YES YES YES!!!!!!! AGREED!!!! How can you not?? If anything, you are ALSO marketing to other sellers who may use you. Flyers are such an exceptional opportunity to show the quality of marketing you do!! Gorgeous, full color, full picture flyers---there is just no way an agent can leave them out.

Patricia, we do enclose flyers.  We aren't sure how effective they are, but Darcy likes to do them, and the clients want them, so I guess that they're effective!  I don't know why someone wouldn't do flyers for their client, seems like we need to be doing all that we can to market properties in this day and age!

I do flyers and leave extras with my sellers in case they run out.  I also use an 800 number with a 24 hour recording.

Yes Patricia, and some sellers want the price on the flyer and others don't.

I see the same thing you do, empty boxes.  Listing agents should give their seller lots of extra flyers to keep the box filled and also refill whenever they show or drop by.  

My perspective as a buyer...

Flyers are great.  I am a loan officer.  I have had many borrowers tell me they looked... drove by homes with no flyers, the boxes were sitting empty.  Well, they moved on, I think the answer is simple.  From my perspective, flyers are extremely important 

Did you or your clients ever think that the most effective way to draw a buyer to the home is to have them ACTUALLY SPEAK WITH AN EFFECTIVE CLOSER?  If a potential buyer sees $300,000 on a flyer and doesn't think he/she can afford it... NO CALL/NO BUYER/NO DEAL.  If that same potential buyer calls a CLOSER, chances are much better that he/she gets involved in a purchase.

If you're not a CLOSER, you won't understand.  If that's the case, I'm sorry I cannot explain it to you in a different way.

Cameron Novak, Broker
The Homefinding CenterTM
Corona, California

Corona Real Estate Agents 

In my opinion you are doing your client a dis-service by not offering a flyer. After all it is part of marketing the home.

Flyers are required, its one of the many components I talk about in my listing presentation.

We have found that we have far MORE calls on our listings WITHOUT custom, full color brochures. We use a 12" X 24" Sign Rider with our 800# and 3-digit extension for a recorded audio tour on the home. They have the option to connect to an agent, request a showing, request a fax with information on the home, etc.

During business hours, each call that comes in will receive a courtesy call follow up within 5-15 minutes...Very soft sell (Ex. "I noticed you just called our 800# for information on the home at 123 Main Street. This is a quick courtesy call to follow up. Did you receive all the information you were looking for?". We find this to be a great way to identify if a buyer is interest in our listing. If not, we offer other services to incubate them as a prospect.

We provide a Call report the 1st day of each month. Since our system offers 5 extensions per home, we are able to tell our sellers where calls are coming from. In our marketing, that would be: The Real Estate Book, Sign in front of the home, Realtor.com, Our web site and a 5th extension that could be for other marketing (i.e. CraigsList, Local Paper, etc.).

We explain to our sellers that you cannot connect with a prospect for their home if you cannot connect with them and don't know where they are. Brochure boxes get emptied often with no calls to show for it...and nothing looks LESS professional to a seller AND the neighbros than an empty brochure box. With gas at $4/gallon and our brochures at $1/each, I'm done with them.

If you can convey to your sellers the reason NOT to have brochures and they see the value in an 800# sign rider to capture prospects for their home, it's a WIN-WIN. You have to believe in the value first and put the systems in place to make it work. If you DON'T have an 800#, check out. www.chalkboard.com AdTrakker is a great system

While Kimberly seems to have a good system, I do believe in using high-quality flyers.   In addition to the basic home info, I direct the potential buyers to an online video tour.

I don't include flyers on the sign post.  This is because 1) most of the time they are taken by kids or looky-loos 2) I want to be able to romance the home by the buyer calling me rather than them eliminating the house just from a few words or pictures on the flyer 3) the only thing worse than no flyers is no flyer in a flyer box...they are hard to keep full 4) if they are serious buyers, they are not going to eliminate the house because it doesn't have a flyer - they will ask their Realtor to get them into the house. We do offer every listing their own URL - so the buyer can get on line to view the interior.

I always use flyer's and try to keep the boxes full! I have gained listings from sellers who shopped agents and liked my flyer's...not inexpensive but absolutely necessary in my opinion. I think most agents who don't use them are just lazy not implementing another strategy...

Dave

I have, do, and always will provide flyers on my listings. I use both sides of the paper and provide as much info as possible for the buyer. I also include my virtual tour website for when they go home or now with their smart phones. With laser printers you no longer see runny blobs when moisture is a concern. I leave 6 in the flyer box and 25 with the seller to keep the box full. I feel this gives the owner an instant feed back to how much interest there is for their property. I save gas not filling the box and I pay 10 cents per copy for both side printing. I tried the 800# and wasn't happy.

Sounds like the agent is just a cheap son of a gun... flyers are a cheap way to expose what you are trying to sell.  Especially if they are not mailed.. and you have no postage..  I get copies for 2 cents each..

I think not posting prices is old school. This is the information age people! If I don't see a price on any product, I get suspicious and move on!

I'm not against the idea of 800 numbers, and I always buy custom domain names for my listings, but I think the appeal of printed material is timeless. A flyer is part of the total package I provide for my sellers, and another way to promote my brand. Less is not more!

Flyers are great.  When a seller sees buyers stop to get them, it encourages the sellers. And buyers get the information they need right then instead of having to call the agent or perform an address search after they've gotten home.  

Thank you for your comments everyone!