The Effort to Get Buyers in the Door is Called Marketing.
Marketing is often confused with sales. In real estate the sale occurs at the title company when the buyer gets the Deed and the seller gets the cash. That sale is called the closing. Almost everything that occurs before that in real estate is known as the marketing.
So when people start talking about selling real estate or the house selling process it is really easy to confuse the two. It happens all of the time and most real estate agents really dont know the difference either. It should come as no surprise that most real estate people think that they are in fact sales people. What is really shocking is that a majority or them also believe that they are specialists in marketing, even though they have had little or no formal training especially in today’s digital world.
So, with everything evolving and changing it stands to reason that with the confusion regarding the marketing and the sale of a house, real estate agents have gotten a quasi free pass from sellers in having to know their stuff about real estate marketing. I think it is deeper than that though, I think that most sellers are just hoping that that the real estate agent they hire will get the job done. After all it’s what they get paid for. It may also be that sellers just assumes that where there is a license there must be expertise. It’s a shame because the top real estate agents in every market are far better at getting houses sold and the statistics bear that out.
Real Estate Sales By the Numbers.
There are just so many statistics in real estate. But, when you consider that 87% of real estate agents wash out within the first 5 years and that 78% of home sellers hire the very first real estate agent that they talk to, it’s NOT a recipe for success.
If it were, then the nearly 40% property listings with real estate agent that expired without one offer would not have occured. I write a lot about real estate agent statistics because I know for a fact that the concentration of knowledge and achievement in real estate lies with the top 50% of the top 13% that survive that first five years. When you think about it, it makes you wonder why any seller would opt to have anything other than the best real estate agents represent them.
Afterall, the best and the worst agents get paid the same amount in commission. The difference is that the best real estate agents close more transactions. As such, It would seem to me that sellers would demand the best before signing any listing agreement. It would also seem logical that sellers would want to create an urgency by demanding that their chosen agent creates a well thought out and detailed Marketing Plan before the sign.
I have talked to a lot of sellers that thought that the Comparative Marketing Analysis (local sales data) and a list of all of the websites that their house would be listed on was the marketing plan. After all it was in a folder labeled Marketing Plan.
The Complexities of Marketing and its Challenges Are Lost On Most Sellers and their Real Estate Agents
Selling your house is a huge motivator and if you are like most homeowners you dont want to know the technical jargon, you just want to know who can get the job done. So if that is the case stop hoping the bottom 87% of the real estate agents can do the job that the top 13% are actually doing.
Real estate is like baseball there are statistics for everything. Unfortunately, the only stats that you hear about are the Great ones that are released. There are plenty of skeletons and it up to you as the seller to find the right “people” to work with that can get the job done.
If you have and you have met with any real estate agents and have seen the dog and pony show, then you have seen the color charts, graphs and demographics. Those presentations are standard issue to every real estate agent in every firm. Sure they are packaged a little differently with different colored folders and logos, but they are the same and so are the marketing buzzwords.
If you were to listen to three presentations you’ll see that all of them sound pretty much the same. They have the same charts, the same graphs, demographics and comparative market analysis of the value of your house. Just as an FYI, every real estate agent knows what Zillow says your house is worth.
So whether or not your real estate agent really knows how to market or even sell your house, one thing’s for certain… they all know the new digital marketing buzzwords that will hook you into signing a listing agreement. What I have found is it is the homeowners that are confused and they generally lack the critical expertise to ask the questions that determine the agents level of expertise in Marketing.
Homeowners see the glossy business cards, pie charts and color graphs, read about the demographics of a neighborhood and the local schools and believe that they are talking to an expert in Marketing. Nothing could be further from the truth and every presentation sounds so similar that after a while the sellers just assume that they all must know what they are talking about. Just pick one.
For real estate agents, the market itself determines much of the marketing strategy based on the degree of difficulty to bring in the buyers.
Sellers Market or Buyers Market… it Matters
Supply and demand dictate most everything in real estate. If there are less sellers (houses for sale) than buyers, it’s a sellers market and the sellers have an advantage. It also means that house prices are typically up and so the cost of housing is rising. It means that buyers have less options and their offers need to be more competitive. It also means that selling real estate is a lot easier and there are more real estate agents in a sellers market. ,
In a buyers market there are more sellers (houses) on the market, so buyers have an advantage and can be more selective and competitive in their offerings. In buyers markets we start to see downward pressure on house prices as buyers are more discerning. As the numbers of buyers shrink we see two things happen. Real estate agents leave the profession and the ones that remain fine tune their skill and we see sellers agents utilize more aggressive marketing campaigns targeting houses in new and creative ways.
The problem with sellers markets for the typical real estate agent is that it allows them to exist without fine tuning their trade. For them, all of that technology boils down to text messaging, email. 48 percent of all real estate firms cited keeping up with technology as one of the biggest challenges facing their firm in the next two years. As such the Marketing and technology is something that they want and try to embrace, but there are only so many hours in a day and this sellers market is putting food on the table. They all talk about how they can get better at the marketing but at the end of the day its the old habits that kick in and resort doing what they have always done which in today’s world still only works 60% of the time.
They take the listing and place it on the Multiple listing service and that one action populates 20 to 30 other websites that home buyers are known to crawl on. The market has changed and as technology has made it easy for buyers to search for houses on their own without the need for a real estate agent, they have gladly done so at the real estate agents expense and the average agent falls by the wayside as well.
Here is the thing though… every single item that has been removed from the real estate agents plate by technology and has been given to the buyers for convenience. The net result is a diminished role for the average real estate agent and they are losing relevance and value in transactions. The question becomes, what is it that we need them for? As buyers become more sophisticated they realize that there are other players that will help them and actually get out of the way of the sale.
Great examples of this are Title Companies that do a lot of the preliminary work for closing anyway.
The question that I have for real estate agents is why if one thing has been removed are you not adding two more things back via technology or services? What is your value proposition to both the seller and the buyer and at what point do you lose all of your relevance?
So why sellers are not demanding that the the agents that they hire have a detailed plan of action? The truth is most sellers and real estate agents dont really know what that means… most sellers see the words marketing plan and just believe their agents are capable. You have to realize that technology is coming to the market exponentially faster than an agents understanding of how to use it. We get glimpses of the technology and its application, but as far as rolling it out to the the average real estate agent goes… it is still years behind.
Ask any homeowner that is ready to sell now and the number one questions is: How fast can you sell My House fast Sacramento? It is understandable with all of the stories of it taking forever and costing thousands of dollars that sellers want a finite answer from a world where selling is anything but guaranteed.
The first thing to know about real estate is that it is a numbers game. More buyers than sellers and it’s a sellers market. But for your house to sell you need to target your marketing to the right buyers and the truth of the matter is that while the tools to do that have increased, those that actually know how to use them have been reduced.
The learning Curve is a Double Edged Sword.
Without getting into more of the negative and boring real estate statistics about what works and what doesn’t. Good real estate vs. bad real estate agents… every journey to sell a house begins with the marketing.
Just hiring any real estate agent is not going to get your house sold. The good ones however, understand that a well funded marketing plan can bring a buyer to your doorstep and possibly to closing. They also know that it is NOT the one thing that will work to get yo your buyer… it is everything combined and so sellers agents are not only having to know the market. They need to understand Google, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter and the like. They need professional photographers, graphic artists and most important the ability to understand the sales process, the content of offers and counter offers and the art of the Negotiation.
I am sorry but that is a lot to know and that is why 87% of all real estate agents wash out within the first 5 years. It’s not because they are making money. Its because they are NOT. So what you are looking for is an agent that is in the top 13% that will beat those odds and still have enough technological wherewithal to keep up with the technology as well as possess the marketing skills (without a formal education in marketing) to sell your house in Sacramento.
Sell My House Fast Sacramento Its the Marketing
Listing agents do not possess a rolodex of buyers chomping at the bit to buy your house. As the seller I hope you weren’t under the impression that your listing agent was going to bring in the actual buyer for your house? I know that it is confusing, but the chances that your listing agent is also going to be the buyers agent is about 5%. Nonetheless, the effort to get buyers in the door starts with your interview process to find the best qualified real estate agent that understands how to get the job done. That means you need to ask for their marketing plan. A little hint here… a marketing plan is not a website or a brochure with words that that say “marketing plan”.
It is a comprehensive plan that details what websites if any that your house will be listed on, the dates of open houses (for agents in their office and others for the general public) , the photographer (that will take the video and quality photos) and the types of email campaigns they will launch to attract other buyers agents to your house. Your listing agent should be able to tell you the profile of the buyer that they twill attract. Will there be a reach and demographic from the the bay area? If so, how do they target that market? Are they Capable and how? What does their real reach look like and their ability to attract buyers and how that pencils out for past sales. How often will you speak with your agent until there is a signed agreement? Is there a team or support staff that backs that agent up? That means that it is your responsibility to find the best possible agent to sell your house, not to hope that the one you haphazardly hire would somehow work out.
Your goal is to get as many people through the front door as possible and unlike sales your real estate agent isn’t going to go out and hunt them down or knock them over the head and drag them to the property as buyers. Your real estate agent needs to fire up that marketing machine so that every other real estate agent knows about your house and that they bring in the actual buyers.
So the question that I have for you is, does your real estate agent have that kind of experience, influence and reach to accomplish that? Is their marketing expertise so fine tuned that they are able to reach out through email or by phone and get the troops geared up for the plan that they have in store for your house? Do they have a plan? Is it the same plan that everyone else has? What is their success record? That is a lot of questions and they need answers because before we can talk about offers, it is all about the effort to get the buyers in the front door.
Here is the takeaway… the very minute that the “Listing” goes live and you plant the For Sale sign in the front yard it all about your house and the marketing. Besides all of your renovations, it is arguably the most costly and time consuming part of the process to sell your house because it requires lots of bodies.
A cold hard fact in real estate is that it’s impossible to review any buyer offers on a house that does not receive any offers. When that happens, you know that even in a sellers market, the marketing, the pricing and the value were not targeted to the right group of buyers or the message just never hit the spot.
It’s all about the marketing. In today’s electronically driven, fast paced world, selling houses is about the targeting of buyers.
The Buyers have changed… remember that buyers shop online for their homes like everything else. Your agent should have a visible presence on the major real estate websites. They should know how to get your listing in front of the right people, which platforms work the best, and how to use photography and video to market the house. They should be able to text or email back and forth with you without any communication issues. What about daily or weekly phone calls and Strategy sessions on Saturdays. Debriefings for all Showings? Follow up with agents that showed the house? It is a grind and a job… but it is theirs and as the seller you need to manage it.
Finally… how they are presenting themselves online, is that how they will present your house. If they have only set up basic profiles, have missing information a lack of photos, they might take the same approach with your listing. Make sure they have the target your property to the right buyers!
- websites
- Leverage tech
- Applications
- YouTube
The Alternative to a Real Estate Agent
My name is Peter Westbrook and I am a real estate Investor and a cash home buyer in Sacramento, Stockton, Manteca and Modesto. It should come as no surprise that not every house is going to get a fair shake on the market have the best representation or even going to get a top of market offer. The real estate industry has changed and it might be clear that there are many ways to cash out of your house.
We Buy Houses in Sacramento, Stockton and Modesto and if you are thinking about selling your house and it needs a lot of work, why not at least consider an all cash offer. We buy houses and we pay fair market value minus the cost of repairs and some holding cost. In a lot of cases the balance sheet is on our side especially if your goal is to spend the least amount of money while putting the most amount of your equity back in your pocket.
I admit that we may not be for everyone, but I would like to talk to you about how we do business and how we can help you. While no one can promise that they will buy your house sight unseen for whatever amount that you want, we will sit down and make a fair cash offer that will in most cases exceed what you can get if you chased the market conventionally. No Commissions, no frustrating meeting with real estate agents, no marketing, no cleaning, no fixes, inspections, no appraisals and no contingencies.
Give me a call at (209)481-7780. What have you got to lose, you may just find out that selling directly to us is your best alternative. In either case you will be get a better picture of your options, understand your houses worth and be able to make more informed decision. We’d love to earn your business.
IF YOU ARE LOOKING TO SELL YOUR HOUSE IN SACRAMENTO, CONTACT US TODAY AT (209)481-7780 OR FILL OUT OUR ONLINE CONTACT FORM.
