While it is important to hear every word of what your client says, it is also important to only focus on the words that will be beneficial for you. This means considering some details of what your client said while automatically dismissing some of it. We call this selective hearing, where we just take in what we want to hear and ignore those we don’t want.

• Your greeting should not go like you are promoting your company. For instance, do not go answering your calls with “Good morning. Thank you for calling Real Estate Company.” Homeowners feel more comfortable sharing their home troubles with individuals, not companies. The proper greeting should go like “Good morning. Real Estate, this is Name speaking.” Your greeting should be more on a personal level to get the sellers to be comfortable with you.
• Get right on the point of how you can help the seller. He or she called for your help, after all.
• There are some homeowners who would want to ask you for information first before going unto the problem. Be patient with them and be courteous. These homeowners may feel upset about having to sell their property and may also not like to trust you. Concentrate on building trust between the two of you and there is a possibility that he or she may warm up to you about their real estate problem.
• Take down some personal information about the homeowners. You will be able to see whether or not the homeowner will face a possible foreclosure or not. They may also share that they are behind bills and loans. You might be able to help them in a different way with these information. For instance, you might be able to help the sellers better by offering to work with their lenders and avoid foreclosures.
• Ask if you could take a look at their property on the same day they called. This will show the homeowners your dedication and sincerity in helping them. Negotiations and talks may also go more smoothly when you are talking face to face and not over the phone. There is also the danger of losing the seller to other investors if you postpone looking at the property on another day and the homeowners are in need of immediate action.

It all goes down to getting that first phone call right. When you have successfully communicated to the homeowners and they warmed up to you, then that real estate deal is yours.

There are some real estate advertisements that just don’t cut it. Some advertising projects might not be appealing to the customers. Some just don’t attract the attention of your target market.

There’s always room for improvements, though. You just need to realize first what is wrong with you advertisements. You should critique your marketing and look into its faults. You can also ask someone else, a friend or a colleague, to take a look at your marketing project and ask for their opinion.

Here are some points to look into when inspecting your advertisements:

1. Your ads are not at the right locations.

All marketers and advertisers know that location is very important when promoting the business. It is not any different in the real estate business. There is really meaning to the famous “location, location, location!” line.

You should obviously put your ads in an area wherein much of your target customers can be found. It should also be in a place where it can be clearly seen by people passing by. It’s no use putting up ads in places where people can’t even see them. Visibility, exposure, and accessibility is important if you want your advertisements seen and read.

2. Your message is unclear.

The message of your ads should be clear and direct. It is what the advertisement and marketing project is all about, after all. Your ads should speak of what you have to offer, your products, and/or your services. You should also be precise on the benefits that the customers will receive when taking your offer, and you should be direct and firm on what you advertise.

3. Your ads don’t catch the attention of potential customers.

Many people will sometimes just take a short look at your ads. In that short amount of time, you need to capture the customers’ attention. You can start by making your headlines big, understandable, and catchy.

4. Your ads don’t help in promoting your credibility and success rate.

You also need to get your potential customers to trust you based on your advertisements. You should also offer some information about yourself and your experiences in the real estate business. With this information, the customers will feel more relaxed and easy when coming to you.

5. You cannot be contacted as easily as you would like to be.

Your ad may have attracted the attention of many people. But it won’t give you customers if you do not give them details and clear directions on how to contact you. Your contact details should be clearly displayed in the ads. Your phone number should be active and it is best to personally take phone calls rather than have the answering machine take them. If possible, show a map where your office is located. You can also add in your email address or fax number.

6. No unique selling proposition distinguishing you from your competitors.

A unique selling proposition is very important in an industry where you need to do better than your competitor to get more leads. You need to have something, or offer something that will allow your customers to think that it is better to do business with you than with another real estate investor.

One advertising strategy in attracting sellers to your real estate investing business is to have a killer ad copy. Creating a great real estate ad copy should be part of your marketing campaigns in order to get more exposure and more clients.

Making a great ad copy is not as hard as it sounds, although it will require some effort and some time for testing and improving on it. Basically, the ad copy will be just like how you would talk to a potential seller and telling him or her to consider you when selling their house or property.

The best technique creating a great real estate ad copy is to make it so that you tell your potential sellers about yourself as a real estate investor. Show them what and who you really are as a real estate investor, in a way that they will feel that they can trust you. This way, you will be the first on their list when they want to sell their house.

Tips on Making a Great Ad Copy

1. Think about who and what type of person it is you are trying to sell yourself to. Put yourself in their shoes and try to determine what their situation may be. Try to think on what they may want or need.

 

2. After thinking on the customer, think about YOU. Work on your good and bad points and take note of the things that will make you appealing to the sellers. Think about why they should contact you or see you. Think about how you can personally interact with them, too. Clearly write down your services and experience.

 

3. A unique selling proposition should be in order. Think about what you can offer the sellers that other real estate investors have not or could not. You have to be different from your competitors in order to stand out and be noticed by the potential sellers.

 

4. Write down your first ad copy by combining the three steps above. If you have trouble writing it, you can talk it out and record it as if you’re personally talking to a potential seller. Listen to it afterwards and write it down.
   

 

5. Test your copy and improvise. Take your time with this. Test your copy more than once. Come back to it and improve on it after a day or two. Always have a fresh mind when revising the copy. Testing the copy and revising it many times will help you create an ad copy that gives out a strong message to the potential sellers.

Keep in mind, too, that confidence and enthusiasm can be evident in you ad copy. That is why it is important to be confident and proud of your work and services. Remember not to promise a lot. But always make the effort to do something extra and over deliver.

Do not fear that your copy is inferior and is not to be seen by the public yet. Your ad copy doesn’t have to be perfect before you can send it out. On the contrary, you will be able to see the results of your ‘test’ copies and make more improvements.

You may have noticed that despite your efforts in improving your advertising campaign may not always produce good results in bringing you prospective buyers for your property. This isn’t really surprising. Advertisements — fliers, posters, etc. — do not guarantee to bring you buyers. Which is why you would have to put effort in personally engaging in many real estate transactions. One of which is research that would focus on finding signs of a motivated or prospective buyer.

This is not to say, of course, that you discard any advertising. Your advertisements and marketing strategies are still the gateways for you to find out if there are interested buyers out there for you. Efforts put in advertising and campaigns would not go to waste once the prospective buyers know of you.

The main thing to remember when you do your advertisements is to target your specific market. If it would be a waste of time and effort, and not to mention more costly, if you direct your ads to just anyone without even thinking if they are the people that you are looking for. When done properly, your ads will pay off and it is the prospective buyers themselves who will be coming to you, not you to them!

A proper strategy for advertising and marketing yourself would definitely be a factor in looking for prospective buyers. Flyers, brochures, and TV ads are still being used, but the most popular type of strategy employed by many real estate investors today is direct mailing campaigns. This type of marketing effort will allow you to directly narrow down prospective buyers and at the same time it is cost-efficient (see Direct Mailing Campaigns). Another marketing strategy of favored by many successful real estate investors is marketing themselves and their expertise online.

Putting Yourself In Your Buyer’s Shoes

One effective way to know how to meet a prospective buyer’s expectations in a property is to be one, or at least just think of yourself as one. Put yourself in the shoes of a buyer who wants a residential home. Then ask yourself what a residential home should have enough for you to want to buy it. Most usually, it would go down to three things:

• stability
• comfort
• accessible

The property has to be stable and well-repaired. No buyer would want a run-down property, or a house that looks like it can just go down the drain any minute. Check the property to make sure it meets your expectations (posing as a buyer) and make changes when needed.

Everyone also wants to own a house wherein they are comfortable. This would involve a proper staging and design from you. Keep the rehabbing simple and do not either overdo or underdo in the renovations.

Last is that the property has to be accessible for the buyer. A property in a good and clean neighborhood is a “yes.” Nobody would want a property standing solitary in a dark area.

With these three as your starting points, you will be able to find out what your property lacks and what not to put in the property. Always remember to be more customer-centered, meaning that you should put yourself in a buyer’s prospective to know what your property needs to be bought.

Looking for someone to help you out in looking for great deals? Look out for the mailman! He knows where you can find them… and more.

While the general public only think that all the letter carriers does is deliver letters and packages, real estate investors know better. If ever there is a person that has a good knowledge on where a vacant house can be located, it’s the mailman. If a person is in trouble with the mortgage company, the mailman knows for sure.

And why is that?

It’s simply because letter carriers have access to the residents’ mails. This means that letters and notices from mortgage companies pass through their eyes and hands. They’ll certainly know when a resident is in trouble with his property. There might even be people who’ll be asking if the mailman knows of anyone buying properties. This would absolutely be a great referral tactic!

Mailmen and letter carriers also have their walking or driving routes. They would know the addresses and the area well. They will know for sure where there is a vacant or abandoned property, or where there is a property that is waiting to be sold and bought.

With knowledge such as these, who wouldn’t want to work with letter carriers?

All you would have to do is make a proposal to the mailman working on your target area to give you some information on properties that you could buy and invest in. Introduce yourself and build a great working relationship with him.

The advantage of having a mailman as a source of information is obvious. He knows where the freshest deals are. He can bring lots of leads for you. All this before some other real estate investor would even know about it. You’ll also be able to monitor where your competition is going. Mailmen would know where real estate investors are going through the letters that they deliver.

Also regarding competition, you are also able to get to a deal wherein you would be the first to offer your services! Basically, in knowing about a lead first (through the mailman), there wouldn’t really be a competition for you. You knew about the lead firsthand, after all.

You will have to be careful about asking a mailman, of course. There are letter carriers that might think of this move as a shrewd one and would not commit to it. Mailmen are also not allowed to take tips for the information. But there are those who do. What is required of you is that you ask them professionally and with no strings attached.

Make it clear to the letter carriers or the mailmen that all you need from them is plain view information about a property. Plain view information means description garnered by sight alone. For example, in telling you about a vacant house, all they’ll tell you is that the lawn hasn’t been trimmed for so long, that there are stacks of mail in the mailbox, and other signs of a vacant house. If ever the mailman wants to give you more information than that, that will be theirs to decide. Don’t hound them for more.

So you see how helpful the mailman in your neighborhood can be? They’re not just your ordinary letter and package delivery guy. To a real estate investor, they’re a great asset to have.

One of the practices or real estate investors in making a nice profit is to sell a property as quickly as possible. Time is very vital when selling a property. You incur costs and expenses when you hold a property, and the longer you hold it the more money you spend.

Real estate investors make it a point to sell properties fast and in less than a month. But how do you make this possible? One can’t just put a property on sale and leave it to  wishful thinking that someone will come across it and buy it.

When selling a property, one has to consider what the buyer would want in a property. Buyers have their standards. So as a seller you have to set some standards in your property in order for a buyer to consider it. You have to know how to sell your property. How can you get your money otherwise?

This is where staging and designing come into the picture. These days, buyers are very critical and careful in the houses that they are considering. Staging and designing a house is now crucial to every seller and real estate investor who wants to sell their house as fast as possible.

7 Rules In Staging and Designing

1. Know Your Customer

This is the number on rule: know your customer. It is prevalent in every business that the customer comes first when offering a product or service. It is the customer who will be the user of the product after all. In real estate, it’ll be the customer who’s going to be living in the house. So when you are planning to stage and design the house to be sold, always think of the customer — what he or she likes, if they have a pet, if they have kids, if they have a car, etc.

The important thing here is that you try to stage and design the house according to what your customer would want it to be. Knowing your customer will also help in building trust between the two of you, building a much more comfortable and easier buyer-and-seller relationship. Not to mention that once you’ve build trust with your customer, you’ll be getting referrals from them. This will help save you time, money, and effort in promoting and advertising yourself to others.

2. Don’t Overfix!

This is a crime that designers are prone to. Too much can really be too much. You should not overfix a house, basically because all you really need to do is to fix the house enough for it to be looking well and without problems. Further improvements to the house will be made by the customers when they have bought it and furnished it to their liking.

3. Don’t Underspend!

Underspending, or underfixing, is also a big no. Yes, it’s clever to have less expenses. But staging and designing a house has its factors to consider. In fixing the house, you also have to consider the neighborhood and the area wherein the house is located. You also have to see what the other houses. You have to make the property fit in with the type of surroundings and type of houses alongside it. Make them similar, yet also different.

Don’t make the house look so shabby, especially when the neighborhood and other houses beside it all look so lively. You have to make it comparable to the other houses. The customer might also think that you don’t really care about the property. Yes, you’re selling it, but customers would like to have the feeling that the property that they are buying has been well taken cared of. Fixing the property without underspending is also a sign to the customers that you are offering them a property that is worth their money.

4. Don’t Sell an Empty or Dirty House or a House In Rehab

When selling a property, you have to go by the assumption that the customer does not have the imagination of a designer. So selling empty houses, dirty houses, and houses in rehab is not a very good idea. These kinds of houses do not give what a customer would generally want to see — a theme, some warmth, some color, etc. If you want to have a property sold, it is important to have it imprinted on the minds of your customers. An empty house, or a dirty house, is definitely not that thing that you want to be remembered by the people you are selling to.

5. Don’t Overstuff the House

Overstuffing should not be done when designing a house for sale. You should also leave some room for the customer’s stuff. In inspecting a house they are considering to buy, they would also have thoughts on what to put and where to put it. Naturally, they would want a house wherein there are some spaces left for their things. Customers also like a place that has some room for lots of movement. Space is also something that you have to consider in staging and designing a house.

6. Work With the Experts

You would need some help in staging and designing the house, of course. Taking care of the plumbings and getting the kitchen and living room back into shape again is something not a single person can do. When faced with looking for people to help you with, also stick to the people who are an expert in these fields. Choose the people that you trust and you know can do a good job. Working with people who are not up to the tasks would be a waste of time and money if you need to do something all over again because of their mistake.

7. Bring Out Emotions!

One thing that will have your property remembered (and most probably be bought) is to give an effect to the customers. So producing in the customers emotions and positive feedback will help you sell the house quickly. Appealing to the customer’s emotions is the most effective strategy. Design the house in which the customer will have some nostalgic feeling, or wherein he or she will feel some warmth, and you have got yourself a deal!