my experence with direct mail marketing.

Morristown · 01-31-2007, 08:06 AM

Direct mail is the main thing you can do to ensure your future business. There are only so many friends and relatives that can be gone to. From what I have seen if you can find a neighborhood that is turning at a reasonable rate and not dominated by any 1 or 2 realtors, the chances are good that with the right sort of campain, you can get business out of that neighborhood, and if you keep up the campain and give great service as well, soon you can be dominating that neighborhood.

I was able to witness that in action in my past neighborhood. 210 houses, turning at a average of 12 to 14 homes per year. The other agent lived about a block from me, and had lived in the neighborhood about a year longer than I did and had been marketing to it that whole time. During that time, he went from 0% market share of the listings to 20% that first year, second year he was up to about 30% of the listings, then third year he went up to about 50% of the listings, and now he is at about 60% of the listings. During that time period, I made many mistakes, Main one was wasting my time and money trying to market to that neighborhood (even though I lived there) second was not being consistant with my marketing. I got 2 listings in that neighborhood other than my own house in 2.5 years, never even got a interview for any of the other listings. The other agent tipically gets 6% listings there now, on 500K houses. Just goes to show you to do it right.

In my new neighborhood, no agent has done more than 10% of the listings in any 12 month period over the last 3 years, I know I have a good shot of replicating what the agent in my old neighborhood did. My stratagy is to Direct mail every 2 weeks or go door to door to replace a mailing for the first 4 months and then cut that back to every 3 weeks.

For right now business I am trying to deal with FSBO's and Expireds. Calling them, visiting them, most important becouse of time, Mailing to them. Any suggestions for best approach to getting meetings with the expireds.

James Boyer
Keller Williams Realty
Summit NJ
973-647-0253

schulte · 08:07 AM

One idea for this is to create a special direct mail piece specifically aimed at expired properties. With copy that suggests a free overview of what might have gone wrong. You will search and find the problem for the reason their house did not sell. Maybe list a few possibilities of what could have been the problem, and what you will check. Then you will give a professional overview of what should be tried. No obligations of course.

Keep in mind that the owners may have a bad taste in their mouth for realtors now; the previous agent may have been a doorknob. So you may have to overcome a little of that in your direct mail piece.

There are some good books on SPAM

Morristown · 02-02-2007, 06:35 AM

Thank you, I will check them out. I have put together a database of about 150 homes which were expired listings in the past 12 months, and have called about 20 of them but not gotten anywhere with them so far. Have not been pushy with them on the phone. I am adding all 150 to my mailing list They will get the I know what went wrong letter from me, then the normal postcards and letters I farm with, and about every month they will get the I know what when wrong letter.

What is the feeling as to how often a piece of mail should be put in front of these expireds, expecially the ones who expired 2, 3 or more months ago and have not relisted as of yet?

Thank you for your imput.

schulte · 08:08 AM

It's impossible to guess exactly how many times to send a letter/postcard unless you know why they expired in the first place. If they expired because they choose not to move, you could mail daily and it wouldn't make any difference.

If they still want to move, but are delaying it because of a family illness, you could mail twice a month to keep your name fresh in their minds. Compared to the potential income a listing and sale would bring, the cost of these select mailings is tip change.

You could also send a survey with your first letter asking them why or what they think went wrong, put a brand new dollar in it for their time and a return envelope.

Or just keep mailing them and track what happens. If you find you mail twice a month to 20 expired listings, for 6 months and you get one listing from it, by my figures you will have gotten a nice return on investment.

I recommend every salesperson; no matter what they are selling, learn more about sales writing. I believe it's imperative to success. We live in a very competitive world; the people that stand out are the ones that go the extra mile to be better. When you learn to write sales copy, you will get more leads and more listings. Here are three books I recommend every salesperson reads.
SPAMER'S SITES REMOVED

HomeOwnerAdvocate · 04-05-2007, 02:19 PM

I am not a realtor, but an investor. So I am often approached by Realtors to list my houses. I recently had a MLS only listing that expired. Upon expiring, I was approached by quite a few Realtors via mail and phone, here are my impressions on why they all failed to get the listing:

1. Simply mailing a marketing piece without follow-up. I had one mail me a list of current comps on the market, and a comment about how mine was over priced; in looking at the comps, my house was priced in the middle. For letters are great, but you still need to read them for clarity and accuracy.

2. Phone calls were unscripted and useless. The callers rarely did research as to how they could do better, yet clearly explained they could do better.

I think if someone took the time to visit me at my house and had a strong attitude of service I would listen and be much more willing to let them present me their marketing plan. At best, your DM campaign is going to get you 5% response; you then need to convert the 5% into sales. That's not too many sales out of 150 leads.

FSBO are cheap by nature and are looking for a way around the commission. You need a very compelling argument to convince them to pay 6%. I forget the statistics, but I'm sure the NAR keeps them for how much lower a FSBO sells for compared to a realtor represented home. Also, be consistent, every two weeks with FSBO's, they will soon tire of the calls, open houses, cancelled appointments and look for professional assistance.

RESteve · 04-05-2007, 02:28 PM

Quote:

I think if someone took the time to visit me at my house and had a strong attitude of service I would listen and be much more willing to let them present me their marketing plan. At best, your DM campaign is going to get you 5% response; you then need to convert the 5% into sales. That's not too many sales out of 150 leads.

So you would not be taken back by a real estate agent visiting you at your home unexpectedly, or would you expect that meeting to precede with a phone call?

Morristown · 04-05-2007, 02:31 PM

What town or City are you in HomeOwnerAdvocate?

Morristown · 04-05-2007, 02:47 PM

I Respect what HomeOwnerAdvocate has to say. Personally when approching the home owner of a expired listing I prefer to go to their home. I do not call ahead of time as that just gives them the chance to get all negative and exclude you before they know anything about you.

On his point of the agent who mailed him comps and the comment about his house was over price, well I generally do not send out information about the market for his home as that falls under educating your home seller, and that is best done in person. As to the comps that you recieved well who knows what they really mean. In my market many of the major real estate companies are saying that when pricing a house today, you should take the comps and price about 2 to 4% below them.

The NAR statistics contiunally show year after year after year that FSBO's sell for about 17% less then Realtor marketed homes.

MLS only, well personally I think someone is waisting their time paying for those services, the perseption with them is usually that becouse the home owner is seeking the cheepest way out, they likly did many other things that were the cheepest way out as well and this likly would not be a good home for their client. (that is perseption, I am not saying it is the reality, just the perseption).

These days it seems that if you want to sell your home, you have to do the following:

1. Have your home in good show condition.
2. Have little to no defered maintenence.
3. Price your house slightly below the market. (Recently here we had a 4 bedroom colonial go on the market for $699,900 about 40K under what the comps said, It had 8 bids the first 2 days on the market. I know one agent who bid for his client 731K and his client did not get the house.)
4. Hire a Realtor who will truely and aggressivly market the home. To ensure that you get that it might be best to stay away from the old line companies who make all the marketing choices for their agents. We know who those companies are.

Just my 2 cents.

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