When you hire Judy Greenberg to sell your home, you hire a realtor who markets your home 24/7.
One of the items included on my 24/7 marketing plan and the one I´m going to discuss in this blog is how important it is to network with other realtors in the community. Instead of viewing other realtors as my competition, I view them as my clients. I need to market to them, just like I would to a potential buyer or seller.
Because realtors are my future clients, it is so important to build relationships with them. Similar to most other realtors, I host broker´s open the first week of a listing to increase the exposure of my listings to the brokerage community. I serve lunch or offer another incentive in order to encourage other realtors to attend. Sometimes it´s a free bottle of wine to the first 12 people or a raffle to win a mall gift certificate. In one instance 7 realtors coordinated a broker´s open on the same day in the same neighborhood in order to attract additional traffic.
These realtor open houses serve dual purposes. In addition to the other realtors viewing the home for a potential qualified buyer, it is important for me to personally meet these realtors, talk to them, and develop relationships with them3; I want them to always remember me in a very positive light. I joke with them, lend advice to them, feed them, bribe them- ok that´s going overboard but in a buyer´s market you have to treat your clients very nicely and other realtors are my clients!
Let´s say there are two townhomes on the market at the same price in the same condition. The other realtor with the potential buyer has to make a decision as to which home to write an offer. Of course my goal is to persuade the other realtor to make an offer on my listing instead of the competing one down the block. Because I have hopefully made a positive impression in the past to this realtor, he will remember me and say to himself- Oh that one is Judy´s listing. - She was helpful to me last week- Confucious says write on Judy's listing
In addition to the broker´s open houses I email the top 500 realtors in the area and personally communicate with a huge network of realtor friends. These realtors work in many different offices in my community. A few work at Baird and Warner, a local firm, others at Remax, (we have 4 offices in town, and others work at a spattering of Coldwell Banker offices in Buffalo Grove, Deerfield, Libertyville and Arlington Heights, Illinois. I talk to these realtors on the phone when I get a new listing. I see them at the grocery store and we discuss the new listings, recent price reductions, and the best deals in town. We discuss each others listings when I see them at our kids sports games, I ask them about their buyers, and they ask my about my listings or vice versa. This way we can hopefully have many successful deals together.
Although I have an assistant to help me with my listings, I feel it is necessary for me personally to make my own follow-up calls to develop rapport with other realtors after they show my listings. If a potential buyer likes the home, but feels the price is too high, I can go back to the client and see if a deal can be reached. Also, I can talk to the realtor and promote my other listings as long as I am on the phone with the realtor.
I don´t want to toot my own horn, but because of my realtor networking skills, I sold my $600,000 Vernon Hills listing last week in just 5 days and my $1,200,000 Long Grove listing in under 3 weeks.
For the $600,000 listing I was talking to a realtor friend in my office and asked her if she had any buyers for my new listing that I was going to list the following weekend. She said she had a city buyer that was going to be looking the next day and that the house I was describing sounded perfect. I quickly called my client and we scrambled to get the home ready in order to accommodate my colleagues´ buyer. They saw 10 homes that day, and fell in love with my listing. If I hadn´t begun networking before the home was listed to my officemates, that buyer would have purchased another home the week before my home went on the market.
With respect to the $1,200,000 home, I was talking to one of my real estate buddies and she told me that a realtor who had just made an offer on her home, but it was rejected, was looking for a home like mine and I should call her. I of course called and emailed the other realtor numerous times regarding my new listing. A week later the realtor finally called me back and told me that I was very persistent. I told her that my new listing was beautiful and that she should show her client this home. She agreed to see it that weekend and her client fell in love with it. A month later the closing took place. Two very happy sellers- all because of networking with other realtors.
In addition to building relationships, it is important to build rapport as the area expert.
If another realtor calls me about my listing, I develop a rapport with them whether or not the listing meets their client needs. If my house does not meet their client needs, I share my expertise about the area and suggest other homes that I have seen and liked. The other realtors appreciate that I am extremely helpful and accomodating, and will call me back if they have another buyer who would be right for my listing. It´s a win win!
This honesty and helpful strategy has worked well for me! A few years ago, a realtor in a neighboring town wasn´t able show her client properties since she was going on a vacation. Since she was aware of my expertise in the area, she asked me to help her and split the buyer´s commission.
Building Relationships is how I grow my business and that´s why I love Active Rain.
If you want more information regarding specific real estate sales in the Buffalo Grove, Long Grove, and Lincolnshire area, please do not hesitate to call me at 847-602-5435 or email me at info@buffalogrovehomes.com I am available 24/7 to make appointments!
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