Archive for February, 2008
Posted on Feb 11 2008 | By Kathleen
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This is the second in a series – see all the posts
Are You Surprised?
I was pretty surprised by the results from the NAR Profile when it comes to what buyers want most from their real estate agents. This is how the buyers identified the things they most wanted help on:
49% Finding the right home- 13% Negotiating contract terms
- 11% Negotiating price
- 9% Completing paperwork
- 8% Identifying comparable homes and their final sales prices
- 5% Identifying how much to spend on a home
- 4% Find and acquire financing
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3% Other
Are you surprised? No? Take another look at the results.
Here’s what surprised me. First, 49% of the buyers said they most wanted an agent’s help to find the right home. That surprised me because evidently despite all of the places on the Internet where consumers can go to look at homes, almost half of them still thought that an agent can do a better job of helping them find the right home.
The second thing that surprised me was that so few buyers thought that negotiating contract terms or price was the most important thing an agent can do for them. Granted, I’m not a real estate agent, but I’ve bought and sold homes, and worked with enough real estate professionals to know that very often, finding the right home is the easy part.
Negotiating contact terms and price, and keeping the deal together until you reach the closing table can be a challenge. And, while some consumers are probably good negotiators, I think this old saying applies to real estate as much as the law: “A lawyer who has himself as a client is representing a fool.” Or you could say, “A Buyer who has himself as a client (in negotiations) is representing a fool.” There’s just too much emotion and too many details.
So, what is the real estate marketing lesson learned? From my perspective, I think we need to get better at educating the consumer on the critical role an agent plays from the time the right home is found through to the closing table.
Think About This!
If the most important thing an agent can do for a buyer is find the right home – and — It’s becoming easier all the time for consumers to access MLS listings, take virtual tours, and so on,
Then
How important will an agent be over time?
What do you think?
Posted on Feb 07 2008 | By Kathleen
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Honest and Trustworthy. Those are key traits that buyers look for in an agent, according to the NAR Profile of Buyers and Sellers. And, in my post on Monday, I suggested that it’s a good idea to determine if your marketing message is focused in part on those and other factors consumers use to select a real estate advisor.
There are really two questions that come to mind in relation to incorporating those types of factors into your marketing message:
- Should I bother mentioning the fact that I am honest and trustworthy?
- How in the world would I address issues like that if I wanted to?
The Problem with Assuming
To answer the first question, consider the poor outcome that usually results when you assume something. Sure, everyone wants to work with people who are honest and trustworthy. And you know you’re honest and trustworthy, so shouldn’t that just be assumed? I mean, would you use the fact that you’re breathing as a benefit of your service? But, in my mind, those are two different issues:
- First, because we have no empirical evidence that breathing ranks high on a consumer’s list of requirements, whereas we do have some evidence that honesty is important to your prospects.
- Second, consumers can easily tell that you’re breathing. But, for someone who doesn’t know you, it isn’t easy to tell whether or not you’re honest and trustworthy.
I believe that traits like honesty should be addressed in your marketing message.
Who Would Believe Me?
Would you believe it if you read a brochure or an Internet page on which was written, “You’ll find that I am very honest and trustworthy”? No, neither would I. So, as you’re thinking about how you can illustrate some of the traits that are important to your prospects, think about creative ways to get the point across.
One way to illustrate your marketing message is with testimonials. If you’re a regular reader, you may remember a recent post about obtaining testimonials. One idea mentioned in that post was to provide questions to the person who is giving the testimonial. That approach is even more effective when there is a specific issue you would like feedback on.
Testimonials About Intangibles are Tricky
It’s easy to ask some of the questions you might want feedback on. For example, you could ask “If I wasn’t available when you called, how quickly did you find that I returned your telephone call?”. That’s easy. It’s quantifiable. You either returned calls within minutes or hours, or it took days to hear back from you.
It’s trickier if you want to illustrate a trait like honesty. If you’re lucky, a client you’re asking for a testimonial was with you when you found a wallet containing $2000 on the street, and turned it into the police. Rarely happens, though.
The key is to answer one more question: How does a real estate agent display honesty and trustworthiness during a real estate transaction?
Think about the indicators you look for in another agent the first time you work with them on a transaction to determine if you can trust them. There are all kinds of answers.
- Doing what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do it
- Not trying to talk your client into buying the most expensive home they can qualify for
- Not trying to talk your client into buying the first home they see
- Pointing out good and bad points about a home
- Providing education that helps clients make informed decisions
You want to ask questions that will illustrate how you display trustworthiness and honesty.
Got some ideas on good questions to ask? Leave a comment!
Posted on Feb 06 2008 | By Kathleen
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A friend of mine is driving from Atlanta to somewhere around Houston to visit friends. She says she will try to drive straight through – a trip that should take about 12 hours or so. It got me thinking about road trips in my past . . .
My first memorable trip was when I was in college. My sister and I, and our dog Emmy were driving from Detroit to Philadelphia due to my father’s transfer. It wasn’t that long a trip, there were two of us to drive, and Emmy had some happy pills from the vet. We figured we were all set.
Around noon, somewhere around Somerset Pennsylvania, we started hearing a thumping noise coming from the engine compartment. After going through the usual denial, fear, then acceptance stages of grief, we decided we’d better stop to have it checked out. I don’t know what Somerset is like now, but when we pulled off the Turnpike, we found a one-main-street town. It wasn’t difficult to find the service station. There was only one.
The owner, a laid back but fairly efficient gentleman, diagnosed the problem – our water pump was shot and had to be replaced or we were in danger of ruining the engine. If we’d been in a movie, the next news would have been that a new water pump would have to be ordered from the big city, and it would take a week. But, we weren’t in a movie, so the garage had the part in stock. From that point on, however, my sister and I spent most of our time trying to find the hidden camera.
The owner turned the repair over to an elderly man named Sarge. Sarge was about 5′4″ tall, balding, slightly built and more than slightly cross-eyed. Our car was a boat-like Ford LTD, as I recall, and the water pump was buried deep in the engine from what we could tell. Not to worry. Sarge had an answer. He simply crawled into the engine compartment and started to disassemble our car.
We had wondered why there were chairs positioned along the outside walls of the garage. That question was answered when the male retirees from the town started filling up the chairs one by one. There was friendly banter among the friends gathered, and Sarge had a lot of help from the peanut gallery, as it were. At some points, there was a crowd around Sarge as he sat in the engine compartment, with each person throwing in their suggestions.
Hmmm. In the meantime, the weather had turned bad with a heavy rain storm. If you’ve ever tried to get a doped up dog to relieve herself in the parking lot of a garage in the rain, you can feel our pain. To pass the time, my sister and I took turns staying with Emmy and the car while the other went to the diner across the street to stock up on soda and snacks.
Finally, the crowd of old men drifted off, Sarge finished replacing the water pump and went home. The owner of the garage put water wherever it is that the water goes in the engine, turned on the car, and we all watched as the water gushed out onto the garage floor.
By this time, it was well into evening. The owner suggested that we might need to find somewhere to stay, and we decided to give it a try. We called the one hotel at the Somerset exit. They were full because a lot of travellers had decided to stop due to the weather.
The garage owner told my sister that his cousin had a motel nearby and he would be glad to drop us off there. Right. I am two years younger than my sister, but sometimes I swear it’s the other way around. When she told me of the new plan, I told her it would be a cold day in hell before I ended up with no transportation at anyone’s cousin’s motel. We talked the owner into fixing the car so we could travel on.
And so it was that the owner took the water pump apart (now, remember, Sarge had taken 5-6 hours to accomplish that feat – even with help!) and discovered (he said) that Sarge had put the end cap to the water pump on backward, allowing the water to run out.
Another thing that made me go Hmmm. Even cross-eyed, if there’s a cap that must fit tightly, I found it hard to believe that Sarge could have made such a mistake. But, the good news is that it did get fixed, finally. My sister and I had made a reservation at another well-known motel a short ways down the Turnpike. We didn’t exactly tell them we had a dopey dog with us, and as far as I know, they never found out.
That trip was the first of many over the years that are truly memorable. If you’re heading out on a long drive, I hope your luck is better. And, you can take with you this word of advice: If you’re afraid you’re going to get drowsy on a long drive, take a $20 bill, hold it in your left hand and extend your arm out the window. 
Posted on Feb 05 2008 | By Kathleen
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As I was looking around for a topic on a particularly uninspired day, Teresa Boardman was kind enough to come to the rescue. She didn’t do it on purpose, of course. But, I came across a great blog post she contributed to The Real Estate Tomato that did the trick.
If you’re not aware of Teresa Boardman, she is a pro-blogger, an outstanding real estate agent, and the person who gave me the idea for Whimsical Wednesdays. If you want to see how a great real estate blogger operates, Teresa’s blog is the one to visit.
Now, with her post on recycling at the Tomato, she’s given us some tips on how she can keep up the pace on her blog, where she posts something virtually every day. I think she may take some holidays off, but that’s about it.
I won’t steal her thunder, except to say that if you are blogging, or thinking about blogging, this is one article you have to read! Make your blog give back some of the hard work you’ve put into it.
Thanks, Teresa!
Posted on Feb 04 2008 | By Kathleen
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This is the first entry in a series – See all posts in this series
In November, 2007, NAR published its annual Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers 2007. There is some very interesting information in the report that I believe can help real estate professionals in defining their marketing strategies. This “Lessons Learned” series will highlight some of the findings resulting from the study, and provide a brief analysis of how that information might be interpreted.
Methodology
In case you’re not familiar with this report, here’s a brief summary of how the results were generated. NAR obtained the names and addresses from Experian’s national database of recent home buyers. They then sent an 8-page questionnaire to 150,000 of those people identified as home buyers between July 2006 and June 2007. That mailing yielded 9,966 valid responses.
The majority of the report deals with home buyers. The information about home sellers comes from those home buyers who also sold a home. Therefore, the sample size for the seller information is smaller than the buyer information.
I recognize that no survey of this type should be taken literally. However, it is one of the few opportunities we have for reviewing this type of information, and I think there is merit in looking at the results from a global perspective.
The Lessons Learned Series
Rather than organizing this information based on the statistics, we’ll look at the statistics in terms of the insight they provide and how you can structure your marketing to utilize those insights. Any statistics cited in this series come from the NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers 2007.
Real Estate Marketing Insight: Getting Chosen as a Buyer/Seller Agent
The first thing that interested me was the insight about how buyers and sellers find an agent, the factors they use in selecting an agent, and what they want from their agent.
Finding an Agent
The most common way for both buyers (43%) and sellers (41%) to find an agent is when a friend, neighbor or relative refer someone. This fact reinforces the importance of 1) staying top of mind with your past clients and sphere of influence, and 2) asking for referrals.
Some of the least common ways of finding an agent is through the newspaper or Yellow Pages – less than 1% for buyers and sellers. Direct mail is used less than 1% by buyers, but 3% by sellers. That’s something to consider when sending direct mail to a farm area, for example. Your message may be more likely to be effective if you target sellers.
Selecting an Agent – Buyers
Buyers rated the factors they use when selecting an agent like this:
- 28% Honest and trustworthy
- 22% Reputation of agent
- 17% Agent is a friend or family member
- 12% Agent’s knowledge of the neighborhood
- 10% Agent is a good listener with a caring personality
- 4% Agent’s association with a particular firm
- 1% Professional designations held
- 5% Other
Take a look at the list above and compare it to your marketing message. Are you finding ways to illustrate your honesty, trustworthiness, reputation, knowledge of the neighborhood and listening skills? Are you using your association with your broker and your designations as added benefits rather than the key reasons why someone should choose you as their representative?
You’ll also notice that awards (Million Dollar Club, Top Producer, etc.) aren’t even on the list. Maybe they’re included somewhere in the miscellaneous 5%, but these ratings provide a clear message as to the factors buyers think are the most important.
The next post in this series will address the other insights related to being selected as a buyers or sellers agent. Stay tuned….
