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Real estate is a highly interpersonal business. People do not enlist a company to sell their property, they engage an agent. With property sales down as much as 20% in some states, ensuring your potential to impress vendors from your first interaction is more important than ever. As proptech providers, both iRealty and ReNet understand that software should be used to support real estate professionals not replace them. And such are designed to make agent’s lives easier so they have time to speak with more people and create the ever so important interpersonal relationships with buyers and sellers.
Here are 3 stages of the real estate cycle and how real estate software supports them.
Stage 1: First Impressions Count
According to realestate.com 41% of people find it hard to choose an agent. This means if a seller has decided to meet with you, your first impression means everything. Demonstrating you know the local market and have buyers readily available is what will win you the listing. Here are 2 ways your software will help you impress from the beginning.
a. Digital Marketing Platforms such as iRealty can help agents demonstrate potential buyer interest even before they make the decision to choose you as an agent. This not only instills confidence for the vendor it helps reassure a positive turn out for the first open home. iRealty’s property prediction tool enables agents to display matched buyers with specific property interest. Select a price range, suburb and property features and iRealty will find subscribers in your database that have shown interest in that criteria. Once you have secured the listing, utilise the iRealty smart filters to automatically send the 1st open home invite to those engaged in your marketing.
b. CRMs such as ReNet - Use your CRM to your advantage and filter all the potential buyer matches in your using their property’s criteria such as the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, suburbs and even price range. If you’re using ReNet as your CRM, you have the added advantage of offering Property Alert emails to your database. Explain to your vendor that the moment their property is listed, all the potential buyers who match this criteria will be instantly notified and sent an e-brochure.
Stage 2: Selling their home faster and at a great price
Now it’s time to sell quickly and at a great price. The last thing you should do is list the property, send out one email then wait for a buyer to appear. Take a proactive approach and keep your vendor updated along the way.
It is standard procedure these days to upload a property to all of the common real estate portals. Vendors are becoming increasingly involved in the sales process and want to know you have the means to sell their property for the right price and quickly.
With calls for agents to upskill vendors in sales technology, real estate professionals should expect a higher demand in alternative marketing methods from vendors.
Here are three steps to assist in selling their home faster:
1. Make their property shine – It goes without say that real estate is all about image. Buyers use the images and description you advertise to qualify homes of interest. If you do a poor job at either it is likely they will navigate to others properties fitting their dream home criteria. In fact, it takes only 26 seconds for your audience to make their mind up about a property. Ensuring the listing shines is just more positive reinforcement for the vendor at this stage.
2. Sell faster using Digital Marketing - leverage both email and social media marketing
a. Paid property campaigns – 70% of Australians have facebook and over 60% of them check their account daily (on average they spend about 12 hours per week). While most agents and real estate offices use social media as a branding tool, less use it as a platform to gain significant buyer interest. Increase your vendor’s property exposure and generate leads with social media campaigns. By presenting a branded social media marketing campaign to your vendor, you are highlighting alternative avenues for their home to be sold quicker and at the highest price. iRealty’s digital marketing team have created effective campaigns designed to generate more buyer interest and ultimately sell faster, the best part is their ads are run by industry specialised marketing experts.
b. Targeted email marketing –. 77% of people prefer to receive real estate advertisement by email than any other method. Having an email marketing strategy that is aimed at showcasing listings, and gaining buyer interest will put you ahead of other agents. As email marketing specialists we suggest a combination of property newsletters to highlight specific listings (Tell you vendor when their property will be the feature listing). Combined with automated alerts like open homes, new listings and price adjustments to targeted buyers.
3. Maintain transparent communication - According to realestate.com communicating with your vendor is one of the most desirable attributes for a vendor. In fact, some of the leading real estate coaches across the country suggest agents update their vendors daily. There are different types of communication relevant when looking after your vendor.
Communication during Open Homes - Your communication procedure could look like this:
- New Property Listing e-brochure sent to all potential buyers once the property is listed
- Open Home e-brochure invitation sent to potential buyers and past open home attendees
- SMS reminder 1 day before the Open Home
- SMS reminder the morning of the open home
- SMS thank you with a link to the property listing
- A phone call to the vendor immediately after the inspection along with an emailed Vendor Report.
b. Be transparent with campaign reports - Whether your vendor has opted for extra vendor paid campaigns or their property features in your other digital marketing efforts (emails, newsletters, alerts or social media). It is important to be transparent with the engagement and interest their property has gained. Leverage CRM reporting tools such as ReNet’s Vendor reporting features to customise a report with elements that are relevant to your Vendor.
c. No news is not good news – On days there is little to update the vendor on i.e no open homes, enquiries, offers or campaign results. Send them a quick text just to reassure them. Give them a call post open home and on days marketing campaigns are finished.
Stage 3: Close the sale and increase repeat business
When closing the sale, ensure the transaction occurs smoothly. This is still part of the Vendor experience. Giving your vendor an amazing, complete, experience is a great way to gain future business and referrals. Avoid getting bogged down in paperwork and the nitty-gritty of the transaction to-do list. Easily create documents and track commissions within the Contract area of ReNet. Set reminders and keep track of documents that need to be completed or signed.
Stay in touch with your vendors post sale. Once a property is sold, your communication should not stop. Imagine is 90% of your past clients committed to sell again with you in the future? We suggest adding them to your content newsletter list to keep them informed once a month. This is a soft approach to maintaining your brand awareness with them. And the best part is, iRealty will be able to track when they start engaging in the market again when the time is right.
Secondly, celebrate milestones and anniversaries. This can be easily done when you have a CRM that helps facilitate these events easily, such as ReNet. ReNet’s Tasks and Trails feature allows you to set reminders or follow ups within your CRM. Set a yearly anniversary reminder on the day they sold their property and send them a congratulations card, email or even give them a call. Go one step further and set birthday reminders for all of your vendors as a reminder to greet them. This extra personal touch will keep the relationship strong and keep you front of mind.
The reality is only around 12% of people use the same agent twice. By looking after your vendor throughout the sales process and beyond you are ensuring your future real estate success. Both by securing their future business and their referrals.
