consider an item that you’re contemplating giving away. Hiban lists several that worked well for other agents:

Family passes to a popular local attraction, such as a waterpark or amusement park.
Tickets to a sporting event. Hiban suggests “tickets to a local team’s upcoming game or even tickets to college games often work.”
The latest smartphone

Or, make the prize appropriate to an upcoming holiday. In 2017, Chattanooga attorneys Warren & Griffin gave away a stainless-steel barbecue grill and threw in a $50 Walmart gift card that the winner could use to purchase the goodies to cook on the new grill.

Use your favorite graphics program to create compelling Facebook posts to promote the giveaway and ensure that everything steers them to a dedicated squeeze page where you’ll capture their information.

Facebook’s rules state that users can’t force participants to share, like or follow to be entered for the prize. So, don’t force them. Hiban offers a brilliant alternative:

“Know someone who needs” a new grill? “Share this giveaway so that they have a chance to win!”

Get more Facebook giveaway ideas and tips at Wishpond.com and Hootsuite.com.

Show them you know what’s on their mind (available in the postcard section under Get More Listing Series)

Another way to generate leads is to send at least 100 Should You Stay or Go postcards from the Get More Listings Series to an area where you want more leads.

You might also like:

Agent Facebook Success: Rules of Engagement

A Refresher Course in Attracting New Clients

Need help targeting the perfect niche of buyers or sellers? Use our mailing list tool to create the ideal list (it’s easy) or call our support team for assistance at 866.405.3638!

PLUS: When you have time…here are Free killer tools to help your success this year!

1. Become a Listing Legend Free eBook