How long do people stay in their homes? It's an interesting question. And it's a question that's related to marketing for us.

Prior to 2008, the average person stayed in their home five years before they moved on. So quite a bit of turnover there.

From 2008 to 2016, that number moved up to eight years.

And now that number has gone even higher — it's now 10.6 years.

So why are people staying in their homes longer? Well, there's lots of reasons.

The Great Recession had an impact. Super low interest rates have an impact. Having less inventory in the markets for people to move up to and change homes has also made a big impact.

But one question we should know and ask our clients is how about our local market? How about with our own sphere? What does that look like for the people that you're actually doing business with?

It's a great text. It's a great social media post to ask this question:

"The average homeowner spends 10.6...

We know that Google is the number one search engine. But what's number two?

As you think about that question, let me give you another a stat that's really going to blow you away:

One-third of Americans -- according to a Harris poll survey -- say that they plan to move after COVID ends.

Think about that.

Think about the power of what that could do to the country in terms of real estate relocation.

So circling back to that first question I asked though, what is the number two search engine?

The answer is YouTube.

And here's what you can do, which is really, really interesting.

When you dive into YouTube today, search for your hometown. Be hyperlocal as we call it and do this quick search: "moving to [your hometown]."

Or you do could another search, which is: "relocation [your hometown]" and see what the results are.

You might find, like I've found, in area after area, after area, after area is that there are very, very little results...

Hey guys, here's a question:

How many transactions would you guess in the marketplace are cash transactions?

The answer is 23% of all transactions in the real estate industry today are cash transactions.

Now, why is that important?

It's important because when we're talking to buyers and sellers, we need to be able to talk about the impact cash buyers have in the marketplace.

So for instance, when I'm sitting with a seller, sometimes sellers will say, "Well, Jim, I only want to sell to a cash buyer."

Now I'll say, "Hey, I get it. I would prefer that too when I'm a seller. Cash buyers don't have an appraisal requirement. And a lot of times you can close faster and it's a little easier. I get it. No lender involved. But here's the reality of those numbers: Today the latest studies show that 23% of buyers are cash buyers. So that means 77% are not. Only about one out of four buyers are cash buyers. If we only want to sell to a cash...

A new study from NAR shows what's going on with home buyers and it's really, really powerful data.

When we look at home buyers, these 2000 groups, we found that 52% of them had been pre-approved. So they've gone through the process and they're pre-approved.

When you look at the reverse of that number, that means 48% have not. About half the buyers you're competing with when you're in a multiple offer situation are just pre-qualified. They're not pre-approved.

Now you need to make sure that number one, you're having a conversation with your buyer about the importance of being pre-approved. And secondly, educating your sellers about the difference between the two.

One thing that I would encourage you to do is have a conversation with your buyers as a starting point. So here's what I would say with my buyers:

I'd say, "You know, we're still in an extremely low inventory market. Things are changing a little bit and a few more...

We are in what we might describe as a normalizing market. What does that mean?

We've been in an abnormal market for several years. Our market's been almost a vertical. We've had double digit appreciation for several years. And this has been a run that we've never seen before.

We're about 12 years into a 7-year cycle. So there's an expectation that we're starting to see the markets shift.

A lot of us are seeing a slowdown of showings and energy. And there's some data that backs this up. Here's some of that data:

New listings in the largest 50 metro markets across the country rose 5.1% last month.

And 17.3% of all listings in the country had a price reduction in the last 30 days.

That's in line with pre-pandemic levels, what you would expect in coming into fall. So that's like 2016-2019 levels. Last year, we didn't see that because the market was straight up. It was on a tear.

But right now sellers are starting to say, "Hey, wait a second....

Hey guys, we know the market's changing. And because of that, every single showing you have on a listing is becoming more important.

We don't have unlimited showings anymore. A lot of showings are slowing down. So when we have a showing, you gotta treat a like gold.

So here's a question:

Are you preparing your sellers with checklists, to-dos, and forms that will help them prepare for each showing and really maximize the potential of getting an offer from a buyer?

Really what the client should be doing is making the home inviting, making sure that you're showing that the home has been cared for and maintained well, and third, we want to make sure you have great curb appeal.

Now I'm going to read to you a few things that you might want to include on your to-do list or your checklist or your forms that you could build out.

Now, when you do this, and we talk about these things, I want you to think about the last like 5 or 10 homes that...

Hey guys, you probably saw that the amount of jobs that were added in August to the economy was actually way lower than expected.

245,000 jobs.

A lot of people attribute that to the rise of the Delta virus and people may be slowing down on hiring. But one thing we can be sure of is that there are a lot of jobs available in America.

There's 10 and a half million jobs available right now. One thing that we're starting to see is unemployment benefits being turned off. Or at least not the incentives added by the federal government. So that might bring more people to work.

But right now we've got to deal with what's here now.

So job wage growth in America so far is up about 4.8%. The challenge is that inflation is also a 5.2%. So it's eating up all those gains. When we look at this in terms of what's going to happen in terms of the real estate market, Lawrence Yun — the chief economist for the International Association of REALTORS...

Interesting question:

How much does what someone sees on TV impact their buying patterns or buying behavior?

And that's a question that was asked within the new staging report from the NAR — the National Association of Realtors. And here's what they found:

63% of REALTORS say that when they're out showing homes to buyers, that the buyers requested to view homes that were comparable to those that they had seen on TV.

Further:

Because of that, 35% of REALTORS say that they have patterned their staging around what they see on TV as well. So TV is definitely having an impact in the real world of selling real estate.

So when we look at those numbers, when we dig deeper, here's what's interesting:

When we ask the bigger question, how many REALTORS are actually staging listings at all?

Here's the numbers:

* 31% of REALTORS stage every listing.

* 13% only staged difficult homes

* 8% only stage high priced homes

But most interesting...

The listing market is about to blow up. We've seen all kinds of stats around this. Everybody's looking at the same wave coming towards us. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

We know 77% of homeowners believe now's a good time to sell.

1 in 10 homeowner's plans to list in the next year. And 63% in the next six months.

Here are 5 things you must have to get ready for the super surge of listings that's about ready to break into your market right now:

1. An in-depth marketing plan

Now this is a step-by-step, point-by-point marketing plan that's unique to you. Not just your office, not your company, not your brand, but to you personally that you give to every seller.

If you haven't developed this, we've actually developed one for all of our coaching students, which will blow your mind. But you need to take some time to develop one yourself.

2. Recent testimonials

Have you collected those on an 8.5x11 piece of paper...

What should you be doing right now?

It's a question I get all the time as a coach.

I'm going to hand to you right my 9 Point Ultimate Business Strategy for every single person that's listening to this.

If you just apply this by 30 days, I want you to email me personally and tell me exactly what happened. Feel free to DM me. I would love to hear how has a blown up your business because I know it will.

Nine points you can implement today in your business. Ready? Write these ideas down.

Here we go:

1. Implement the "5x5x5 Strategy"

This is five calls. Five texts, five cards every day. Okay. That's one strategy we can implement.

2. Networking

Networking is so important and it's one of the most missed opportunities. We should be doing 1-2 networking meetings a week with somebody in our sphere of influence. Where we're connecting human being to human being.

Ideally you want to go higher than that. But 1-2 would be the minimum. This...