Today I want to talk to you about the current state of the real estate market:

There's 67% more inventory on the market today than there was a year ago at the same time, which is more than before, but we still need way more inventory than we have today. When you start to see listings linger, you need to remember that there are two types of markets: listings that come into the market and sell instantly with multiple offers still happen today, but then you have another group of listings that hits the market but then just lingers.

When you're talking to sellers at a listing appointment, it's important to talk about being competitive or looking at comparable sales data. Comparative versus competitive sales data is a very important concept that most REALTORS never talk about with their seller clients.

A comparative market analysis, or CMA, is what most REALTORS use to determine a home's value compared to...

I have a challenge for you today:

I want you to imagine that you're a buyer who just landed in your area and has no knowledge about any REALTORS in the marketplace. So, go ahead and search for homes for sale in your market and see what happens. You'll likely be directed to realtor.com or Zillow. Now, pretend you're a buyer and go through the process of searching for a home on these websites.

As you go through the process, you'll notice that the algorithms push you through a funnel. The first thing they'll ask you is what price point you're looking for. They'll give you a list of price points to choose from, and very rarely will buyers type in a specific price. Instead, they'll be guided to choose a range from a dropdown menu.

Then, the algorithms will ask about bedrooms, bathrooms, and square footage before pushing the buyer further into the system. It's important for us as REALTORS to understand how the algorithms...

I have a concept called "anchor point pricing."

Here's what it means:

During a conversation about price with a seller, I bring up the neighbor down the road who listed their property but didn't really want to sell it. They overpriced their house and have been chasing the market down with four price reductions in the last 90 days. Their home has become stigmatized and people think there's something wrong with it, no matter how low they price it.

I never want that to be the case for my clients, and you shouldn't either.

In this market, first impressions are critical:

The longer a property is on the market, the less it gets.

That's why we use anchor point pricing. Every time potential buyers drive by the overpriced neighbor's listing, they're reminded that they don't want to end up like that person. This conversation can be powerful when someone is on the fence about overpricing their property.

Want more secrets like this that...

Do you want to be a better recruiter?

As a seasoned recruiter with over 30 years of experience, I can tell you the secret to successful recruiting is this:

Recruiting is like owning an NFL or NBA team.

You need to understand that recruiting is all about building relationships with people. People join people, not companies or brands. If they don't like you, they won't come to work for you.

So, first and foremost, you need to establish a career-long relationship with people in the marketplace.

To build these relationships, you need to have conversations with potential recruits. Top recruiters in the NBA, NFL, and NHL are cold-calling and creating connections with people. They're showing them the organization's value, passion, and vision of how they can help them win. Ultimately, people want to be with a winning team and need to see how you can help them make more money and make their life easier.

It's not all about commission...

People ask me all the time, Jim, how do you retain amazing agents? You've recruited and retained some of the best agents in America. They've stayed with you for years. You took a company from a hundred million to 1.4 billion over 10 years, created a company from 39 agents to one of the top companies in America. How'd you do it?

Well, the answer is, I want you to think about the people that work for you. Just think about the landscape of people that work for you today. And I want you to ask yourself, how many of those people consider you to be their personal friend? And if the answer is, I don't think any of them do, you have a problem because you're looking at them transactionally. And that's the first mistake.

It's the same mistake agents make when they look at their clients and customers transactionally too.

I look at the top agents in America. The top agents in America don't look at their buyers and sellers as buyers and sellers. They...

Hey guys, what's the best way to make your real estate marketing really pop, to come to life and generate more buyers and seller calls and emails and texts?

Well, the secret is using the AIDA approach, which stands for:

Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

I want you to go back and measure all your marketing against this standard. It's simple and easy to understand.

It starts with Attention.

Is the marketing you're doing grabbing people's attention, shaking them and saying, Hey, you gotta look at me?When you look at marketing in magazines, on television, or on the internet, it has to break through the other 5,000 advertising messages the average American sees every day. So how do we break through? A lot of times, it's by asking a question, using photography, or creating visuals that are funny, ironic, or shocking. If it's the same old boring photos and headshots that you see with most realtors, it won't do that. We have to get outside the box.

The...

Hey guys, in real estate, we often hear the word "affordability". What does it mean and how can we break it down for our clients? Affordability has three components.

The first one is how much people are making. In the last year, on average, wages have gone up a little over 7%. So people are making a little bit more, which means they can afford a little bit more in their house.

The second leg of this is housing prices. Housing prices have flattened out compared to what we were seeing in 2019 and 2020, and in some markets, we're seeing some declines. Last quarter, home prices decreased by about 4%, which is significantly less than the double-digit gains we have seen in previous years.

The last component is interest rates. Interest rates are having the biggest impact on affordability. But it is important to remember that when buying a home, home prices are permanent, but interest rates and wages are temporary. As wages generally...

I want you to think about how many homes you sold last year that were your listings. So let's assume you sold 10 listings or five listings. What if I told you that you could take that 10 in times by five and have 50 transactions as a result of those 10 listings? Or if you took five listings, you times out by five and you could have 25 transactions. Does it sound impossible? It's not impossible. It's totally doable. You just gotta rethink how you're approaching your listings.

What smart, wise, savvy agents do, superstars do is they say, "Hey, I've got one listing and I can turn this into five transactional sides. Now how can we do that?"

I'm gonna walk you through it right now.

What are the five transactional sides that we create?

1. 1. Sell the listing that we take
2. Obtain a triggered listing
3. Convert a buyer who calls or attends an open house for the listing
4. Find sellers at your open house
5. Turn your seller into a buyer and sell them...

As a coach, I tell my students that if they want to be highly visible on social media, they need to meet a minimum standard of five posts a week, two videos, and two stories.

Visibility is more important than ability because if you're invisible, no one knows to do business with you, no matter how good you are.

But many students struggle with knowing what to post. That's why I recommend two game-changing ideas:

1. Educational marketing: When was the last time you posted something educational on social media? Try to educate your audience about the real estate market. You could talk about interest rates, inspections, appraisals, down payment programs, and much more. People love learning new things, and an educational post will establish you as an expert in your field.

2. Opinion posts: People want to hear your professional opinion, and they trust experts who deliver them. Think about highly paid professionals like doctors and...

About a year ago, my wife and I decided to downsize as we hit our fifties. We have four kids, but three of them had already moved out, leaving us with just one. So, we moved from a bigger house into a smaller one. We realized that there are a ton of people just like us all around the country.

Before we downsized, we used to live in a big house near a golf course, and whenever we received marketing from REALTORS, it was always the same thing: The marketing was all about them getting a listing, and we could read right through it.

They just wanted our commission, and it wasn't very effective.

Over the years, we received door hangers, mailers, and all sorts of stuff, but as a REALTOR myself, I couldn't help but wonder if these methods were effective or not. Sure, anything is better than nothing, but what can you do to be more effective?

The key is to focus on the why of someone considering making a move, instead of what you need.

Why...