Why You Need a 'Would Sell' List and How To Build One

If someone comes to you and wants to buy a house, but the house they want doesn't match up with a home currently listed for sale on the MLS, what do you do?

One of the really awesome parts about Ben Kinney buying ActiveRain, is that it's given me an unprecedented level of access to see how he runs his real estate business. One of the best things I've seen that they do, is their 'Would Sell' list.

What is a 'Would Sell' List?

(At the bottom of this post, I will show you in a short video how to actually build this for yourself)

Essentially the Ben Kinney 'Would Sell' list is a list of every homeowner in Whatcom County (the area Ben's team does business) who has ever spoken to someone on Ben's team and indicated that if the price and the timing were right, they would consider selling their home. 

Think about the scenario by which someone ends up on the 'Would Sell' list. Let's say Ben's team is running ads geared towards sellers on Facebook. Lot's of agents do this. It's the 'To Find Out What Your Home is Worth, Go here.....' type ads. We all know that not everyone who clicks on an ad like that, is going to be a ready, willing and able seller today. In fact, most of these people aren't looking to sell today, they are simply looking to see what their house might sell for. 'Seller leads' come from lots of different marketing methods on Ben's team. And they all get followed up with.

Much of the time, once they are able to actually speak with the homeowner, they come to find out that this person is not yet ready to sell. In every case like this, they will leave the conversation by saying:

"We understand you aren't ready to sell today or in the near future. However, we always have a lot of buyers that we are working with in our business at any given time. I wonder if you are alright with us calling you in the future if we have a qualified buyer that really wants to buy a home like yours?"

And then they get out of their own way. What happens more often than you can believe (if you've never tried something like this) is the homeowner will say yes. At this point then, this property goes on the 'Would Sell' list. Meaning if the timing and the offer price were right, this homeowner would consider selling.

This does a couple of things. 

First, it creates a reason for their team to follow up with this homeowner in the future. In Bellingham, especially in certain neighborhoods, the inventory can be very tight. So if Ben's team has a buyer that wants to live in a certain neighborhood, there might only be a few homes for sale in that neighborhood. But they always have people on the 'Would Sell' list that they can call. That might go something like this.....

"Ms Homeowner, hi this is Brian from the Ben Kinney Team. We spoke to you back in November and you had agreed that if we had a qualified buyer that was looking to buy a home in your neighborhood, we could give you a call. This weekend, we have a family coming into town that will be looking at 3 houses with us and we thought they might also be interested in your home. Have you given any more thought to potentially selling if the offer was right? Would you mind if we brought them by to look at your home?"

You'd be surprised how often that a homeowner says 'Yeah, sure, bring them by'. But, in almost every single case, who do you think these people end up calling when they are ready to list? In the mind of the homeowner, the Ben Kinney team has had potential buyers for their property every month or so for the last two years, so why wouldn't they be the best listing agent in town to sell their home when they are actually ready to sell.

Second, It also has a built in benefit for the buyers that work with the Ben Kinney team. What is that benefit? Having access to homes that aren't actually on the market, but where the homeowner may be willing to sell. They let their buyers know about the 'Would Sell' list when they begin working with the buyer. All of your buyers (assuming they have Internet connections....which is like 95% of them) have seen the properties that are for sale on the MLS. They've seen them on Zillow, Trulia, REALTOR.com, Redfin, your website......they've seen them everywhere. But you can provide absolute value beyond what 99% of the other agents in your market can provide by having other properties where you already know the homeowner is willing to let you (possibly) show the home and they are willing to listen to an offer.

I imagine many of you have conversations every week with people that just aren't quite ready to put their home on the market, but would consider it if you had an actual buyer on standby, ready and willing to make an offer on their home. This is a great way to build value into your business and an easy way to map out where there are potential opportunities to grow your business.

Here is a short video where I show you how to build your own 'Would Sell' List.

 

Bob Stewart
ActiveRain
408-638-1834

 

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