The past three years have provided a glimpse into a definitive truth that many agents with decades of experience have come to understand about the housing market: there are cycles.
We’ve gone from a mini-recession in the face of the global outbreak of coronavirus to an unexpected white-hot seller’s market. Through it all, people still bought houses, and agents were still at the center of most of those transactions.
The successful agents of tomorrow and beyond will be those who are prepared to implement tried-and-true strategies that will keep them productive.
Getting Back to Basics
You probably heard this phrase on repeat as the housing market began to cool. As that stabilization continues, you’ll likely hear it even more as a call to action by industry veterans to get agents—especially newer ones—back to work.
That’s a message that Gino Blefari, CEO of HomeServices of America, drove home as he addressed hundreds of brokers and industry leaders at RISMedia’s 34th Annual CEO & Leadership Exchange this past September.
“You’ve got to be all in and play full out because casualness will create casualties in a shifting market,” said Blefari as he delved into the state of real estate amid the uncertain economic situation unfolding nationwide.
“As the old axiom goes, there are three kinds of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who say ‘what the hell just happened?'” said Blefari. “But I think there is a fourth person, and that’s the person who anticipates what’s coming and takes action before it does.”
That’s a sentiment that Darryl Davis, CSP, founder and CEO of Darryl Davis Seminars, is imparting to agents nationwide as they search for opportunities to win as the housing market cools.
“What agents need to do is not be reactive to the market,” he says. “They’ve got to be proactive.”
As such, agents looking to win will have to set themselves apart from the competition in the consumer’s eyes. Admittedly, Davis has told RISMedia that one of the philosophies he urges his clientele to incorporate into their business is to be a thermostat and not a thermometer as they approach market changes.
To that end, Davis provides the following tips for agents looking to keep business coming their way:
Create clear daily objectives. Smaller, consistent actions over time can amount to significant results for patient and persistent agents. For example, a manageable daily task of having two conversations with a buyer and seller can amount to 60 chats a month—and nearly 720 discussions a year. If you convert just 10% of those calls into clients, you’re looking at seven to eight transactions that could lead to much more.
Nurture and leverage your farms. Farming your areas is a tried-and-true tactic that agents of all experience levels have heard in one form or another. What agents need to do is ensure that they’re in the seller’s mind when the seller decides to sell. That means making sure people know your name, face and what you do.
Self-promote in the communities you want to serve. One of the best strategies an agent can implement is picking a community they want to own and tailoring their marketing to that community.
While many real estate professionals are trying to appeal to everybody within their market—particularly on social media platforms like TikTok—Davis urges agents to think locally rather than globally.
Leverage Your Sphere and Reel in Referrals
As one of Central Massachusetts’ top-selling real estate agents, Jason Pincomb of Lamacchia Realty understands the importance of leveraging relationships built with clients to feed his lead pipeline.
“Leveraging your sphere has got to be the key to your business right now, because if you aren’t focusing on your sphere, where are you getting your business from?”
To that end, Pincomb focuses on the following to ensure that his lead pipeline is always full:
Be the expert. “I’m not a home inspector, but I’ve probably been on 600 home inspections in my career, so I’m doing the mini inspection to where they see so much value in me and the service I offer that they don’t want to go anywhere else. They want their friends and family to also see that same value,” says Pincomb.
Be a trustworthy agent. “Clients need to look at you not only as an expert, but as someone they trust and like, and that’s the key there. My clients like me,” he adds.
Be genuine. “I get most of my referrals from my clients this way,” explains Pincomb. “It’s just being genuine and being what they would almost consider a friend, where they would invite me into their home.”
Stay in touch with people. “Your past clients need to know that you work on referrals,” says Pincomb. “If you’ve built good rapport, you should ask them, ‘Who’s the next person I can work with in your circle?’ and they will share that with you.
“I send thank you cards and holiday chocolates. I send holiday pies around Thanksgiving. I make sure that I know when their birthdays and anniversaries are,” he adds.
Don’t forget the personal touch. As you serve your clients, remember that no buyer or seller is the same, and shouldn’t be treated as such. From start to finish, agents should be looking to do an outstanding job for their clients. That will keep them coming back to you and sending leads your way.
“It’s making sure that you stay in touch at every opportunity to show them that you’re not just the business part, but you actually care about them,” Pincomb says.
“There is that old saying that there are eggs and chickens,” he continues. “Every client is an egg, but sometimes you get clients that are chickens that will lay eggs for you. Those are the ones that I really focus my energy on.”
While there’s been a significant increase in NAR membership as people kickstarted their real estate careers during the last market cycle, as things have cooled down from the pandemic-induced frenzy, a clear point has emerged: Agents need to brush up on the skills and practices they let slide in recent years.
“It’s a wake-up call for a lot of agents,” says Bailey, explaining that as the market rebalances, there’s a “vast majority of agents” who haven’t had to carry a listing over 30 to 45 days.
“That’s a whole different ballgame as a listing agent,” he continues. “No one has had to stage a house in three years—and how you price it, stage it, market it, set seller expectations is completely different when you go from two days on the market to two months on the market.”
While the market shift may be concerning for some, Bailey urges agents of all experience levels to focus on building or rebuilding the following skills and practices.
Embrace Education
“You have to look at the biggest conflict point (to determine) where you should focus your education anytime there are swift changes in a marketplace, no matter what,” says Bailey. “Ours is cyclical, so there will always be some change to it, but find the most significant conflict point, and it should be your No. 1 focus on education.
“I believe that the biggest conflict point now will be listings,” he adds.
Buyers have gained ground in the market, leading to less impulsive buying and bidding wars. The cooling market has provided breathing room to negotiate on the listing side, which Bailey suggests is a worthwhile skill that agents should brush up on.
Don’t Underestimate the Power of a Database
“There are estimates that 75% to 80% of agents don’t use a CRM or database because they are overly complex, and my advice is don’t get caught up in all the features,” says Bailey. “Get every name you know and at least a contact telephone number in your email and database. If that’s the least of what you do, that will win you business.”
“Every top producer I talk to says that over 90% of their business is repeat referral,” he continues. “When 94% of buyers at the closing table say they’d use you again and only 13% do, that tells me that we are not using our databases well enough. In an environment where we sit around and average about 5 million transactions year over year, give or take, yet we’ve got 200 million-plus online leads floating around in the sky, I don’t think agents want more leads. That’s what they think they want, but they actually want more transaction-ready consumers. The database is the key to helping you say, ‘out of that 200 million, which are the closest 5 million that are actually going to transact this year.'”
Don’t Skimp on Marketing
“When markets contract, the first thing agents and brokerages stop doing is spending on marketing,” Bailey says. “Whether you’re a broker or an agent, you should absolutely be rightsizing your expenses, but don’t shortcut your marketing because this is the time when many agents fall to the background in a fog, and they just go away into the night, and no one sees them again. This is the time to absolutely lean into your database, listings and marketing efforts. If you do those three things, you will have properties that will be bought and sold regardless of the macro environment.”
