Today when I was writing a web page for my latest real estate letter set - the Seller Service Letters - I got to thinking about how it was when I was a fairly new agent.
Remember this was in the days before everyone was using computers. If you wanted to contact someone you either picked up the telephone or you wrote them a letter and dropped it in the mail.
At that time, the market was stagnant. We had dozens of listings but only a handful of buyers. One broker I worked for would practically knock an agent down to get to someone walking in the door who looked like they were "real" buyers. (I swear, she could smell their money.)
Anyway...
Our small rural community had been a haven for the 1970's "Hippies" who moved into the mountains, building ramshackle cabins - often out of scraps found at the dumpsters. Ten or fifteen years later most of them had tired of the rugged life and taken a bath, cut off some of their hair, and gone back to rejoin society. Now they wanted to sell those mountain parcels.
So - we had an over-abundance of 5 acre parcels with no water, no power, and no road to speak of. The "cabins" were falling down piles of rubble.
Interest rates were in the sky, and no "affordable" government programs were being offered to buyers in North Idaho back in the late 80’s. Conventional loans were at 20% down and FHA was 5% - but very few of the homes for sale would qualify for FHA. Unless someone could offer seller financing, it was pretty tough to sell a home.
So we also had an abundance of homes, both in town and in the county. Many were rentals, owned by out of state sellers.
The end result was that agents who had been around for a while had dozens of listings, and no action on most of them.
So what did those agents do to keep their sellers happy?
Nothing. They simply ignored the issue - and the sellers.
If they got a chance, they showed a house or a parcel of land. But they didn’t make any effort to stay in touch. Writing a letter and taking it to the post office took too much effort, and God forbid anyone would spend money on a long distance phone call.
As the "new kid" in the office, I was often left alone to do floor duty and answer the phones (no, no secretaries), so I was the one who got an earful when some "ignored owner" received a letter with a listing extension form.
The caller’s side of the conversation generally went like this:
"Why should I re-list with you people? This is the first time I've even heard from you since I signed the listing last year. Forget it. I'm listing with someone else."
Then they'd slam down the phone. If I was lucky, they left a name, but that didn't always happen.
Thankfully, most agents today know better than to ignore sellers.
But that doesn't mean staying in touch is easy - especially if the market is slow. (Maybe that's why my son hasn't heard from his agent since April?)
So I wrote the Seller Service letters for agents to use when there's nothing new to report. But that's not their only purpose.
This set of 22 letters includes 15 letters that serve as gentle reminders of the things you talked about when you took the listing. You know, things like getting out of the house when buyers are coming, remembering to open the drapes or turn on lights, and keeping the cat box clean. Others deal with issues like considering an offer and getting ready to move.
Since these aren't prospecting letters designed to make your phone ring, I priced them low. And now, for the next 3 days, the July coupon code makes them ridiculously inexpensive.
Learn more at Copy by Marte - and if you decide these letters are for you, use the coupon code: July. That will get you $20 off as long as you act before August 1.
Image courtesy of Dreamstine
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