133: What to Do When Inventory Is Low

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This market is challenging to say the least. We felt like it was time to revisit this sellers’ market and how we need to prepare all clients, buyers and sellers, for what they will be experiencing. Being prepared and having a plan is crucial and we cover how to do that. We also get creative thinking about HOW to get new listings, so we can be part of the inventory solution. Let’s talk about what you should be looking for on social media to find new listings and what in the world is an orphaned neighborhood. This is a timely discussion on low inventory, which by all data and reports may be a thorn in the real estate world’s side for quite a bit longer.

The following is a rough transcript provided by Otter.ai.

0:02
This tenant was terrible. Ready to sell?

0:07
Yes, they expired at one time and they renewed and now they’re sold. Thank you for the crappy coffee gift card.

0:18
I like your air quotes. It’s definitely a seller’s market.

0:23
Hi, y’all welcome to hustle humbly. It’s Alyssa and Katie and we are two top producing realtors in the Baton Rouge market.

0:29
We work for two different companies where we should be competitors. But we have chosen community over competition.

0:34
The goal of our podcast is to encourage you to find your own way in business to stop comparing yourself and start embracing your strengths. Hi, Alyssa, Katie.

0:43
J doesn’t like you when I don’t say hi to you. Because apparently a couple of X episodes ago I didn’t say hi.

0:49
Oh, well, we have to remind them our names and who’s speaking.

0:53
Yeah, we get new listeners all the time. And we forget that you’re new. You might be new here. And this is Katie.

1:01
And Alyssa.

1:03
Today’s episode is what to do

1:06
when inventory is low to tough market right now.

1:09
It is tough. Will you hand me the plugs on my computer though. So we don’t die? Sure. While it’s recording, because that would be devastating. Very sad. Okay. It’s a tough market out there. You request you requested this topic.

1:21
I saw a lot of people talking on the Instagram about it on the interwebs Yes, about what to do and any ideas and I’m struggling and so why not just dedicated episode to what’s going on right now. I love it.

1:34
Do you want to start with it from the buyer angle or from the seller angle?

1:39
Let’s start with the flip report. Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo Vivi did he flip up or? We’re pending?

1:54
This exciting news.

1:56
Showing number two who had canceled scheduled and Whitney showed him wrote me an offer shock or she said he was the nicest man. He moved here from New Orleans. She asked him what brought him here and he said lots of water. So I think he had been through Katrina, Hurricane Katrina. Okay. He loved the house single guy. Okay. Work for him worked for him. He really appreciated it.

2:24
What the price range was too high. Why did he cancel the show? It was like,

2:28
Oh, I don’t want to go that high. Got it. Okay. And then he was like, well, there’s nothing else out there. And I can’t go that high. And then I was excited because he’s pre approved with the lender that we love Jamie. Oh, I love it. She was the lender that we interviewed on our previous episode, I would say you can go back and listen to her. But it just made me feel good to know. You knew who the lender I know who it was. So I feel good about it. And it’s funny, because now that it’s pending. Everybody wants it. Hmm. Getting all these text messages. That’s like, have you taken a contract? Have

3:00
you taken a backup?

3:01
I’ve had several I’ve told several people go show it for a backup. Yeah. So we haven’t had the inspection yet. Right. I’m not too worried because I had an inspection you should know I should I fix pretty much everything right on there. Okay, including the driveway. Right? So, um, I don’t think that’ll be bad, you know, and then we’ll jump it. See how the appraisal goes. I’m not too worried about that either. Okay, but we’ll see. Okay. So yeah, February 28. Is our close day. Oh, my gosh. So we’ll see.

3:33
Okay, I’m excited.

3:35
I’m excited. And congrats. Thank you. So far. It hasn’t sold till it sold. Yeah, um, okay. That’s where I’m at right now.

3:41
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

3:45
Let’s start with when you have the buyer, okay. In a low inventory market,

3:52
right? You can take the lead on this because I have no notes on the buyer and all of them on the sell most

3:59
of mine? Well, a lot of them can overlap. But, for example, I just had an agent in my office that had a buyer looking in a very specific neighborhood, a pretty big neighborhood. Okay. She used the coals directory to do a mail out to that neighborhood. I’m sure there’s a bunch of other different programs out there. I don’t know what else office uses. But you can do a mail out to a specific neighborhood. And she said I liked it because it wasn’t like you just sell your house. Yeah. It said I have a buyer looking for a four bedroom in your neighborhood in your neighborhood in this price point. Yeah, because that neighborhood had a range depending on everything. So she was very specific. And she got four or five people who respond who responded which I thought was a lot that is a lot. She showed the houses and then got one as a listing. And her buyer didn’t buy any of them. I think her by or bought one of them. Okay. And then she got one as a listing love it. Another thing too is that I think if you did that twice, right, it would really stir up more response. Yeah. So say none of those worked and your buyers still looking, wait another 30 days and then send out another postcard to the same group that just says, Hey, thank you so much to those who responded, my buyer is still looking again, this is what they’re looking for. But she was getting things to show her buyer as well as getting potential new listings, right? From having a real buyer. Right. So I thought that was very interesting. I

5:39
think coming with a real buyer is key here. You can’t just use it as a tactic. But you have to actually have a human because if they reach out to you, you better show up with the human right, who is actually looking to buy. Can we back it up a little though? I think number one you want to do when there’s low inventory is set appropriate expectations for your buyers? Yeah, y’all. So beginning? Let’s start before we even Yeah, hey, Alyssa, I’m gonna buy a house. I’m so excited. My price range is 175. You’re like, well,

6:11
let me just tell ya,

6:13
they might be a little tight. I think that having a real detailed conversation that says, This is how the market is right now. It does it. I’m gonna give you a story. Are you ready? I’m ready. I thought I didn’t have buyer notes. But I do. I got a buyer call. This week. It was actually a past client of mine who I’ve worked with several times, it was a relative of his, he called me and said, Listen, my sister in law’s working with this agent that told her that she can’t look at houses. She just has to make offers because there’s no time in this market to look at houses. And I told her that she needed to talk to you because this sounds crazy. And I’m like, I would agree. So I said no problem. Give me your number. I’ll reach out, I reach out. So I’m like, Hey, let’s talk it out. Tell me what you need. What’s going on in your life? Why are you moving? She tells me the whole story. She and her husband are retired. They live one hour away from here. Okay. Never once did she tell the agents she was working with that she couldn’t make it to a showing. They just preemptively told her. Oh, you liked this house? You’re gonna have to write an offer right now.

7:24
How serious are you? She could have been here

7:27
to look at the house in one hour. That’s not bad. It’s not a long time. Like, come on. You’re basically she was willing to come for the showing and was just told no showings, we need to just do this. You guys, you can’t bully your clients just because the market is busy. You have to find a way to make this work. Just tell them the truth. Listen, so I did. I talked her through it. I said, well tell me your specifications. And then she told me I’m like, Well, yes, that’s a pretty hot market. I’m not saying what the agent told you isn’t true there. There may come a time when a mark house comes on the market and you’re at its helm for the day. And I’m gonna have to do a video tour and we’re gonna have to make it work and see what we can do. Because you can’t get there. Yes, you’re gonna have to have a sense of urgency. Yes. Am I telling you, you don’t get to look at houses? No, you can come look at the house, right? Because I’m like, now I know you’re retired. You’re not that far. There’s no reason why you can’t get here. I know. So I was a little annoyed with the other agent. Because that’s not an appropriate way to treat people. And I picked up a buyer out of it. Great. Fine, but also I had to set expectations for her look, we’re not

8:34
even updated our email templates. We did Lane we did. This is how it is. Not only do we have to get to showings quickly, but you also need to already understand your numbers with your lender right? Once you like a house now is not the time to say well let me email the lender and just double check what closing costs are like no, we know the numbers. We know what the monthly note is. We know what the closing costs are at this price point. Yeah, we are confident when we are inside of a house

9:03
and that’s how I left it with her you haven’t talked to your lender yet. Like cuz she’s they’re moving out of a house they lived in for 22 years, it’s paid off. But they don’t want to write they don’t want to sell first they want to buy first fine, you gotta get a loan for that bridge loan, whatever you’re doing. Do that. First, I need to know exactly what’s going to happen with your finances before we start trying to see a house.

9:26
And that agent may have been burned a couple of times from doing showings only to find out there was multiple offers on the table or the house. I do advise when I’m the buyer’s agent, if it’s an hour before calling or emailing the other agent to say, Hey, I’m showing this house at noon. Right? I just want to see what the current status is if there are offers or if you’re expecting anything, because nothing is worse than being there and finding out it’s no longer I know like I wish I would have known you or at least negotiating something. So then we may not have Um, so I do think that when you’re working with buyers and a low inventory market, you should stay on top of checking the status. You can’t rely on the listing agent to communicate with everyone when who knows how many showings they’re having

10:12
Agree. Agree so you really it’s pre emptive pneus on your part and telling your buyer what’s going on. What else do you have for buyers?

10:20
I have been doing a lot more video tours. I think it’s good we shared before that I bought the I just Amazon yes, we’ve shared the lone Stabler stabilizer. And I bought the lens that you attach on your phone and the stabilizer and it really gives the video a good quality like as if you are walking through it FaceTiming just doesn’t work. It’s too narrow. You’re like wobbly. But I have had clients in this market make decisions based on the video? What kind of phone do you have? I have iPhone numbers for like it’s new old. It’s like it’s not the newest, it’s maybe like one or two ago, okay, but when I do the walkthrough video, it’s about 12 minutes per house. And I tried to zoom in on the floors and show them if they’re scuffs on the wall, like I try to really make it anything I would have pointed out if they realize I pointed out I’m also running comps before we go to a house. It’s easy because I’m not showing 10 houses right one house, you have time for that I have time to review everything. But really just making sure that once they’re there, they’re ready. If they’re Yeah, if they’re ready. We episode the IV ready if they’re ready, yes. Episode 92 is when we talked about surviving multiple offers.

11:47
Yeah. And I think maybe what we’re trying to say now is make sure that you’ve prepared your buyer that that’s a high likelihood, yes, if that is for their price for their criteria, right.

11:57
And so I think reviewing multiple offers, we will go into that about how to write the best offer and all that because we already talked about that. But know that, yes, have

12:06
some strategy in your back pocket that you can even share with the buyer and say, This is how we’re going to handle it.

12:12
I also kept it under so I told one client, I met one listing agent, I said, Look, my client was at a town they had multiple offers. I said they can’t get there. So I’m gonna go do a video. She said, Well, my seller is going to feel more comfortable if they can actually see the house. So I didn’t I just said okay, I understand that. And so she never like asked again, if they ever saw it, but I was trying not it made me be more mindful that maybe you don’t always need to disclose that you’re just doing a video. Right and that the buyer isn’t with you. Right, just because it could hurt you. It could hurt you. It could hurt you it she was very concerned about that. Luckily, we did win. And they didn’t see it until the home inspection. And they were okay with it. They loved it. Great. So it was fine. But because you took a good video, yes, they knew what was going on. Um, I do think just to try it. So we end every sales meeting on Wednesday in our office by talking about buyer needs and upcoming listings. Yes. So that’s really helpful if you’re in any kind of group so we even kind of did it with our leadership group which is like 20 agents from all different offices where anytime we got together we would say what do you have coming up and what do you need and it just kind of helped us like keep an eye out yet. But being able to say I have a buyer looking for this and I do think you have to in this market have to come up with a more eye catching way right so find what you need. It can’t just be like

13:48
even in our Facebook group I’ve stopped reading them I know they’re so every day all day is buyer need buyer need buyer need and they crack down on the coming soon. So it’s not like you’re getting a first look at anybody’s listing coming, you’re just hearing buyer needs constantly. And if you’re about to take a listing and that but they they have the buyer, you’re still probably not going to be that worried about telling them because the open market is better for your seller, right? So like what’s the point of posting these buyer need buyer need buyer needs? Nobody who’s got a seller really is going to advise their seller not to go to open market.

14:22
I know what’s the point? I had a seller recently that I was going to show their house early. And they were like yeah, that would be fine. You can show it early, but then they my buyers did end up finding something. But he said well, to be honest, we would have even if your people liked it, we probably would have want to go to the market anyway. Right? Makes

14:40
sense? Fair? Yes.

14:41
I mean, they want to know

14:43
and you can’t be mad about that. If you’re a buyer’s agent. You’re just gonna have to get crafty with your offers. Yeah, right. Okay. Anything else on buyers?

14:52
We did. I did share this story but I think it’s it applies here especially having to do with your people calling you but I have never had the So many buyers calling me before that had or have an agent that they are trying to break up with. Oh, yeah, because the agent is not quote unquote sending them houses. But the problem isn’t that the agent isn’t sending them houses, it’s that the agent isn’t communicating, right? The agent has not set the expectations of what the market is, how many houses they should be sending them. That’s why it’s important to even if you have no good houses to send them to say, Hey, I’m still looking. I haven’t seen anything we’re sending you but they need to hear from you. Okay, because they’re gonna wonder where you went

15:36
to agree. I have a buyer right now. Okay. New buyer called me on fam. I on a shift family on the internet, the beautiful interwebs? I don’t know. Oh, hot tip. Sidenote, I think it’s because I’ve been doing my referrals on Google business. And you think you’ve been getting more Google calls? Okay. Yeah. So anyway, I have this client, she’s out of state. Here’s the thing. They want to move here. They don’t need to be here until school starts next fall. Okay. Wow. So July, so we’ve a long time. And now they have decided they liked this one particular street, three neighborhoods, okay, three neighborhoods, near LSU. There’s not a lot. And they go look at this house. And they say, Okay, well, we like the house. But we don’t love the house. But we love the neighborhood. And we really, really, really, really, really, really want to be in it. What do you think we should do? Because we don’t hate the house, we will make an offer. And this happens to be a house with a challenging floorplan. So it’s been on the market a couple of weeks. Okay. Okay. So it’s not like flying off the shelves. And I, you know what I had to do, I had to actually do the research. I said, Okay, five houses have been listed in this neighborhood in the last six months. So there is a chance that in the next six months when you need to buy, you may not Yeah, you may not. And I said and the size of all of them is smaller than this house. And I told them all of the data, they dated out know how to make a decision, I said, but if you want to expand out into the search area, the polygon I made you 42 houses have sold in the last six months. So definitely, I would say more houses are going to come on the market. And ultimately, I think they’re leaning towards making an offer on this house because they want that neighborhood. And I couldn’t tell them with certainty another house was coming. That’s good. Do you know what I mean? Like, yes, I’m like, here’s the odds. What are the?

17:31
Well, so many agents rely on their opinion. And I think it’s important whenever you are talking to a buyer or seller, try to avoid things like saying, in my opinion, this this this, but you could say, based on the research? Yeah, based on the data, I think your house needs to be priced this way. Yeah, based on the data, you have a 40% chance that another house would come up in this neighborhood based on the last year, avoid saying I think or in my opinion, based off of fat. I

18:06
even told her I said look five, three years ago, five years ago, I would have told you it’s January, you have till July, wait it out, Something’s coming. You don’t love it. You’re a cash buyer is going to be fine. But I was like, I can’t tell you that today. I don’t know if it’s gonna come. And if you’re seriously telling me your number one criteria is this neighborhood, then maybe you better be serious about this house. Yeah, what they do. They’re doing a second show. And I think they’re gonna write an offer. Great. Yeah. Because they know what the numbers look like. Right? Right. Right, right. Okay. Anything else on buyer,

18:40
I like that my database is an Excel spreadsheet. Because I have done this before where I group it by zip code. So if I have a buyer looking in a particular zip code, yes, I can categorize the ZIP Code column, and then look at all the houses I have ever sold in that area to see, you know, have I should I reach out to any of these people? Did any of them recently expand their family? Or have kids go off to college or get a new job? Like, is there something and then you could reach out and tell them? Hey, I don’t know if you thought about moving, but I have a buyer. So you could but that’s why I think the database is so important to just because you you can use your own past clients. And again, that’s something that you could do for listings. Also you wouldn’t for buyers, it’s good to use the zip code category. So you’re looking at so I know exactly what I’m looking for. For listings. You could contact everybody and your date. Oh, yeah,

19:41
we’re gonna get to that. Yeah. So

19:42
the database is good either way. Oh, yeah. But that’s really all I have for buyer. Yep. Okay, great, because all of my notes are how to get inventory. Okay, good. All right, which two? We’re going to talk about it as listing but if you are a buyer’s agent All the things we’re about to talk about to get inventory could be for your buyers. Right, right. So it works for

20:07
everyone out. And the other thing that I was reading and when I was preparing was, I don’t remember the percentage number, but it’s a lot. A lot of people are not giving buyer leads appropriate follow up. And a lot of times those buyers are sellers, too. Yeah. Why aren’t you like not everyone’s a first time buyer. So if you’re burnout on buyers, and you’re not following up hardcore with your buyer leads, those people might have been sellers, you might have missed a seller lead. So I thought that was an interesting angle. Hey, Alyssa, Hey, Katie. Guess what? We have updated the email templates. Finally. Hallelujah. They are updated. And they’re more of them?

20:53
Yes, we have 10 buyer template, right 15, seller templates, as well as a checklist for when to send all the emails at what point in the transaction?

21:02
Yes. So you don’t have to guess when they go. It’s very specific. This happens now, then you send this email.

21:09
So this is what they need to know. This is what they need to know right now.

21:13
Also, there are six attachments that go along with some of the seller side. So like move out checklist and showing prep or all that stuff. So there’s hold the information you will ever need to tell your clients in one of these templates.

21:28
Yes, and if you still aren’t sure, you can go back and listen to episode 31, where we talk about the importance of the templates and why we use it like what are we even doing so we hope that they help you because they have helped us so much immensely. And we have gotten so many wonderful reviews about how they have helped others and so now they are up to date and ready for you and you

21:47
can go read reviews and all the information at email templates. One Oh one.com Lovely. How easy is that? Great. Okay, y’all enjoy nice. Okay, so how do you drum up new listings? So we’re gonna do we’re gonna draw, okay, you know what, we’re gonna make our own inventory. We’re gonna do it and make our own look.

22:07
So we’ve already let’s start with the database. Yeah, since we already touched on

22:10
Okay, so I put on here your your sphere, your database reach out, but what what exactly can you do? Here is my favorite tip from my favorite writer, who’s not really a writer, but does tons of articles at Inman, his name is Jimmy Burgess. Okay, I made you read his article. I remember it was a different article. This article was about getting 11 million in new listings in under three months. Now he is in a beach community. So the price point it might be kind of high. But even still, let’s just say it’s 11 listings. Yeah, that’s all all listings. Okay, this is what Jimmy did and does and teach us as agents, the unsolicited to your database to your database, the unsolicited video, CMA. So he makes a market report with a screen grab, okay, so screen, grab your desktop, you go into, like the goop like heat the whole article, we’ll walk you straight through it, and he has a video, so I’m not gonna get deep into the nuts and bolts of it, but you can go look it up in Inman, but basically create a video that says, hey, you know, in the last year, the market has really shifted or the last two years or I wasn’t sure when the last time you really looked at your value, but I thought you’d like to know the market update. Here’s, you know, zoom in on their house on the Google Map. And then you show him the show the report your CMA with whatever’s going on in their neighborhood, and then give them like their little range of value. Okay, just thought you’d like to know, thanks. Bye. Yeah, great, because that a lot of times, you’re not just your sphere, but a lot of times people don’t even know what their house is worth. They’re not paying attention to it. They don’t plan to move but maybe if they realized they had $100,000 in equity, they’d be like what?

24:03
So I had a client past client reach out and say, Hey, we are building so it’s going to be about a year before we need to sell our house but I’m seeing online like certain values and I don’t know if they’re right. She was like Can you let me know like if I’m on the right track and so I’d read but she was like wow, wow shop Yeah, that this is like a reality. Well, I had

24:25
a seller who was getting divorced and needed to sell their house and then I went for pre listing like a year ago, okay, a year ago, told her a value told her what to do get ready. You know, life happened they did she decided not to sell at that time went back this past week because now she’s ready to sell the value was like 15 to $20,000 higher on a $200,000 house. Wow. So before when she wasn’t really walking with anything she was actually going to get a chat is huge, huge.

24:59
Yeah, I mean, I just had one where I had just told them I thought we could list for 269. And three months later, when it was time to list, there were several and like the three, upper 280s to 90s. And then there was one random one that sold for 310. That was like the same as his Wow. I’m like, if they can do it, we can Why

25:19
Can’t We? We? Yeah, so send those market reports. Even if you did it last year, do it again. Hey, prices are still good. And not with the icky salesman prices are going up? Would you like to sell your house? Just simply with a hey, the markets just been changing so much. Thought you’d like an update? I like that. The end? Okay, let them come back to you. All right. Are you ready for the next one? Yes, we’re going to do a full episode on Geo farming, a whole episode of put on our overall coming up. So that is another way to drum up listings. And what I mean by geo farming is pick a geographical location, a neighborhood, a zip code, whatever it is, and then try to find listings within that farm. And people have been very successful with this for many years. And they do it super consistently. And we will talk about it coming soon. Okay, okay. Oh, wait, I don’t even want to say these. What? You can always look at expireds. And for sale by owners, I would imagine so

26:31
I think if you have a buyer looking, searching expireds and for sale by owners is way better than calling to try to get the listing because lord knows the sellers are burnt out or burnt out from hearing from you. Did you read the thing that was like thanks for the crappy coffee gift card. I’m not going to be listing my house with you. Please you and tell all your other agent friends to stop writing me letters to my house. Thank you for the crappy coffee gift

27:02
got hell all your cronies to stop? Okay, I’m so glad you said that I was reading this article that was about the elderly population being harassed and this time. So I want you to really think about this. You may work at an office that has one of these, you know, databases or metadata, grabbing data, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. A lot of these people who have been in their house over 10 years that the database is telling you to call. They are elderly, yeah, they are happy in their home, they have nowhere else to go and they don’t need to go they’re fine. They’re they aged in place on purpose. You calling them and harassing them repeatedly is not cool. That’s not okay. It’s not a method that you should be bringing into your business. If you want to reach out to someone like this, I mean, you don’t know how old people are or what’s their situation. Just think about that too. When you contact strangers cold call doorknob. You don’t know anything about them nothing you don’t know if their spouse just passed away. You don’t know if they’re you know immune compromised they were talking on this article agents were door knocking and go into these elderly people’s houses during COVID with no masks on and these elderly people are very vulnerable and you’re scared scared, scared, scared, y’all do not do not do not behave like that. And if you go if you opt to use one of these methods, and someone says no, take the no yeah, don’t keep going for the yes just say okay, thank you sorry about your loss for God’s sakes if they tell you that their spouse just passed away have some empathy and some kindness. Right? I just was really the article made me so angry. Well,

28:54
you never know what you’re going into. You’re thinking about yourself in the moment of a cold call. You’re not thinking about who you might think calling or what their need is right? But I also think it’s a lot easier to make that phone call to say, Hey, I do have someone that’s looking I saw you tried to sell your house and it meets our criteria. It’s a real buyer. I was just seeing if you are still interested in selling because I would love to show your house

29:17
right this is not a tactic. I know you’re probably on there. Right? I know you’ve probably gotten other calls. My the what I did read that I loved as a kind of twist on the calling expireds is if you’re gonna call expireds find ones that are three to 12 months expired. Oh, that’s because everybody’s doing the call the expired the day it goes off the market or is withdrawn and the and quickly the sellers are like God agents are the worst people that ever lived that ever walked the face of the earth. Yes. But if you if you want to farm or I guess prospect with expireds that are older. I think that’s a great idea. Hey, I noticed you tried to sell your house six months ago. I do have buyers looking In your zip code, just curious if you’re still interested in selling I know I’m sure you probably got a million agent calls.

30:06
You know, the hardest part about this, like my first few years I would do this do something different this try it. I would search expireds. But I didn’t realize that they may have sold. Ah, like, yes, they expired at one time, and they renewed and now they’re sold. So they are no longer I don’t even know. So you really have to get a list of expired printed out. And then you have to search each address to make sure yeah, it’s still like it wasn’t relisted after that date. Yeah,

30:38
if you should do the research, regardless, you need to know if they had offers like if it went pending while it was listed, like what? Yeah, you can’t literally cold call an expired, you need to have some data. It takes some time. It should take time if you want to do it. Right. But I liked that, that spin on it. And again, that’s not doing what everyone else is doing. So you do something different, you might actually get different results. I don’t mind this one. I don’t think this is harassment necessarily. They, a lot of people for many years have done the looking for absentee owners. Okay, so you can look up tax records and find in a neighborhood let’s say this is kind of looped in with the geo farming, you’re gonna have to pick an area, right? You can look up the tax records and find owners who don’t live in the house. Okay, so the tax bill gets sent somewhere else, maybe then you look them up and find that they own 10 or 20 houses, then you reach out with a different like script. That’s more this was reading more like Hey, Mr. Owner, I see you have a you know, a couple of properties and my location, obviously, inventories tight. Are you looking to maybe, you know, move your money around, do a 1031 exchange? Is it time to buy another property? Are you looking to find something else, you can depreciate at a faster rate, whatever, like, you might need to have some good CPA talking points. Yeah. But it might just like kind of spark something. And then like, oh, I never thought about selling that to get another one too, you know, for the tax ramifications. Which I thought was kind of interesting. Yeah. And sometimes they just are tired of dealing with it. Maybe they have a bad renter right then when you call them Yeah. And they’re like, You know what I do want to sell? That sounds great. I’m done with this. So that’s, that’s a market you can tap into.

32:28
I heard that open houses right now are actually more for meeting sellers. Okay, you know how you get them there? Go for it.

32:39
You invite the neighborhood. I’ve heard of agents who like events, either like Dornoch the neighborhood and say I’m doing an open house? Yes, not door knock the neighborhood to say I want to sell your house. But I’m doing an open house blah, blah, or the flyer or a phone call or whatever action? And then yeah, find someone in the neighborhood that’s on the HOA and get them to post it in their Facebook group. Those are all and then you get the neighbors they’re like make it an invite them. Right. Invite them if you

33:05
want to take the time to really do it. Right. You could have some excellent results.

33:10
No kidding. I guess you have to have them house on the market long enough to do an open house for that.

33:15
Yeah. I guess listing it on Friday. Yeah. And if you get offers saying all offers will be reviewed Sunday at 5pm. Yeah, seeing that a lot then you could still do because then they’re doing the open house and giving it the full weekend before responding. Well,

33:31
I think that’s easier for everybody involved.

33:33
Well, yeah. Then you could even like let people see it at least twice and

33:37
they don’t have to rush over there the first day. All right, we’ve talked about door knocking and cold calling. There’s also direct mail so just like the geo farming if you want to mail an area. Okay. Oh, here’s a good one. Oh, expired rental listing. Okay,

33:56
I have this on my list. So great. Not expired. Just just rental listing. Yes. Now in our marketplace right now, a rental doesn’t stay on the market long. Yeah, it’s just as tight really is. But if it’s one that has been on the market a little while, they may not realize what it’s worth, maybe you could sell it if you call them and told them you had a buyer if you do have a buyer, or it could just be a good listing opportunity. Yeah.

34:20
I like that. And if you also instead of searching, current rentals, search anything that rented eight to 10 months ago, because the lease is the lease will be coming up. So hey, I see that, you know, you lease your property and blah, blah, blah. Is your tenant planning to stay? Are you thinking about keeping it as a rental or would you be interested in selling there are a lot of buyers in that area? You know, maybe they’re like, You know what, this tenant was terrible. And I’m ready to sell Yeah, or maybe they want the money to move somewhere else like people circumstances change. You can’t just assume that because the member of your database didn’t want to sell a year ago that they don’t wanna sell now? Right? At some point that changes, right? Yeah. Okay. Oh, also, if you’re overwhelmed by reaching out to your database, start with the people who’ve been in their house three or more years when you’re doing a you know, video CMA, or just a plain CMA or like you’re reaching out to, like, just say hi, start with if you’re looking if you’re doing this activity as a way to get listings, then start with the people who’ve been in their house.

35:27
Long, they’re not going to move they just bought not last year. Yeah,

35:31
although it happens. Okay, any you have another anything else?

35:36
I’m using social media during this time to update the public on the current state of the market. Okay. So that way, when you do get a new buyer, they aren’t surprised. They know, I’ve actually had this happen just with the podcast. So it’s funny, I just went on a listing appointment, and it’s a past client, and he’s selling his house now. And he said, it’s funny, because I just listened to the episode on how to buy and sell at the same time. Good. That’s what it’s for. And it was so helpful. Wonderful. And, but I thought, you know, we have the podcast, but anybody on social media, you can make little short video. Yeah, or just updates or statistics as posts? Kind of just updating them on what to expect?

36:22
Yeah, I think that’s good. I have social media in mind for a couple of other reasons as well, using social media to track your sphere and database and friends and followers as far as life changes. Yep. Did they have a baby? Did they get married? Did something bad happened? Did you know like, what what’s going on in their life? You know, maybe that’s a great one to start reaching out to, as opposed to reaching out to your buyer from last year, like what’s going on in someone’s life. And the other one was posting on your personal social media when you have a buyer with a buyer needs. So that way you have you have people in your sphere that can see Oh, I see you have a buyer in my area? Well, maybe I do one, right.

37:06
So you can also with the Facebook ads, if you make an ad of like what you need, or what you’re looking for if there’s a specific area you want to list in, and you can pay by zip code so that the ad is going to that zip code, and maybe that’s where your leads would come from.

37:24
Oh, on the social media. Yes. They get a little wonky with real estate as a really Oh, it’s so hard to target an area like it used to be easier. I know. I’m y’all look into that. I don’t know for sure. But sometimes it makes you do like a 25 mile radius. Oh, wow. That’s a bit much.

37:39
Yeah. The whole city.

37:41
I know. Okay, here’s a great. So the last one I have, okay, say great secret. What that I never thought about before. And it is genius. Tell me. If you’re looking for new listings, try an orphaned neighborhood. Oh, do you want to know what an orphaned neighborhood is when that nobody wants anymore? That’s what I thought at first. I’m like, Well, why do you want to do that? Yeah, that sounds stupid. I don’t want to do that. No, no, an orphan neighborhood is one that is three to five years old. That was track built.

38:15
Why is it called an orphan

38:17
because it used to have a sales office and someone on site and people selling the houses. But now all the houses are built, and they’re all sold. And that sales office is long gone. So guess what? Nobody’s taking care of those people in that house. And you have to think about this, too. A lot of times those buyers went straight to the model home and bought a house. They didn’t even work with an agent. So they are legit, orphaned? Totally, like, completely orphaned, you could start geo farming those on purpose. Yeah, because those people don’t even have an agent. And my point on top of that is and I don’t remember the number but over 70% of sellers work with the first agent that they meet with or talk to. Okay, so you have to put yourself out there often. And first, and that I just thought that was genius, that idea. It’s genius. Because also a lot of times there’s Trac built homes are starter homes, they’re smaller. And so those buyers at three to five years are probably ready to sell. Right. And they might be nervous about getting in the market because they don’t have an agent to ask for advice. And they’re seeing that it’s so competitive, and they don’t know what their house is worth.

39:32
Another thing too that I’ve been struggling with a little bit because it’s a low inventory seller’s market. I like your air quotes. It’s

39:41
definitely a seller’s market.

39:43
What if the house is just not a great house or not in a great location. And the sellers are like, well, I should be getting a lot more because it’s a seller’s market and I’m just having to say, but according to the data, right, your subdivision is still priced. iced within this range, right? I understand that you want X amount. Yeah. But I think the highest that we will be able to list is X amount. And we will just have to see how the market responds. But you need to be prepared that if this is too high, we may have to come down. And that’s why I like in the email template that we send to sellers once their house is listed. It says every house responds differently. It yes, it’s you can’t say seller’s market in every single neighborhood for every single house. No, it’s still depend it is it is house to house neighborhood to neighborhood. And you do you have to put that message out to your buyers and your sellers. Yes,

40:43
we can’t just assume blank at least it would be as if you watched a national news report and assume that applied to every house that you saw. Exactly. This is ridiculous. But But sellers don’t think that way. No. And buyers don’t think that why

40:57
in this market and all that they’re reading and all that their friends have say, like I should be getting a lot more right, based off of what though? Right?

41:06
Anything else for the sellers?

41:08
That was pretty much it?

41:10
Okay. Well, that was great.

41:12
I know, just good information. And you just need a little spark like an idea? Well, I think the biggest thing is that you have got to be communicating with your buyers and your sellers, about what is going on. If you’re not communicating. Yes, they do not know it will lead to frustration, and it will lead to them to go to another agent,

41:32
right? Oh, and please keep in mind, we’ve talked about this before, but what you put out publicly on social media can impact your actual business. Like, if you keep telling buyers that there’s nothing to buy, then nobody’s gonna buy and 60% of those people are sellers, and now there’s nothing to sell because you scare them away from being a buyer. Well don’t scare away the sellers from being a buyer, because then they don’t sell their house.

41:57
I feel like my strategy right now that I’ve noticed myself, my pattern I’ve been seeing is that I’m having the hard conversations with my buyer about how hard the market is multiple offers, and then kind of reminding them but that does not mean it’s impossible.

42:12
Well, that’s just exactly what I told my people. You can see the house. Yes.

42:16
And if it doesn’t work out, it was just not meant to be right. In my 11 years of doing this. I have never seen it not truly work out. It always ends up if you’re a serious buyer. Well, we were actually talking about this the other day with somebody but right now, you can’t just be casually looking. You’re either looking and you’re in it or you’re not Yeah. Because that’s just what the market can you sit on the fence? No, no, you have to be if you’re really serious about buying a house, that’s where you have to be. Okay. That’s all got great advice. How’s our toasts looking? Looks great.

42:53
Are you ready to toast? Yeah. Okay, super. This toast comes to us from Samantha Greer in Orange County, California. Fine, fine. Samantha says I would love to send in a toast okay. Yes, I would like to toast my coworkers Jordan and Cheryl at finely crafted Realty. When I first went out on my own, I plan to work by myself. I can’t even imagine working by myself now that I have experience working with Jordan and Cheryl I am just so impressed by them every day and genuinely enjoy being around them and doing this crazy real estate life together.

43:31
It is nice having a friend so nice. So cheers to Jordan and Cheryl

43:35
and thank you to Samantha cheers. Cheers everybody get out there and drum us up some listings. Yeah, go get them help us with the you helped you solve the problem. Okay, good bye bye. Here’s a little

43:52
thank you so much for tuning in to the hustle humbly podcast. Let us know who we should toast to for the next

43:57
episode. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at hustle humbly podcast. If you have an episode, topic or question please email us at hustle humbly podcast@gmail.com Be

44:07
sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. See you next week. Bye. This is the goodbye

Two Realtors fostering community over competition through light-hearted conversations.

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