real estate coach: Parking Matters
- 07/14/23 10:28 AM
Parking Matters As urban and suburban areas across the country struggle to add more density to their city centers, the issue of parking is going to become a weightier topic and one that you as a real estate professional need to be aware of.
Some cities have done a great job of developing with walkability in mind. Cities like New York and San Francisco have robust transit systems that get people moving around the city. So, what if your city doesn't have that system in place? What if they have only recently had that system in place and people haven't … (1 comments)
|
real estate coach: Breaking Through Housing Market Gridlock
- 06/26/23 04:10 PM
Breaking Through Housing Market Gridlock There is no doubt that buyers are in a tough spot with the rise in mortgage interest rates. Many buyers have simply assumed that they can't make a move because mortgage interest rates went up last year and haven't come back down. Although it seemed that the long-term interest rates (which relates to mortgage interest rates) might come back down if inflation stabilized, inflation is still higher than the Federal Government's target. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that inflation in January was 6.3% over January 2022 which has declined by May to … (4 comments)
|
real estate coach: Consistency Now Means Opportunity Later
- 06/16/23 09:21 AM
Welcome to this week’s Zebra Report. This week I want to talk to you about how your business should respond when the market is going through a period of limited turn-over and whether agents’ natural reaction to cutting back on marketing is the right one.
This week a client asked me whether they should continue geographical farming. All of a sudden, their farm over the last six months had gone silent. No responses to any of their mailings. Right now, we are in a market where inventory is low, we have higher interest rates, and the middle of that market has become … (7 comments)
|
real estate coach: Improving Your Call-to-Action
- 06/09/23 09:40 AM
Improving Your Call-to-Action There's a skill to marketing and today I want to talk about calls-to-action. A call-to-action (or CTA) is when you prompt your reader to do something. So, if you are sending out a market update mailer, your call-to-action might be something like, "Call me if you want to learn more about the market or get quarterly updates on how your property is performing."
Clients who are using our Club Zebra mailer content or who are part of our LeadMagnet service don't have to worry about this - we take care of crafting a solid call-to-action for them. … (11 comments)
|
real estate coach: Visual Bio: A Must-Have for Your Marketing Toolbox
- 05/26/23 09:32 AM
Visual Bio: A Must-Have for Your Marketing Toolbox When is the last time you really reviewed your biography that you use with your listing/buyer presentation or on your website? Does it include paragraphs of text? If text is all you have to showcase your expertise and experience, you are missing out!
Enter - The Visual Bio!
A Visual Bio takes the best of what you bring to the table and brings it to life with visuals. Whereas a standard bio might rely on text and lists, a visual bio relies on formatted text with callouts, logos instead of lists, and … (17 comments)
|
real estate coach: Chat Bots and the Future of Real Estate Search
- 05/24/23 04:04 PM
Chat Bots and the Future of Real Estate Search Back in March, if you are a regular Zebra Report reader, you would have read our Zebra Report talking about all the latest tech trends in real estate and what we might see in the future. Today I want to share more about chat bots like ChatGPT.
If you haven't been reading the technology news headlines lately, you might be asking, "What in the world is ChatGPT?" ChatGPT is a natural language processing tool developed by OpenAI. It allows you to have these human-like conversations with a chat bot. Sounds pretty … (3 comments)
|
real estate coach: Density Push to Challenge Real Estate Professionals
- 05/12/23 12:27 PM
Density Push to Challenge Real Estate Professionals Most real estate professionals understand the inventory shortages we are facing now are a result of more than a decade of underbuilding. Strong demand, fueled by population growth, coupled with the ongoing issue of an inadequate number homes for sale or rent are causing housing prices to skyrocket. As was evidenced this last year, even doubling of interest rates was not enough to change the course of the real estate market.
In Washington State, the legislature tackled this problem head-on in this first legislative session this year. According to the News Tribune, over … (3 comments)
|
real estate coach: An Opportunity to Showcase Your Expertise Four Times a Year!
- 04/28/23 11:19 AM
Quarterly Reports: An Opportunity to Showcase Your Expertise Four Times a Year! Every three months, you have an opportunity to wow homeowners and past clients. How? With a quarterly market report. Sounds like a big project, right? Well, it can be, but we have a system for great quarterly reports. Here's a checklist of things to consider:
SIZE MATTERS A good quarterly report can be any size, but we recommend a 4-page newsletter (11" x 17" that folds down to four 8.5" x 11" pages. There's plenty of room for great information and beautiful photos. Other good sizes include 8.5" … (5 comments)
|
real estate coach: Embracing Discipline
- 04/21/23 09:08 AM
Embracing Discipline Welcome to this week's Zebra Report. Today's topic is so important to being successful in anything that you do - whether that is personally, professionally, but especially for being successful in real estate! And that is, embracing discipline.
Personal discipline is, by far, the one single trait that most agents struggle with because it requires you to be consistent on an ongoing basis. Successful agents have a plan that they stick to every day - that is discipline. Successful agents have mailing campaigns that they don't question every time that they don't get a call, they just do … (0 comments)
|
real estate coach: The Future of Real Estate Technology
- 03/31/23 09:26 AM
The Future of Real Estate Technology Over these past decades I have seen a lot of change in real estate tech. I'm always excited to see which ideas take hold in our industry and really revolutionize it. Keeping an eye on progress helps you stay competitive, but it can be fun too. Over the next few years, we are likely to see technology change how agents and consumers explore listings, access market information, and improve transaction security. So, this week I want to share three technologies with you that have the potential to influence and shape the future of how … (8 comments)
|
real estate coach: Really Knowing Your Real Estate Market
- 03/24/23 10:07 AM
Really Knowing Your Real Estate Market Today's Zebra Report is on a very important topic - really knowing your stats and your numbers. Our market may appear to be sending mixed signals, but if you have been tracking and paying attention to your local market then you will not only have a better idea of what's actually happening, but you will be in a position to explain it to both prospects and clients.
Here's just one great example. As our market has changed over the last three to six months, I have seen a lot of headlines that look something … (4 comments)
|
real estate coach: 5 Actions to Fill Your Pipeline for a ROBUST Spring!
- 03/02/23 04:06 PM
5 Actions to Fill Your Pipeline for a ROBUST Spring! It's been a quieter fall and winter with interest rates twice what they were last year. Some agents are looking forward to a good, steady spring and summer. Others agents are getting worried about where their next transaction is coming from.
If you are worried, then this is what you need to know: The best way to handle a worried mind is to take action.
If your business isn't where you want it to be, if your prospects are silent, then you need to get something going in your pipeline … (9 comments)
|
real estate coach: All-Cash Real Estate Sales and Home Buyers
- 02/24/23 10:29 AM
All-Cash Real Estate Sales and Home Buyers Denise Lones here and welcome to this week's Zebra Report. Today I want to talk about all the cash sales that are all over the place.
I talk to agents every single day, agents who are in Washington State, Arizona, Nevada, Florida - you name it! - and they are all saying the same thing, "There is an awful lot of cash out there today." So, this is an update on one very important place that this cash is coming from.
First and foremost, it's important to understand that the share of new … (0 comments)
|
real estate coach: 5 Social Media Mistakes Agents Often Make
- 02/17/23 01:11 PM
5 Social Media Mistakes Agents Often Make One of the benefits of being a real estate coach is that I get to see a lot of real estate agents online social media profiles from week-to-week. Over the many years I have seen many bare-bones Facebook pages, countless unclaimed Realtor.com profiles, outdated agent portraits, and all manner of embarrassing mistakes.
Your own social media profiles can be easy to ignore. Many agents will create an account and then away they go, engaging on their platform of choice without a second thought about what their profile says about their business to potential … (12 comments)
|
real estate coach: Your Voice is Needed
- 01/27/23 10:28 AM
Your Voice is Needed
Advocating for Housing in Your Community I don't know about you, but I walked away from the 2023 Real Estate Success Summit charged up and ready to really ramp up my voice when it comes to creating more housing and especially affordable housing in my community and throughout Washington State!
Since housing starts began to decline after the Great Recession, and then plummeted, I have been warning everyone who would listen about the challenges our housing market would be facing if more homes could not be built. In fact, I predicted that the spring of 2021 would … (2 comments)
|
real estate coach: Building the -Right- Inventory
- 01/20/23 10:58 AM
Building the Right Inventory Today I want to talk about Governor Inslee’s State of the State. I was really pleased to see such a strong focus on the on-going housing supply shortage. I’ve been talking about the lack of housing inventory since 2008 and the Great Recession. There are a lot of factors, since then, that have contributed to our current housing crisis.
The obvious solution is to build more houses, right? But there’s a lot more that goes into it. We need to be building the right kind of houses. It’s all about the right size, the right price, … (1 comments)
|
real estate coach: Getting Real with Your Buyers on the Reality of Continuing to Rent
- 01/13/23 09:20 AM
Getting Real with Your Buyers on the Reality of Continuing to Rent How many of your buyers over this past year took a look at rising interest rates and rising prices and decided to rent for another year? Based on my conversations with my ENCORE coaching clients, I would say it is at least half of you reading this article.
Do you have the tools at your fingertips to handle this type of objection? If not, I would suggest you fill that toolbox right away. I am guessing that in most situations, you know in your gut that renting isn't … (5 comments)
|
real estate coach: Four Opportunities Agents Miss Every Year
- 12/16/22 10:36 AM
Four Opportunities Agents Miss Every Year Every year there are four important time periods that agents don't take advantage of. There are any number of reasons why agents skip out on them - they are tired, burned out, or simply don't have a system or structure in place.
As you read my Zebra Report this week, I want you to think about how each of these opportunities might impact and benefit you over the coming year. I would love to hear from you a year from now, about how an opportunity you are no longer missing has made a change … (19 comments)
|
real estate coach: How Do I Get So Much Done?
- 12/09/22 01:38 PM
How Do I Get So Much Done? I get asked all the time about how I juggle everything I need to do and get so much done. Today, I want to share some of my key time-management and task-management systems with you. (You know how I am all about systems!)
First is my Hour of Power. It's just an hour, no more, no less, but it's incredibly powerful to get my to-do list whittled down. In this hour, I prioritize my tasks and tackle the most urgent ones. No calls, no emails, no distractions whatsoever. For more details on how … (3 comments)
|
real estate coach: Don't Just Make a Plan, Make an Action Plan for 2023
- 12/02/22 03:33 PM
Don't Just Make a Plan, Make an Action Plan for 2023 The internet is full of business planning templates that will allow you to make lofty goals. But, without a path that will lead you to achieve what you envision, it just isn't worth your time to do a business plan. Without the path, a business plan is just a list of dreams!
Simply put, the path is the most important part. Without it, you really have no way of knowing if your goal is achievable - let alone how to achieve it. Your path, the one what will take … (0 comments)
|
;)
;)
;)
