Real Estate Connect is always packed with great information, outstanding speakers and an abundance of innovation. If you want some fresh ideas to help you build your business, check out the 30 suggestions below from real estate’s best and brightest.
These tips can help you understand current trends while simultaneously providing you with ways to be more effective in your real estate business. Go through the list, see what resonates with you, and then choose one or two items that you would be willing to implement in your business.
From Agent Reboot
1. “Always go horizontal” when you shoot videos of houses.
2. Every second that you spend with a sucky individual, you’re taking time away from a great client who is deserving of your time and attention.
3. Weak ties — that is, the people who exist on the fringes of our lives — often bring us the most business.
4. In terms of the shortage of inventory nationwide: We have a store, but the shelves are empty.
5. This tip explains why owners should not market their home as a for-sale-by-owner: Ninety-three percent of for-sale-by-owners fail to sell on their own, and, on average, they net 12-16 percent less than those who list their homes with a Realtor.
6. Seventy-five percent of all lawsuit losses were unrepresented by a Realtor; wouldn’t you rather pay 6 percent than get sued?
7. Marketing is about being remarkable.
8. New research suggests that Facebook triggers the same hormone as cuddling.
9. Google changed its algorithm again and is now penalizing sites that are not mobile-friendly.
10. First create a post (on social media or on your blog) and then publish it everywhere.
11. Visuals sell, especially when you consider that the brain processes visual images 60,000 times faster than it processes text.
12. The Facebook mobile app provides you with a private voice mail.
From the Hear It Direct panel at Real Estate Connect
Hear It Direct provides real estate professionals with straight feedback from buyers and sellers about how consumers search for property, what their expectations are regarding the services agents provide, as well as what does and doesn’t matter. Here’s what these buyers and sellers had to say:
13. Never hire an agent who doesn’t have a smartphone.
14. A single photo on a listing is infuriating — what is it you’re hiding?
15. I won’t even bother with a listing with one photo since it’s either the sign of a lazy agent or there is something wrong with the property.
16. When the Hear It Direct moderators asked the panelists about what percentage of the commission that an agent keeps on a typical 6 percent deal, here’s what they said:
“On a 6 percent listing, the buyer’s agent and the listing agent each receive 3 percent of the sales price as their commissions.” (In other words, the consumers have no idea how commissions are split. They believe that the agents keep the entire amount.)
17. We need help with three things when we are buying or selling real estate: help with negotiating the deal, local expertise, and help with understanding the buying or selling process.
18. We want a full-time agent — not one who works only part time.
From Real Estate Connect
19. Online video is making people smarter faster.
20. If you purchase a property and keep it for seven years, it is 37 percent cheaper to buy than rent, and it will stay that way in most areas until interest rates reach 10.5 percent!
21. Thank the investors who have been purchasing real estate and paying all cash — they are setting the bar for higher prices.
22. We are only one bad event away from another downturn.
23. Canadians who were buying in Arizona and Florida have not shifted to buying back in Canada.
24. When working with ultra-high-end clients, especially for those from outside the United States, avoid bothering them with the details of the transaction since they don’t have time for that.
25. Brands that people love don’t spend as much time on marketing; instead, they spend time thinking about who (people) are.
26. Humor was an evolutionary response to stress.
27. Script for marketing to owners of expired listings: We specialize in taking listings that other people can’t sell.
28. If you’re using Craigslist, squeeze them hard! (That is, use a landing page that forces them to provide contact information before you give them information.)
29. When you list a property, make sure that you enroll your sellers in one of the systems that automatically notifies them of new listings.
30. When you receive a negative review online, “Stop, drop and roll.” In other words, take a deep breath before you respond, drop your need to be right, and “let it go!”
Remember, big success comes in repeated small steps taken over time. Choose the one or two suggestions that fit your business, implement them, and if they work, keep them. If not, discard them and look for even more tips from next year’s Connect in New York.
Bernice Ross, CEO of RealEstateCoach.com, is a national speaker, trainer and author of the National Association of Realtors’ No. 1 best-seller, “Real Estate Dough: Your Recipe for Real Estate Success.” Hear Bernice’s five-minute daily real estate show, just named “new and notable” by iTunes, at www.RealEstateCoachRadio.com.
