Almost every other day, we'll get a call from a seller wanting to know if we have buyers who may want to buy their property. Apparently sellers know we have buyers. Question is, why didn't they list with us in the first place? - Because sellers don't look online for an agent or brokerage to list their homes. They start looking online when they become anxious after 60 days without a showing. This have been very frustrating. How can we get the message to the sellers that the buyers are online and that the best exposure for their listings will be online. Thru postcards? Bench advertising? Billboards? Thru farming?
So far we've gotten listings thru referrals and from past clients who are now selling. But the goal is to have as many sellers as we have buyers. The web is very good for catching buyers but so far we haven't found a niche for getting sellers. We're too late for REO listings although we feel that banks should also be more selective on choosing agents and brokerages to list their properties. I've seen so many homes listed with just one ugly photo. Since most of our inquiries are from out of state, they always request for additional photos and we end up taking photos of these listings ourselves to send to our clients. Most of the time the listing agents will not even return our calls, even when we already have offers.
I think there should be a way to be able to reach the sellers online... we just haven't figured it out yet. As soon as we come up with something, we'll let you know.
Contact Me
My Listings
Subscribe (RSS)
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Visitor Feedback
There are currently 5 Responses to this blog entry.
renegalvan
Wow...Ditto for me!!!
Some listing agents in our market make it difficult to submit an offer. These listing agents are usually "old school" and want to double dip on the commission.
Homeowners that search online here tend to use "discount" brokerages. In the last year, 3 flat fee companies have setup offices in our selling area. To my surprise, their listings have averaged fewer days on market than most.
I'm not a blogger either
tampa4u
HI Rene, thanks for your response. That makes a lot of sense. Most people surfing online are looking for deals. So sellers will most likely be looking for deals online also and find discount brokers. That is quite a scary trend if that's the direction of the real estate business model. Traditional "old school" agents rely on just the listings and they will need to have a lot of listings to survive on a flat fee schedule.
brandonre
Hey Julia, You would think that sellers would want to use an agent that has a large online prescence since they will have more exposure but for some reason it is mostly buyers that will contact you.
I wish we had jumped on the reo listings too, most of the agents in our area handling these are just awful.
tampa4u
You said it Dan! How's the bench advertising working for you. I saw you on a banch on Rt.60:) I'm thinking of using the benches as a messaging platform to tell sellers to look online when listing their homes. I can't afford the billboards. $10,000 a month!!! How's your brother Ritchie? Staying out of trouble? :) - give our best to him.
brandonre
The bench exposure is ok can't really attribute much business to it but does give some creditabilty and reconization. We don't advertise on them anymore. You guys have so much visibilty online you don't need anymore. LOL :)
Yes I am trying to keep out of trouble. I will tell him you said hi.