real estate blog

Take Control of the Real Estate Market Narrative and Keep it Positive

May 22, 2023

“The party’s over for America’s Housing Market …,” blasts a headline from MarketWatch.com.

“Is The Housing Market About To Crash?” asks one at BankRate.com.

This is the real estate news that consumers are hearing daily. It’s quite challenging, in fact, to find positive news.

Even though there is positive news.

It appears that agents who want the good news pushed out to help counter the bad need to take control of the narrative.

If you pride yourself on keeping in touch consistently with those in your CRM, whether by direct mail, social media marketing, or anything else, blasting out the good news is not difficult.

Real estate consumers beg to differ with the media tale

A funny thing happened to the media narrative on its way to becoming an ever-more negative Nellie. Fannie Mae released its Home Purchase Sentiment Index®, proving that real estate consumers are more positive than the media thinks.

“Fannie Mae’s Home Purchase Sentiment Index® (HPSI) jumped 5.5 points to 66.8 in April, marking the highest monthly gain in two years,” Adam Barnes said at TheHill.com.

62% of those surveyed said it’s a good time to sell. This represents an increase of “… 5 percentage points month over month,” Fannie Mae suggests in a recent press release.

Optimism about the housing market from those who will actually be involved in it. Who would’ve thought?

There is more positive news

March was a great month for home sellers. According to ShowingTime, there was an increase in foot traffic through homes for sale (mostly in the Midwest).

The low inventory prevents many would-be buyers from continuing their home searches, so the news that showings increased is very good.

If you have fence-sitting homeowners, share this news with them. And, just FYI, “Not all regions fared the same in March,” according to the pros at ShowingTime.

“The overall increase in showing activity was driven by the Midwest, up 18% from February, and the Northeast, up 15%. The South stayed relatively flat with a monthly increase of 1.4%, and the West dropped 2.7%.”

Your part in the process

Sharing the positive aspects of the market with your potential clients is more important than ever. Blog, post to social media, and create direct mail pieces to grab their attention and fight the negative narrative.

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2 Tips on Writing for Real Estate Consumers

Aug 26, 2021

It’s safe to assume that most home sellers and buyers don’t know the meaning of “LTV,” they may have never used the word “contingency”, and the word “title” is just a name of a book.

Studies show that the average adult reads at a 9th-grade level and that we actually prefer our reading material to be at a 7th-grade level.

The words you choose to use on your website, in your listing descriptions, and direct mail pieces can make or break the visitor’s or recipient’s experience.

The good news is that writing for an audience of everyday people isn’t at all like what you learned in high school or college. It’s easier, and it’s more fun.

1. Ditch the insider lingo

Unless your audience consists solely of other real estate professionals, using real estate lingo is like writing in a foreign language to an English-only reader. Check out this real-life example:

“If you’re buying a home and apply for a mortgage, one critical factor in

whether you secure financing is your loan-to-value ratio.”

There’s no crime in using normal, everyday American English. So, let’s redo it:

“Something you’ve probably never heard of may stand between you and the interest rate of your dreams: The loan-to-value ratio, or LTV for short. Welcome to the world of real estate, my friend, this is just the beginning of a list of terms you’ll be hearing a lot in the months to come. So, what is the LTV?”

Don’t’ assume that your reader understands commonly-used words and acronyms used in real estate, such as LTV, CMA, contingency, addendum, consideration, and one that we see frequently in the current market, absorption rate.

Take the time to explain them, in plain, friendly English.

2. Why so overly-formal?

“Remember that the basic rule of vocabulary is to use the first word that comes to your mind if it is appropriate and colorful,” author Stephen King cautions in his book “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.”

Let’s take another look at our first example. Check out the formal-yet-clunky vocabulary. “Critical factor” can easily be replaced with “an important factor” and “secure financing” should be changed to “get a loan.”

After all, when one of your clients gets the mortgage he wants, that’s exactly how he describes it: “I got a mortgage,” not “I obtained” “procured” or “secured financing.”

Take off your real estate hat for a minute and imagine that you’re a consumer, wanting to buy a house. You run across this on an agent’s website or a direct mail piece:

“Our agents will apply their extensive community knowledge and professional

resources to find your dream home.”

Is there anything in that sentence that would make you pick up your phone and ask to hire one of their agents? All we can imagine is sitting in a car, hour after hour, with someone who speaks like this.

No thanks.

Consider replacing some of the most common formalities you find in real estate blogs and other written content:

“Use our services” rather than “utilize” them.
“Talk about the process” instead of “discussing” it.
Dare we suggest this one? “home loan” instead of “mortgage.”
Finally, can we all agree that “real estate” and “properties” are things investors buy and that everyday people buy homes, condos, houses?

An engaging, friendly writing style will help potential clients get to know and like you, and offering them valuable information in an easy-to-understand form gets their trust.

Use the same, short, easy-to-understand sentences you use when speaking with a friend and you’ll be on your way.

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Your Real Estate Blog: Don’t Skip the Research

Apr 27, 2021

I recently had an online conversation with an agent who stated that the use of real estate video for agents is the end-all, be-all, and he had the stats (from his own site) to prove it.

My research on video for real estate says that videos addressed to homebuyers aren’t popular.

In fact, when asked how they prefer to get their real estate information, buyers prefer website content (it came in first) and video came in last – behind open houses, according to your association’s research.

So, who is right?

Is it the guy who wrote a recent article, titled “Google Loves Video?” He’s pretty persuasive, citing studies that show “A video is 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of search results than a traditional web page.”

Wait.

That just doesn’t jibe with reality, at least not for all topics. See for yourself.

Enter any real estate term that a buyer may use into Google. How many of the results are in video form?

I find zero.

The author also quoted an SEO Moz study as well, telling us that “Blog posts that include video content attract 3 times more inbound links than posts without video.”

Thankfully, he linked to both studies so I could go take a look at them.

Guess what?

Both studies are from a decade ago. As you know, in the tech world, that’s a lifetime.

So, why did he have to dig so far back to get stats that support the use of video over text?

It turns out that he works for a video company, so he has an obvious agenda.

Therefore, this is just a friendly reminder to be very careful that you check the source and dates while researching information that you hope to publish on your website.

Step 1: To ensure you’re informed

The very first thing to do when researching the veracity of statistics is to learn about the author. I instantly distrust what the author is saying when there could be an agenda behind it.

Like when real estate agents warn readers not to sell their home without an agent. There isn’t anything wrong with that, per se, but ensure you have independent, unbiased sources to back up your claims. Avoid building even a shred of distrust with your audience.

So, dig into the statistics – how old are they? Who did the study?

In the case of the previously mentioned gentleman, recent statistics to prove his claims just don’t exist.

Step 2: Check your assumptions

It’s far too easy to blindly accept a statistic when it agrees with our assumptions. For instance, some of NAR’s highly touted stats about FSBOs are not only outdated but they’ve been debunked by university studies.

A Stanford University Economics Department study, for instance, found “no evidence that the use of a broker leads to higher average selling prices. . .”

Then there’s the study by the American Economic Review, a couple of years later, that showed that FSBOs who used FSBO websites made “at least as much for their homes” as did home sellers using an agent.

If you find yourself agreeing with a statistic because it agrees with your assumptions, it’s time to dig deeper. Even if it hurts.

Whether you’re reading a news story or an industry piece, RESEARCH is your best friend.

And, when it comes to your real estate content, the only good research is recent. Your clients (and your reputation) depend on your information to be accurate.

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