Why Write Market Reports?
We know some of you would rather write about anything OTHER than your local market conditions. We understand that. They don't appeal to your creative side, all those numbers...cold...impersonal. But here's the facts about the facts. Those numbers ARE personal. Every home sold is two families impacted. What's one of the most popular real estate questions ever? "How's the real estate market in ________?". Second only to "How much can you get for my home?".
Writing market reports accomplishes several key things:
- Hyperlocal blogging means Google finds your name associated with your market. Do it enough and your area home buyers and sellers find you too.
- Other Rainers see you know your market (might just help you get referrals).
- YOU gain knowledge about your market. While operating seat of the pants may give you a feel for the pulse of your market, your hunches may be off the mark. You tune into what you are personally working with, but might miss important market trends if you're not at least checking the stats out on a regular basis.
Maybe your next objection to writing market reports is they take too much time. While your initial market report may take some time to set up depending on the depth of the detail you provide, once it's established, your template may only take minutes to pull stats from MLS and update. We don't write our market reports from scratch, but copy the previous months and provide updates. MLS data per market report can be pulled in about 10 minutes each using an Excel template we created:
"But, BLiz, I don't know how to do pretty charts!". No problem. Charts aren't mandatory, although we personally find them helpful. You can present data in any way that is clear to the consumers: charts, tables, line by line, whatever works for you. But our advice, try to learn the basics of chart making. We personally use Excel, and once our charts our set up, it's type in two numbers each month into the spreadsheet, the chart updates automatically and then we use a screen capture program to snip the chart.
And another plus about writing market reports? That's AT LEAST 7 posts a month we don't have to think about what to write. We know we need to update them monthly, so total time per report is about 30 minutes, and at the end of that we've got something for data hungry consumers to read and we're better equipped to answer questions regarding our market's latest trends.
"But BLiz, no one comments on market reports!". Riddle me this Batman...would you rather increase the odds of having your phone ring from an area buyer or seller, or have another 4 points from a comment?
So what are you waiting for? And need ideas on how to stage your market reports? Check out the Market Reports group, you'll find no shortage of different ways to write your market reports!
Serving Warren County's residential real estate needs,
Liz and Bill aka BLiz
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