Do you know anybody who owns a vacation rental or a property in a place where people come to vacation frequently? There's some good news around vacation rentals and second home sales right now. Studies are showing that vacation rentals have seen a 44% gain in sales from last year.

For those of you who live in these areas, whether there are vacation rental possibilities or vacation home ownership possibilities, make a point of reaching out and farming those communities and pointing out the good news.

You could say, "A new study just came out showing that there's been a 44% increase in sales and in the market for vacation homes and 2nd Homes. Crazy question would you consider selling your home for the right price? If so, I'd love to have a conversation with you about how we can get you a premium price in this market. Give me a call, text, or direct message today."

That simple message could be a social media post, an email, a text, or a phone call. Remember, we can access those phone...

The number one way to attract clients is with high quality inventory. So what happens when you are low on inventory?

Borrow a Listing

Of course you can borrow one from your own office colleagues, which is a common technique, but you can also borrow cooperating agents listings as well. To expand this concept you might target some of the top teams in your market and give them a phone call by saying:

"Hey, I'm looking to do some open houses this weekend, I know you have some great listings. Would you be open to allowing me to do an open house on one of your listings?"

You might be surprised to find that even though they have buyers agents sometimes these buyers agents are already busy, or they don't have enough manpower to do all the open houses they need to based on their listing inventory.

For Sale by Owner Open Houses

Another opportunity, which is really outside the box is to call For Sale by Owners in your market with this quick script:

"I have an out of the box question for...

What is a mini brochure card?

These are over-sized business card sized brochures which feature a couple pictures of your listing, a few key bullet points, along with the price and address of the home. On the reverse side of the card is your contact information in the form of a traditional business card.

How do you use a Mini-Brochure Card for marketing and lead generation?

First when you take a listing provide these cards to your sellers as a way for them to provide information about their listing to family and friends. You might say:

"I am providing you with a stack of mini-brochures to provide to family and friends. I like to cover all bases with my marketing. The card has a link to my website so they see the virtual tour and HD photos."

The cards not only market the home, they market you as the listing agent. In addition they could go into a flyer box and be used at open houses. Another use for a mini-brochure is to use them when talking to the neighborhood, for...

Looking for a new strategy to start conversations with homeowners around your new listings - try this amazing technique that starts the conversation before you put a sign up in the neighborhood. This strategy will make your phone ring with more appointments and opportunities!

I picked up a tip from my marketing director, Tiffany Wilkerson. She had a flyer delivered to her mailbox. It came from a tree trimming company. This company was going to do some work in the neighborhood, but before they arrived, they sent a mailing to everybody in the neighborhood announcing that they were going to be coming soon to the area.

I thought it was a brilliant idea.

It said very simply: "Hey, my company's logging crew will be doing tree work near your home in the next week or so. If you have a large tree, multiple trees need to be removed, trimmed or need clearing work done, this would be a great time to save on that project. Please call me now for a free estimate." And then it had a handwritten...

When you have a listing that goes pending or sells most agents do a just sold or just pended postcard to the neighborhood, which is a great idea because it can trigger people to make a call to you.  But recently I heard a great twist on this approach which I thought was brilliant. 

This agent still did a postcard but he tied it back to his last open house. What he said on the headline of his postcard was this "At my last open house. I had 27 attendees and this house just went pending. All of those buyers are still looking in your neighborhood. Please give me a call. If you have any interest in selling."

What a brilliant concept because it ties the message to urgency and the last marketing you did for the house, which was an open house. Plus it shows off that you are getting results and you have real world buyers that are interested.

If we printed it out every transaction you've done over the last 12 months, you would likely see clusters in your production. This means you would see transactions that are done relatively close together, then a gap, then another set of closings, then a gap, and so on.

Why do we have gaps in production?

The answer is because we have gaps in lead generation. We get busy and we stop lead generating and every single time we say to ourselves, "I've made it. I don't have to lead generate anymore."

I know I've been there. And then we run out of escrows. So we panic and scramble, we quickly begin lead generating, and the cycle continues and continues and continues.

But this approach to your business creates anxiety. It creates stress. It creates turmoil in your business, and it's not a great way to run your business, or live your life.

The good news is we can eliminate those gaps. If we do something really simple and you already know what it is - we need to lead generate every...

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association 12% of Mortgages were not paid on time in the month of May and this number is likely to rise during Covid-19.

When a borrower has missed more than one house payment their lender will at some point send a Notice of Default to them. This is a notification that the lender is beginning a foreclosure process. This process takes several months to complete depending on the type of loan instrument that was used, the state and local rules regarding foreclosure, and the lenders backlog of other foreclosures.

During this time the borrower can always make their payments and pay the penalties to avoid losing the property and, of course, lenders always prefer that the delinquent account be reinstated rather than take the property in foreclosure.

There are many reasons for a homeowner not to make their mortgage payment including job loss, illness, divorce, or a death in the family. When an event or a series of events prevents the homeowner from making...

Would you like a way to quickly ramp up your real estate business (even if you have zero listings and no budget)? 

You can be modeling one of the top team leaders in the country - Joshua Smith - who learned how to use a Mega Open House Strategy during his first year in the business (he sold 43 homes his first year!) to power an incredible rise in the industry. Joshua has since gone on to sell 6000 homes and has become listed as one of the top 30 REALTORS in the country. 

I caught up with Joshua during an Elite Retreat for my own company where we hired Joshua to be our keynote presenter. (Please excuse the sound and lighting as we recorded this clip shortly before the session was set to begin.)

Do you need more leads, more listings, more buyers, and more closings? 

Looking for a way to unlock more transactions while you are in the field or talking to your sphere of influence? Try using the "What's stopping you?" technique!

This easy script can pave the way to discovering what's preventing buyers and sellers from moving foward with buying or selling real estate. More importantly it can give you a road map of the objections, questions, and concerns potential clients have with moving forward.

About Jim Remley

Jim Remley is a nationally recognized expert in the field of residential real estate. Entering the real estate industry at the age of 19 he began an unlikely rise from college drop out to real estate Rock Star...