recession

How to Market Your Real Estate Business During a Downturn

Feb 9, 2023

Recessions used to be painfully easy to spot. Lately, however, the definition of the word “recession” seems to stymie even the most experienced and well-regarded economists.

Is it any wonder that the general public, and real estate consumers in particular, are now confused about the economy?

Whether or not your real estate practice is feeling the financial pinch that many other small businesses are experiencing, it very well may be in the future.

Should you discontinue marketing during the downturn?

Your competition may be tempted to do so. Which is the biggest reason you should absolutely not stop marketing.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be bringing you several tried-and-true real estate business marketing methods that, although some are time-consuming, will be easy on your budget.

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Consider increasing your content marketing

Content marketing, by definition, is not meant to promote your brand (although it often does) but to attract and spark interest in your real estate services.

Right now, consumers (whether ready to buy or sell or wait it out) want to be kept abreast of the economy and the housing market and get tips on how to solve challenges in buying or selling in this market.

Blogging is one of the best and least expensive ways to accomplish this. Before you put your fingers to the keyboard, however, let’s take a look at some of the plusses of blogging:

Have a blog on your website? If you consistently add content to it, you may receive 97% more inbound links than the agent who doesn’t have an active blog. “Inbound links boost a website’s authority, which is a major page-ranking factor.” (Fundera.com)
Marketing advisory firm DemandMetric finds that “… companies with blogs generate 67% more monthly leads than those without.”
Their research also finds that you’ll spend 62% less on content marketing than on other forms of marketing.

Structure your blog posts for easy-reading

Most of us have landed on a blog post that hits us like a wall of words. And many will pass it by for just that reason.

Blog content needs to be easy to read, so break up long paragraphs and create additional interest by inserting bullet points, numbered lists, and lots of white space.

The folks at SEMRush find that a bulleted list every 500 words produces an average of 70% more traffic than posts that don’t contain these breaks.

Then, vow to add some spice to each post

Plan on adding images to each post. Types of engaging images include:

Stock photos
Screenshots that help explain the content
Infographics
Charts

According to the SEMrush State of Content Marketing 2020 Global Report, your blog posts’ images are critical to getting more traffic.

Blogging consistently during an economic downturn shows your website visitors that you’re still engaged in the industry, despite the slowdown. It demonstrates that you understand their concerns and are ready to assist them.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts combined with engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you.

Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here

2. The Free 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 and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

3. The BusinessBase, SOI building system

The most effective thing you can do to build a real estate business is to become more visible, more likable, and remembered more often. The BusinessBASE™ not only checks these boxes but is also a business-building machine. In two easy steps, you can begin to build a robust sphere of influence that will provide you a lifetime of repeat business and referrals. – Click Here

4. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for this year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals. – Click Here

5. The 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

How to Calm Your Clients’ Concerns About the Market and Maintain Their Confidence

Apr 28, 2022

According to economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal, they think there’s a 28% chance of a recession within the next year. This figure, by the way, is up from last year’s prediction of a 13% chance of a recession.

If you don’t think that your clients and potential clients are worried about a coming recession, did you know:

In a recent CNBC poll, “81% [of U.S. adults] say they are concerned the U.S. will face a recession in 2022.”

So, what will you say to your clients and potential clients when they express hesitancy to jump into the real estate market because they’ve read there’s a recession coming?

Here are some pointers to keep their confidence high.

Real Estate Times Series is shown above. See more, Click Here.

Can’t fault the housing market this time

Economists state that it won’t be a faltering housing market that causes the possible 2022 or 2023 recession. Instead, if it happens, they expect it to be triggered by the Fed’s efforts to curb it.

Those efforts to get prices under control come with a risk: “… the central bank will do too much, sinking the economy in the process,” according to Matt Egan at CNN.com.

Economists point to the differences between the market in 2008 and today. Think back to the Great Recession. That housing bubble, economists agree, was caused by the easy access to mortgages.

Today’s market is influenced by supply and demand and, “… this time around, household finances are stronger and home values remain at historic highs,” claims Alcynna Lloyd at BusinessInsider.com.

So, how does this knowledge calm your clients’ nerves?

According to experts, there will be no housing bubble to explode in their faces. Therefore, remind them that anyone with a heartbeat could get a mortgage prior to the Great Recession. Today, lending rules are much more stringent, leading to far more qualified buyers looking for homes.

Finally, not all recessions are like the recession of 2008 and a recession doesn’t automatically equal a housing crisis.

Homeowners have nothing to worry about

If a recession comes to pass, homeowners should ride it out quite well.

They’re also sitting on a ton of equity right now – equity that isn’t likely to dissipate during the forecasted recession.

Huh?

During the five recessions prior to the 2008 recession, home prices actually increased.

Overall, the jobs market is so strong right now that a recession is unlikely to impact home prices and, thus, values.

If we listen to the experts, your clients have nothing to worry about when it comes to the real estate market. Don’t let them buy into the media hype and you’ll keep them in the market.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine, with rich, full-color content, and a sharp, professional esthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts, combined with engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you.

Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and, it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here

2. The Free 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 Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

3. The BusinessBase, SOI building system

The most effective thing you can do to build a real estate business is to become more visible, more likable, and remembered more often. The BusinessBASE™ not only checks all of these boxes, but it is a business building machine. In two easy steps, you can begin to build a robust sphere of influence that will provide you a lifetime of repeat business and referrals. – Click Here

4. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

5. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

6. The Take a Listing Today Podcast

Watch the ProspectsPLUS!, Take a Listing Today Podcast for actionable content to help you get more listings. – Click Here

The real estate market: Perception and Reality

Sep 25, 2019

Once a year we like to take a look at the late-summer real estate market.

What we’ve been reading in the media lately is pretty confusing.

If it baffles people who work in the industry, imagine how the average buyer or seller, or even potential buyer or seller, feels right now. Talk about “fake news!”

Here’s one example among the many misleading news pieces we’ve read.

Late last month, Yahoo Finance published an article titled “Goldman Sachs reveals what’s holding back the housing market.”

So, what did Goldman Sachs base its gloomy conclusion on? Chief among the reasons:

Just Listed postcards are available in the postcard section under the Just Listed Color Series.

Tax Reform:

“The reduced tax incentives effectively increases a home’s cost of ownership.” What they neglected to add, which is significant, considering the average Yahoo Finance reader isn’t a 1 percenter or isn’t even remotely connected to anything Goldman Sachs-ish, is that this primarily affects wealthy homeowners, not the average homeowner.

Construction Labor Market:

Apparently, tightening illegal immigration policies have diminished the number of low-cost laborers these multi-billion-dollar corporations choose to hire.

“In the real world, however, there is a very limited number of potential employees in any given labor market. To attract more workers, you need to raise the wage rate,” according to Scott Sumner at the Library of Economics and Liberty.

Makes sense, right?

Instead of offering higher wages for American unemployed workers, the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) has turned to the federal government with pleas to allow more of these immigrants to work here legally.

“When a reporter stops by, you [the builder] tell her that you face a “shortage” of workers, even though there’s someone willing to do the job” for a higher wage, Sumner concludes.

In other words, the reporter (and thus, the public) isn’t told that the reality is that there isn’t a labor shortage, there is a living wage shortage among those who hire the labor.

The truth is, the unemployment rate in the construction sector is 0.4 percent higher this summer than last and it’s among the top four unemployed industry sectors.

These are American workers, sitting on the sidelines.

Start paying more and the labor “shortage” will turn into a glut. Therefore, Goldman Sach’s claim of a labor shortage is quite misleading.

This is the perception that real estate consumers are receiving from many in the media.

Just Sold postcards are available in the postcard section under the Just Listed Color Series.

The people spreading the perception may be folks who aren’t told the truth, such as the aforementioned reporter. They are definitely people who haven’t spent a day listing and selling real estate in the current market.

The reality is quite different

Holding back the housing market?

Many regions across the country (Rockford, IL; Houston, TX and Lexington, KY, for example) are experiencing record-breaking sales.

Certain housing sectors boast the same. For instance, multi-family housing showed quite positive gains in late August, according to MPMag.com.

While existing home sales increased 2.5 percent, nationwide, housing starts fell 4 percent in July. But the number of building permits, on a national basis, increased 8.4 percent.

Even the roller-coaster-like new-home (single-family) sector doesn’t tell a tale of woe. While sales are down, they’ve been up for the previous couple of months.

Additionally, SFR, condo and apartment builder sentiment is rosy, according to WorldPropertyJournal.com. Add to that Fannie Mae’s numbers that show consumer confidence in housing is at a record high.

So, why all the doom and gloom about the real estate market?

The “R” word

Recession. The U.S. is years overdue for one so it’s not a question of if the economy will contract, it’s when. After all, we’re now in the longest economic expansion in our history.

The “R” word, however, scares the public. Few mainstream Americans are aware that recessions are a natural part of the U.S. economic cycle and place the blame on the president, congress or whoever holds the current bogeyman title.

The last recession was largely caused by the real estate market, the memories of which are giving current real estate consumers the jitters.

Most economists say that the impending recession will not be caused by the real estate sector. Therefore, we can look to past recessions (with the exception of the last) to learn how real estate was affected.

If we’re about to experience a global economic downturn, as some doom and gloomers in the media are claiming, it certainly isn’t affecting many foreign housing markets.

News out of Australia claims “Australian homes fly at auctions in a boon for prices.” Toronto, Canada is enjoying a healthy real estate market as well as is Manilla, PH and even Vietnam. The UK is seeing a more-than 6 percent jump in home sales over this time last year.

You may need to talk your prospects down off the ledge with all of this anti-market hype. It’s only natural for them to be completely confused right now and you can help them clear it up.

Write a blog post stating the truth about the market and then share it on social media. Send infographics with the “Myths and the Realities” of the current market to your prospects.

Most of all, let your potential sellers know that they can relax because the chances are good that their homes may actually increase in value when we enter a recession,

The media is doing a disservice to not only real estate consumers but to our country’s economy as well. The misleading headlines, the omissions of positive aspects of the market lead to a widespread perception of a problem that simply doesn’t exist.

Show consumers homeowners are selling by sending out the Multi-Photo Just Listed postcard from the Multi-Photo Series.

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

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