Here's a super easy technique this time of year, which is super effective:
Go back to 2021. Look at every transaction you closed. Pull the HUD statement from your closing and then send that onto your client.
Why would you do that?
Because now it's tax season. People are gonna start filing taxes. They're gonna realized they lost those documents. And you can provide a real service to them by sending them those documents,. Just email them over and put a little note on that that says,
"Hey, I know tax season's coming. Thought I'd make it easy for you to file your taxes. There's some things here that may be a deduction for you or may save you some dollars in your taxes. Here you go.
By the way, hope you're enjoying the home. If I can help you or your friends with anything in the future with real estate, your referral is my highest compliment."
Something like that. Simple, easy, and guess what? Your clients will love it. They'll thank you. And they're gonna look at you from...
There's a "four alarm fire" happening in the real estate industry today:
What is it?
Interest rates.
Interest rates are rising extremely rapidly. Now we knew coming into 2022 rates were gonna rise. The anticipation was from Mortgage Bankers Association, NAR, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, etc. The consensus was 3.7% by the end of 2022.
But what has happened?
First week in January, rates went to 3.12%. Second week in January, rates went to 3.45%.
Wow — that's almost a vertical rise!
So what's the messaging here?
The messaging for our buyers and sellers is get off the fence and get into the market.
Now, why are rates rising so quickly?
Well, we know that the Fed had told us already that they were gonna raise rates three times in 2022 to fight inflation because inflation's at a 50-year high and 7% was the latest number.
So their #1 goal was to fight inflation.
They also announced they were gonna stop buying mortgage-backed securities as of March.
But now the word on ...
Hey guys, I wanna give you a quick strategy when you are listing a house for the first time and you're having a conversation with a seller.
I call it my "Many Buyer Eyes" Strategy. And here's how it works:
I say...
"Hey, you know what? One thing I do with all my sellers when I list their properties for sale is I treat you as a buyer. And what that means is that I'm gonna act like you're a buyer for your own property and your own price range. So I'm gonna set you up in the MLS as if you're a buyer looking in the 400-500k price range in your market area, in our MLS zone that we're in with similar attributes of your house. Here's why I'm doing this: I want you to see in real time the listings that are being presented to buyers that are searching for home like yours.
So you're gonna see all your competition, all the price reductions, all the pending transactions, they're gonna be coming to you. And I want you to look at them because we want to be responsive in real time. So...
Lawrence Yun was recently quoted as saying, "If you are under the age of 40, you have never seen inflation this high in this country."
The inflation rate in November hit a record 6.8%. That's the highest we've seen in decades.
So when we look at these numbers and everybody's talking about inflation, how does this relate to estate?
It's an interesting conversation. It's something that we should talk about with our clients.
Here's the good news when it comes to real estate:
Real estate is a tremendous asset and a hedge against inflation. That's why last year, we saw a record number of people investing in real estate. In fact, it was the the highest recorded ever. The percentage of homes purchased was 18.2% were sold to investors.
One reason is they're using it as a hedge against inflation.
So here's what's happened according to Lawrence Yun. He says that real estate has proven to be a good hedge against inflation. Some examples:
In the 1970s, during one of the highest i...
I'm gonna give you some numbers that are just reality in our business that you should know. And these numbers are going to drive your success throughout your career — whether you like it or not.
Are you ready for these numbers? Here they are:
They may be slightly different for every person, but in general, across the country, here's what the numbers look like in our industry:
* For every 30 conversations you have, you'll average one closed transaction.
And I want you to remember this:
Almost every single transaction you will ever have in your career will be the result of a conversation you've had in the last two weeks. You want more closings? You're gonna have to have more conversations.
Here's another one:
* For every 10 sphere members you have in your database today, you should average one closing — assuming that you've made 20 to 50 contacts with them in the past year.
20 to 50 contacts will get you a 10 to 1 closing ratio on your current database. Your business ...
One thing that we should do this year is cut the dead wood.
What does that mean?
It means we don't wanna be walking up a mountain, our mountain being our figurative goal set that we've set for ourselves and have a backpack full of rocks on our back.
Now, what is that backpack full of rocks?
Those are clients that don't wanna sell, that don't wanna buy, that are wasting your time, that are frustrating, that are angry people that we do not need to be carrying around on our backs anymore.
We need to cut them loose and work with people that really wanna buy and sell.
So going into the new year, how can we approach our business a little bit differently?
One is to work with ready and willing clients which sounds crazy, but it is so simple that it's obvious, right?
We need to work with ready and willing clients.
Having a ready and willing conversation is important. So I'm gonna give you my "ready and willing" conversation script when I'm talking to a buyer.
So when I'm t...
At this time of year, a lot of sellers will say something like this:
"Hey Jim, I think I'm just going to wait because I will probably get more from my house later anyway. So I'm just going to wait until spring or summer and see what happens then."
How do we address that comment or that concern?
I'm going to give you one script that's worked for me over the years. And it works by talking about the fact that when we're staying and rebuying in the same market, waiting doesn't make a lot of sense.
So let's put this in practice. You might say,
"Hey, I hear what you're saying, but here's something to consider, right? If you're buying or selling in the same market -- because the entire market's going up in value at the same time -- waiting to sell your home to buy another home just means the other home you're buying is also going up in value at the same time.
In fact, there's a little bit of a Delta that if you're buying a higher priced home, it might be more expensive the ...
At this time last year, 46% of sellers were offering some kind of incentive to buyers to encourage them to make an offer on their house over the competition.
Now, those incentives could have been anything from closing costs, down payment assistance, home warranties, pre-paying for services. There were lots of different incentives that could have been thrown into the mix.
But this year that number has dropped down to 26%. But this is still a very high number.
And you can describe this to sellers like this:
"Hey, listen, it might be kind of surprising, but about one out of every four of sellers that we're competing with in the marketplace is actually offering an incentive to the buyer to encourage them to make an offer on their home. So it's something for us to consider. We got a great price, but maybe that would make our home stand out just a little bit more is thinking about an incentive.
Let me describe what could mean:
It could be in closing costs, down payment as...
What are the top seven reasons why someone would want to sell in your market?
Well, according to the National Association of REALTORS new profile of home buyers and sellers across the country, here are the top reasons:
1. They want to move closer to family and friends — 18% of the time.
2. Their home is too small — 17% of the time.
3. Their neighborhood has become less desirable — 11% of the time.
4. Their home is too large — 9% of the time.
(Add the too large to the too small, and you got 26% of the time they want to sell has to do with the size of their home.)
5. A change in their family situation — 9% of the time.
6. Moving due to retirement — 7% of the time.
7. Job relocation — another 7% of the time.
So why do we care?
Here's the reason why:
Instead of talking about generalities like do you want to sell your home? Are you ready to move? Let's talk about specifics when you're doing marketing —whether geographic marketing, social media marketing, sphere of in...
If you know people in your sphere of influence that own investment property, I've got some good news. Also, if you own an investment property, I've got good news. And if you're trying to sell investment property, I've got good news:
The investment property side of our business is going through a real resurgence right now. We knew during COVID they got kinda hit. We know the eviction moratoriums made it really tough for them. But now we're starting to see people come back out of that.
So here's a few good numbers in that arena that come from us from the NAR economist blog:
Two of them are dealing with absorption rates. Absorption rates, meaning how many units are being absorbed by the market.
In Q2 and Q3 of this year, 700,000 units were absorbed by this market. It's a lot of units, but completely instantly absorbed by the market.
Vacancy rates have fallen in 2011-ish from 6.9 back then all the way down to 4.6 now. That's a nationwide number, but when you drill into mos...
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