Connect the dots…..a lot of them.

Connecting with home buyers is a never ending process in real estate. You can never have enough real estate leads and if you don’t consistently stay on top of the ever changing technologies online, then you are going to be in big trouble, FAST. Your competitors will quickly surpass you in your local market and start taking clients that you should be working with.

Knowing what is happening on the technological front is difficult. Especially if you aren’t super tech savvy. You either have to hire someone to learn and configure the social media platforms and tools or you have to learn them yourself. The learning curve is tremendous for anyone and, frankly, not many agents want to take the time. Knowing the right tools to use and how to use them has become my obsession and I have learned a lot in 2 years. And, I’ve got a few grey hairs along the way as a result.

[message type=”custom” width=”100%” start_color=”#FFFCB5″ end_color=”#F4CBCB” border=”#BBBBBB” color=”#333333″] In order to Connect with Home Buyers – You Must First Know Who They Are![/message]

Connecting With Your Audience: The Buyer

Before you can close your first deal you need a good real estate business plan and to do that you need to know your home buyers habits. Where are they at? Are they online? Who are they? What are their spending habits? Price range of the houses they are seeking?

Most agents aimlessly begin online without a plan and that is a mistake. Trying Facebook. Knocking on doors. Calling expired listings. Building a website, etc. But what normally happens is that they get frustrated, waste money, more time and ultimately fail altogether.

My Buyers’ Profile

Here is the profile of my buyer (s) and learning this early on helped me better understand where I needed to focus my efforts to get the best ROI (my time).

1. 32-55 years of age
2. $100-$400k price range
3. They are internet savvy and finding properties online
4. 70% owner-occupant
5. 30% investor
6. Owner occupant are 80% first time home buyers and normally not approved for a loan yet.
7. Investors are normally paying all cash

Different ways to find buyers; online and in-the-field.

I’m all about working smarter and not harder. So, I utilize the online world to get the biggest bang for my buck and I’ve got my system down pretty good. However, not everyone is savvy online so I have taken that into consideration. Let’s talk briefly about a couple of strategies.

• Offline: You can always go to buyer seminars that are held monthly through a buyer outreach that a lender will likely be conducting in your area. These are always good to attend and mingle with the crowd, hand out cards and get to know the local lenders in your area. Real estate will always be a relationship industry and building relationships is the cornerstone of any successful agent. Having one or two lenders that like you will help you in more ways than you may realize.

• Online: Buyers rarely are looking for agents. Buyers are looking for properties and this is often overlooked by agents. You have to be where the buyers are and having a good real estate marketing plan is important. Trulia, Redfin, HotPads and Zillow are good places to start with Trulia being the most highly traffic’d site for you to connect with buyers online.

But what if you don’t have your own listings?

Without listings agents will often have to spend thousands of dollars paying for advertising on these types of sites. They are costly and the ROI is difficult to track. But, if you don’t have listings then this is certainly an option if you have some cash to spare.

I know agents that were once on top of the mountain and closing deals like crazy. They are now struggling because they didn’t change with the times and embrace technology.

You’ll need to get busy figuring this stuff out or you will need to find someone that is. Posting an ad on Craigslist is often a good way to find a local college student willing to work with you the technology side. In fact, you could find one that is enthusiastic about real estate and cut them in on some of the profits at closing. You may get a discount for their initial efforts and then pay them handsomely on the back end.

Getting Started In Real Estate or Even Improving Your Current Business?

If I were starting over again today I would really focus on first defining who my customer is and where they are then focus my time and efforts in the areas that will help me get to them the quickest.

If you don’t know where to start then maybe I can help you.

If you want to see how I find my buyers then you can sign up for my free webinar to see how I use my List Now Sell Fast System to generate buyer leads on a grand scale –> List Now Sell Fast Webinar – Generate Buyer Leads Fast

Cheers!

Duncan on Google+