Homes.com’s City Sponsor Ads program sets the stage for continued success
Adam Barakzai of the Barakzai Real Estate Group at HomeSmart Optima Realty in Antioch, Calif., has his priorities aligned when it comes to building long-term relationships that stand to produce referrals for years to come.
Just a year after launching their team, Barakzai and his sister/business partner decided to utilize a variety of services from Homes.com—a decision that’s already paid off by delivering 10 new clients within the first 40 days of utilizing the platform (at press time).
“Once you get into real estate, the hardest thing is building trust and a reputation that gets you past that stage where clients may not want to utilize a brand-new agent,” says Barakzai. “I was lucky enough to be able to get the ball rolling relatively quickly by getting my name out there.”
After learning about Homes.com during a visit with a company rep, Barakzai became particularly interested in securing City Sponsorships for a number of the communities he services northeast of the San Francisco Bay Area.
As a result of his investment, Homes.com’s City Sponsor Ads program is providing Barakzai with high-profile branding at the city search level, where prospective buyers and sellers search most frequently.
“Whenever a prospect types the zip code in for one of the communities I’m sponsoring, it shows them my listings and branding right at the top,” says Barakzai. “I like that I appear to be the sole provider in that area, so the choice of who to call first is sort of made for them.”
Taking this one step further, Barakzai’s Homes.com site displays the most relevant listings for prospects within searches on both mobile and desktop, providing prospects the choice to view all his listings. Better yet, prospects can be linked directly to his website while displaying a custom tagline or links to his social networks.
Being a City Sponsor also helps Barakzai make an impression with clients who are interested in listing.
“When you pull the website up in front of them, you’re on the front page, which creates an impression of status,” says Barakzai, who explains that with other lead generation services, if you don’t pick up when a prospective buyer first calls, they move on to the next person.
Barakzai also saw the logic in representing rental property clients early on.
“When we get rental prospects, we’re often able to turn them into long-term buyer prospects,” says Barakzai. “Every renter is eventually going to be a buyer, so it helps to meet them early and develop a relationship. It takes a bit more time, but if you do a good job, they come back around when they’re ready to buy.”
In fact, every time Barakzai gets a new renter, he offers them an exclusive, two-year opportunity to contract with his team when they begin thinking about homeownership.
“Our rental market is crazy, so a lot of renters are exclusively buying through our group, and they’re also referring us to friends and family,” says Barakzai. “During that time, we’re also getting renters pre-approved to buy with our preferred vendor who will process their application. Once that pre-approval is complete, we take them shopping for homes.”
For more information, please visit marketing.homes.com.
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