We hear you, really we do. Nobody wants to feel humiliated just to get leads. But what if I told you rock star Beverly Hills agent Ben Bacal used door knocking to land clients like Leonardo DiCaprio and even knocked on Keanu Reeve’s and Grant Cardone’s doors? You’d want to learn more, right? Well, you’re in luck! 

In this article, I go over everything you need to know about door knocking for real estate, including the best scripts and 15 door-knocking tips to get more leads. I’ll wrap up with my 2 cents on whether or not door knocking is still effective after the pandemic.

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The Best Door Knocking Scripts for 2022 (+ Video Examples)

1. Ben Bacal’s Beverly Hills Door-knocking Scripts

If you’ve been an agent for more than a few months, chances are you’ve heard of Ben Bacal. He’s one of the most successful luxury agents in Beverly Hills—he sold a Bel Air home for a record-breaking $94 million and has sold homes to Matt Damon, Ellen DeGeneres, and Madonna.

What most agents don’t know is that Ben Bacal got his start in real estate door knocking. Here are Ben’s general door-knocking script and the script he uses for “drive knocking” mansions with gates and intercoms:

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General Door-knocking Script:

“Your house is amazing. If there is any possibility of bringing a buyer your way, would you be interested in selling?”

Drive Knocking Script:

“Sorry to bother you, but my client saw your property on Google Maps and you can’t see it from the street. You probably don’t want to sell it but maybe you do, she is a serial entrepreneur you’ve seen on TV. She’s looking for a property in the range of XX-XX. Maybe you can let me see your property to see if it might work for her.”

2. Sean Moudry’s Door-knocking Script for Listing Agents

Trying to come up with a value proposition to justify knocking on a stranger’s door on a Sunday morning isn’t easy. The best value proposition you have as an agent is a track record of success selling homes in their neighborhood. So if you have a recent listing that received multiple offers, print them out, black out the personal information, and put together a mini-presentation you can use as a talking point. Now that you have a reason to be there, here is a script you can use from Sean Moudry:

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“Hello, sorry to bother you. My name is [your name] and I am the listing agent for the property down the street [point in the direction of the property]. We received multiple offers [waive the printed contracts in front of them] and, of course, we can only accept one. The home sold well above asking price and these other buyers are still looking for a home in [neighborhood]. Who do you know who would like to sell their home in this HOT MARKET?”

3. Monica Carr’s Beginner’s Door-knocking Script

Coldwell Banker agent Monica Carr went from broke to earning a million dollars in real estate through building a brand and door knocking. The script she used was dead simple, but highly effective. First, because it gave her a valid reason to knock on a stranger’s door, and second, because it built enough curiosity to spark conversations with homeowners. Here is her script from her TomX talk:

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“Hi, I’m Monica. Your neighbor just sold their home for $1.5 million. What did you think of that price? Did you get a chance to see it at the open house? That one sold for multiple offers. There are still people out there who want to live in your neighborhood. For the right price, would you consider selling your home?”

You can hear Monica explain her script in more detail and share her inspirational story in her TomX talk How to Earn $1 Million in Real Estate in 4 Steps with Absolutely NO BUDGET below, which has been viewed over 700,000 times.

4. Eri Hass’ Market Report Door-knocking Script 

A former music industry executive, Eric Hass started his real estate career door knocking in one of the most expensive cities on earth— Los Angeles. While most agents probably think door knocking million-dollar homes would be pointless, Eric disagrees. Here’s how he framed the issue in his interview with Mike Sherrard: “Luxury doesn’t mean $#$%, it’s just another zero on the price, and those people need to sell too.” 

Like Monica’s script, Eric’s script is simple, friendly, and offers homeowners something to be curious about to spark conversation. Here is the script:

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“Hi, it’s Eric Hass, I’m with EXP Realty and I’m stopping by with a housing update on [your farm area], keeping you dialed in with what’s going on with quarter one versus quarter four, and I’m stopping by to see if you have any questions or interest in moving anytime soon.”

Watch Eric explain his script and go over his best door-knocking tips in his interview with Mike Sherrard here:

5. Micah Mruwat’s Home Valuation Door-knocking Script

Real estate coach and former EXP Managing Broker Micah Mruwat is another industry thought leader who is bullish on door knocking. Like the other agents here, Micah starts off by introducing herself and wraps up by offering something of value that will stir curiosity and spark a conversation.

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“Hi, my name is Micah Mruwat from EXP Realty. I promise I won’t take much of your time, I just want a couple of seconds—did you realize that a home just a few houses down just sold for $50,000 over asking price? I don’t know if you have any interest, but I am an expert in the area if you’d like a free valuation of your home.”

Watch Micah explain her script in more detail and go over other door-knocking tips in her video here:

16 Door-knocking Tips to Get More Leads in 2022

1. Don’t Ask for Business, Offer to Help 

Chris Linsell, Senior Staff Writer/Real Estate Coach, Theclose.com 

One of the biggest mistakes new agents make when door knocking is trying to hard-sell total strangers on their doorstep. Unless you have a stellar track record in their neighborhood, this will turn off most homeowners. Instead, focus on how you can help them. The distinction is subtle, but important. Check out Chis Linsell’s video below for a quick run-through of his door-knocking strategy and why it works.

2. Don’t Forget to Bring Your Door Hangers

One of the best leave-behinds you can use when door knocking are door hangers. Simply put, they have one of the best returns on investment (ROI) of anything you can print and put in front of your leads. Full stop.

Illinois Coldwell Banker Broker Danielle Procopio agrees:

“Never miss the opportunity to ‘touch’ a lead. If no one is home, we’ll leave a laminated door hanger with a personalized message and attempt to connect with the homeowners at least four times, and then mail them a neighborhood market analysis. Always follow up with a letter, postcard, phone call, and so on. You want to be seen as the neighborhood expert.”

You can get gorgeous custom-designed door hangers as well as social media templates, business card templates, and more at Lab Coat Agents (LCA) Marketing Center. LCA Marketing Center is similar to Canva, but everything they offer was designed for and by top-producing Realtors. The difference in quality is massive.

Visit Lab Coat Agents Marketing Center

3. Don’t Try to Close the Deal on Their Doorstep

The cardinal rule of any real estate lead generation strategy is to only focus on moving relationships to the next step. In the case of door knocking, that next step is generally either a phone call, being added to a direct mail or drip campaign, or if you’re really lucky, a listing presentation.

While you may be eager to close deals, pushing too hard for goals that are unrealistic is a surefire way to get a door slammed in your face. Sure, you want to seem confident and maybe even a little bit hungry to close, but most people instantly turn off when presented with a “sales pitch,” no matter how good it is. This is especially true when you’re standing on their doorstep on a Sunday morning.

So do yourself a favor and save the hard sell for your listing presentation or better yet, when you’re finally writing an offer for your buyer. Instead, focus on just moving the ball down the field. What next step do you realistically want your homeowner to take with you? A phone call? A visit to your open house? Focus on that and you’ll have much better luck knocking doors.

4. A Small Compliment Can Go a Long Way in Building Rapport

A compliment, if it’s sincere, is one of those ice breakers that has probably worked since the last ice age and will continue to work for a thousand years. So the next time you’re out door knocking, try to find something genuine to compliment the homeowner on.

Cindy Trotier, a Coldwell Banker agent from Illinois, uses small compliments to break the ice with homeowners whenever she can.

“When prospecting, it’s important to find common ground with the potential client, and complimenting them on their home goes a long way. Start with: ‘Nice yard, you certainly have a green thumb,’ or ‘Those are beautiful flowers.’ Make the conversation about them, not you. Additionally, share something of value along with your business card (e.g., market area report). Ultimately, you want to build relationships first.”

5. Leverage Your Brokerage’s Success if You’re a Newer Agent

Another hard and fast rule of lead generation is that you need to have something on the table that your leads actually want. That can be something as abstract as a conversation or advice, or something as concrete as a well-researched comparative market analysis (CMA) or market report.

If you feel like you have nothing to offer, then you’re doing it wrong. Just by virtue of having access to your MLS, you have more information at your fingertips than the average homeowner. It’s just a matter of packaging that data in creative and useful ways. Why not hire a virtual assistant to put together 20 CMAs for homes in a neighborhood you want to target?

Sure, that will cost you money, but how many other agents are going the extra mile like that? As Close Contributor Beverly Ruffner always says: You only need to be a little bit better than the competition.

But you don’t even need to go this far. Instead, you can just leverage your brokerage’s success. Many large brokerages like Douglas Elliman create market reports specifically for their agents to use as marketing pieces. A hot-off-the-press market report can be very useful for homeowners who may not be paying attention to the market … YET.

Just remember that data on its own is cheap these days. The real value comes from analyzing and packaging that data in ways that are useful to your potential customers.

6. Allow Yourself to Fail in Order to Get Better

If you’ve worked in real estate for more than 10 minutes or own a television, you’ve probably heard of Barbara Corcoran. What you may not know about Barbara is that she grew up poor, dyslexic, and was waiting tables before she decided to become a real estate agent.

Fast forward a few years and she ended up selling her innovative brokerage, The Corcoran Group, for more than $66 million. Like many entrepreneurs, she credits her amazing success to learning lessons from failure.

So now you may be sitting here thinking this is the sappiest cliche of all time, and why are you even reading this? Well, let’s just say that successful people didn’t get that way without breaking a few eggs. So smile and laugh when someone slams a door in your face, learn to meditate, start a healthy morning routine, and always remember that you’re not a brain surgeon—you’re just trying to close some deals. So don’t be so hard on yourself. Things are going to work out, but you need to let yourself fail first. It won’t kill you. I promise.

7. Dress for Success, but Don’t Forget Comfort

One of the best-kept secrets of success in any sales job shouldn’t be a secret at all. Here it goes: People are going to judge you, and harshly, based on your appearance. Yes, we know it’s not fair, and yes, we know you really think your leads won’t care if you show up in sweatpants and a T-shirt to show them houses. We’ve heard these arguments over and over again. Of course, that doesn’t make them right. 

Far from it, actually. In reality, people, especially the older people who own the majority of the homes in this country, are going to judge you for what you wear, and there’s nothing you can do about it. As long as you’re comfortable, dress as nicely as you can when you’re out door knocking.

Not sure how to dress to impress? Luckily, we put together guides for women and men on how to dress, and more importantly, how NOT to dress to close more deals.

8. Make Some Fun Pop-by Gifts & Bring Them With You

Texas Coldwell Banker agent Andrea Smith swears by pop-by gifts:

“Create some fun, well-thought-out pop-bys that convey your message. When Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, I attach my business cards to a small bag of chocolate hearts that say, ‘You’re the heart of my business.’ It’s a great way to help people remember me and begin a positive interaction as I’m out knocking doors. I feel like the addition of a special touch helps to open the door to a better opportunity to generate a lead or referral.”

Pop-by gifts are small gifts that you can leave with homeowners in order to get them to remember you. Things like candy, seeds, or any other small gift with your message and contact info will work. Cheesy jokes optional, but kind of encouraged.

9. Learn the Best Days & Times to Door Knock in Your Farm Area

Learning when to knock doors is like asking which baseball team is the best. No matter who you ask, you’re going to get a different answer. But there is a general consensus from people who use door knocking as their primary lead generation strategy:

Saturdays between 10 a.m. & 5 p.m.

Most people are home, but are more than likely still in get-stuff-done mode instead of full-on relax mode, like they are on Sundays. The only caveat here is neighborhoods where observant Jewish people live. In that case, you just might want to wait until Sunday, as Saturdays are days of rest in the Jewish religion.

And likewise, knocking on doors on Sunday if your community is devoutly Christian may not be well received. In short, know your audience and respect their private time.

8:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. during the week

Another good time to door knock that most people skip is in the morning during the weekday. You’ll catch a lot of entrepreneurs, home workers, and retired people who are just getting their day together, and so may be more receptive to dealing with “work.”

10. Invite Them to the First Open House at a New Listing

I don’t know about you, but I’m always desperately curious to see how my neighbors live. What does that cool-looking brownstone with the cute little yard look like inside? I bet it’s nice …

In order to satiate their curiosity, always take the time to door knock in a circle around a new listing before you have that all-important first open house. It not only helps you look good to your homeowner (neighbors gossip), but might just help keep you top of mind with the neighbors as well.

Minnesota Sotheby’s Shawn Leetz takes advantage of the curiosity factor to help drive traffic to her open houses:

“Before the first open house at a new listing, I will door knock to hand out personal invitations to the neighbors, introducing myself and letting them know that it is always a good idea to know what is going on in their neighborhood. Also, I like to let them know that it’s OK to come and take a peek; some folks are shy about walking through their neighbor’s home. Not only does this engage the community, but this is another way to offer value to your client (the seller).”

Need some ideas to actually generate leads at your next open house? Check out our guide to open houses here.

11. Avoid Burnout: Don’t Try to Knock Too Many Doors in One Day

Contrary to popular belief, being physically and emotionally exhausted at noon is not a signal that you worked hard, and definitely not a signal that you were effective. It’s a signal that you’re stressed, tired, and probably cranky to boot. Basically the exact opposite mindset you need for a successful door-knocking campaign. Who wants to talk to a stressed-out stranger on their doorstep? The answer, of course, is literally no one.

So if you want to avoid burnout, set yourself a realistic goal of say, 20 doors to knock before you head to the office or start your open house this weekend. If you don’t believe us, just imagine knocking that super-lucky door where a millionaire who wants to sell lives and being too wiped out to build a rapport with her.

12. Track Your Progress: That Which Gets Measured, Gets Improved

One thing many agents forget when out door knocking is to track their progress. How many doors did you knock? How many doors got slammed in your face? Which doors should you absolutely avoid next time? Which seemed kind of promising? Who seems like a decent candidate for a direct mail campaign?

You don’t have to hire MIT to crunch the numbers for you here. Just keep a little log book or notepad app on your phone and take some notes when you’re out door knocking.

You also need to measure your performance if you want to get better. What went right? What went wrong? Does your script need tweaking? Are you getting less nervous or more nervous?

13. Ask Open-ended Questions: Avoid Yes or No Questions

Want to know a secret to not being boring? Get people to talk about themselves and then really listen to what they’re saying. That’s it. Easy, right? Well, yes and no. After all, you have a pretty clear agenda here, right? You’re not just walking your farm area at 8:30 a.m. on a Tuesday to chat about the weather.

Not only does the same rule apply to door knocking, but it’s actually crucial to your success. Think about it. You have maybe 15 seconds to get and keep their attention. Even if you’re super-charming, they’re probably looking for an easy excuse to get back to their newspaper and bagels. Answering a simple yes or no is one of those excuses.

So to avoid giving them an easy out, never ask questions that can be answered by a simple yes or no. Instead, try to get them engaged in a conversation by asking open-ended questions and actually listening to their answers instead of just waiting for your turn to talk.

14. Stay Safe: Knock With a Partner

Since safety should be one of your main concerns, you might want to think about finding a partner to door knock with. It could be a junior agent who needs to work on their pitching skills or an equal team member, but the facts are that pairing up is almost always safer than going it alone.

By the way, this applies just as much to “safe” neighborhoods as it does to neighborhoods with higher crime rates. The simple fact is you never know who is going to answer that door, so having a buddy across the street watching your back is always a good idea.

It could just be a creepy old man who gets too flirty, but a quick “Hey, would love to chat more but my partner is across the street” should be enough to throw cold water on most people.

While the odds of getting into trouble are pretty rare, you never know. As an added bonus, you’ll have a margarita partner if you decide to knock off early.

15. Don’t Be Afraid of Luxury Neighborhoods

Can we talk about super-attractive people for a minute here? If there’s one thing they say over and over again, it’s that fewer, not more, people hit on them. While this might seem counterintuitive, it makes sense when you think about it. After all, most people assume they have no chance, so they don’t even bother.

Well, you can think about wealthy neighborhoods like that super-hot guy in your spin class. You might have a low chance of getting his digits, but if you don’t go talk to him, you have ZERO chance. Why not give it a shot?

The other good part of knocking on rich people’s doors is that they’re more likely to be entrepreneurs—and maybe also more likely to be self-made entrepreneurs who appreciate a good hustle! Maybe some eccentric billionaire will take a shine to you and give you 10 listings to sell this year. Hey, you never know until you try, right?

16. Good Deeds Can Help Build Good Will in Your Farm Area

If you want to get in good with the locals, there’s nothing like doing something selfless and useful for the community. I don’t know about you, but whenever I see someone helping others in my neighborhood, I can’t help but like them.

Like a lot of successful agents, Texas Coldwell Banker agent Scott Bullard started out with empty pockets, but a deep desire to help his community:

“I started with no money, so I had to be creative. I had a T-shirt made with my real estate company in big letters, and walked my neighborhood at strategic times to come face to face with as many people as possible while I picked up any trash that I saw and disposed of it. I also went around collecting email addresses of my neighbors and started a weekly e-newsletter.”

The 30,000-Foot View: Is Door Knocking Still Effective in 2022?

If you had asked us this question in April 2020, we probably would have said no. There were just too many unknowns about the pandemic for us to even think about telling agents that knocking on strangers’ doors was a good idea.

Of course, now with multiple successful vaccines being distributed and Omicron waning, we are once again bullish on door knocking for one simple reason: Agents have been relying on technology to generate leads way, way too much over the past few years.

These days, it seems like every agent is obsessed with perfecting custom audiences for Facebook ads, or trying (and failing) to go “viral” on Instagram instead of honing the one skill they need to last in this industry: making a personal connection with another human being.

So, the more everyone in your office leans into technology, get up, go outside, and go knock some doors.

Over to You

Do you think door knocking will disappear or make a huge comeback in 2022? Let us know in the comments.

The post Door Knocking for Real Estate in 2022: Will It Still Work? (+ Tips & Scripts) appeared first on The Close.

Luckily, beating a cash offer on a house is not as hard as many agents think. We’ll share our strategies to improve your offer by reducing the negative aspects of financing while creatively solving some of the other concerns a seller may have. Here are the top 10 that have helped my team successfully beat out cash offers—yes, even in this red hot market.

Disclaimer: All suggestions mentioned in this article are for informational purposes only. We are not offering legal advice. Laws and restrictions are different in each area. Check with your local real estate commission and attorney for guidance before using any of the techniques listed.

1. Use a Cash Lender

One of the best ways to beat a cash offer is simply to transform your offer into a cash offer by using a cash lender. Born from the needs of mortgage buyers to compete with cash buyers, cash lenders will buy a home with cash then allow the buyer to refinance or purchase the property after closing. 

Here’s how it works. Once a buyer is qualified with a cash lender like Homeward Mortgage, they can select a house and Homeward will place a cash offer on the property. Once the property is purchased, the buyer rents the property from Homeward until their loan is finalized.

There is a charge for this service. The fee is about 2%, but it is reduced if the buyer uses Homeward Mortgage for their final loan. For buyers with a home to sell, they also offer a buy with cash before you sell option.

2. Submit Your Offer Early

Competing with cash offers can be stressful, but don’t give up hope. Many listing agents today will not review the offers for three to four days after the property becomes active. This allows more buyers to have the opportunity to see the property so the seller can receive more offers. 

Some buyer’s agents believe the best strategy is to wait until the last minute before submitting an offer. Don’t do this! We have found that the best practice is to submit your offers early! 

There is nothing worse than finding out the day before the offer deadline that the seller got tired of having to be out of the house for showings and decided to accept an offer the day before. Think of it this way: If your buyer’s offer is on the table, at least they will have a fighting chance, and if you follow some of my other suggestions, your buyer’s offer may even win!

3. Offer a Signing Bonus

A common seller negotiation tactic today is to hold all offers through the weekend and present all the offers received on Monday. This allows the listing agent to pit desperate buyers against each other and drive the price up even further. This technique also increases the chance of getting a cash offer that sweeps the rest of the competition.

The best way to overcome this is to offer a “signing bonus” for accepting your buyer’s offer quickly. To be successful at this, your buyer must put their best foot forward and make the “signing bonus” the highest and best offer they can make.

Assuming the list price of a home is $400,000 and your buyer is willing to pay 10% over asking. Instead of offering $440,000 and waiting through the weekend, structure the offer so the sales price is $420,000, but if the seller accepts the offer within the next four hours, the sales price will be $440,000. A $20,000 bonus just for accepting your offer sooner.

This approach allows your buyer to submit their offer early, eliminating the competition, and the seller gets to feel like they got a fair price. A true WIN-WIN! The best part is if the seller doesn’t accept the offer, it stays in the mix so your buyer can still have a chance to win.

However, to win against cash offers, you need to do more than just offer a signing bonus.

4. Be Memorable & Likable

Winning an offer is a competition—literally. It’s your buyer’s offer against all the other buyers. So, if you want to win against cash offers, you need to be memorable and likable! 

I’ll deny it if asked, but in the past, I have been known to help polite agents that I liked get their offers accepted. On the other hand, I have not lifted a finger to help an agent who was rude and standoffish. So if you want to beat out a cash offer, kill them with kindness. Here are two easy ways you can be more memorable and likable to the listing agent:

Leave Unique Feedback

When your buyer is interested in a property, you have a great opportunity to set the tone. Instead of leaving the same old feedback, mention how your buyer loved the home, the neighborhood, and how they can see themselves living there. 

In many cases, the feedback goes directly to the seller. This is their first impression of your buyer’s offer. Just be mindful not to mention anything about your client that can be considered discriminatory under Fair Housing. 

Think of it as a mini-buyer love letter without the potential issues that love letters present.

Send the Listing Agent an Introductory Video

Next, record a quick introductory video of yourself to the listing agent. (Due to Fair Housing, I don’t include videos of my clients.) Let them know you will be submitting an offer and for them to keep you abreast of any status changes. 

These extra little touches can be the difference between your buyer’s offer being in second or first place!

5. Offer an Appraisal Gap

One of the main reasons cash is king in bidding wars is because of the requirement of an appraisal for mortgages. Bidding wars are causing sales prices to rise far beyond what we as agents or appraisers can realistically justify. 

The difference between the sales price and the lower appraised value is called the appraisal gap. When a financed buyer offers to cover any appraisal gap, they are putting up additional money for the down payment and closing costs. For example, if a property is marketed for $400,000 and it gets bid up to $420,000, the financed buyer may agree to bring in an additional $20,000 in the event the property doesn’t appraise.

Coach your clients who don’t have the additional funds for an appraisal gap to try to restructure their loan to a lower down payment option. If that won’t work, have them ask parents, grandparents, or even borrow from their 401(k) in order to cover the gap in the event the appraisal comes up short.

Remember, they will only need this money if the appraisal comes in lower than the agreed sales price and in most cases, the deficient amount is less than the agreed appraisal gap. While this is a top strategy, today many buyers are offering appraisal gaps. So, to win your offer, you may have to pull out the big guns.

6. Have Your Buyer Pay Your Commission

When you are competing with cash offers, sometimes you have to pull out the big guns. Commissions have always been a touchy topic for buyers and sellers, and many sellers feel that it isn’t fair that they pay commissions for both their agent and the buyer’s agent.

Since this experience, I have successfully used this technique to differentiate my offers to gain an advantage over the competition.

7. Add an Escalation Clause

Escalation clauses often get a bad reputation. However, if used correctly, they are powerful tools that allow your buyers to make their strongest offer without the risk of overpaying compared to the other competing offers. 

For example, a home I sold recently had six offers. This beautiful four-bedroom, three-bathroom home in a small rural town east of Denver was listed for $460,000.

Three of the offers were under $470,000, two were at $480,000, and one was $500,000. The buyer who offered the highest amount had already sold their home (without a contingency to find a new home) and had to find a home ASAP or they were going to have to rent. 

They were in a pinch and because of their situation, they made an over-the-top offer to ensure they would win. What they didn’t know is that the other offers were $20,000 less than their offer. 

To prevent the buyer from overpaying, the buyer’s agent could have made an offer of $475,000 with an escalation clause of $1,000 more than any viable competing offer up to $500,000.

Had they done this, we would have had their offer accepted at $481,000 ($480,000 highest competing offer + $1,000 escalation), thus saving the buyer a whopping $19,000!

This technique is sure to place your buyers in the top spot, but this alone won’t always beat out cash.

8. Pay the Seller’s Closing Costs

While this next tip will give you an edge when the offers are close, sellers today feel like they are getting nickeled and dimed. That sounds funny when they are getting offers 10%+ over asking, but ask a homeseller and that is what they’ll tell you.

In most real estate transactions, the seller pays for the costs of the title insurance, escrow, and homeowner association (HOA) fees. Despite the common practice of having the seller pay for these fees, there isn’t a requirement for the seller to do so. Combined, these fees can range from $1,000 to $5,000, depending on the location, HOA, and the price of the home.

One benefit of this is that in most cases, when the buyer pays for the title policy, they are able to select which title company they wish to purchase the title insurance policy from. If your buyer wants this option, be sure to make this clear in your offer. Also, be sure to get estimates of the fees prior to having your offer accepted, or place a limit on the costs your buyer is willing to pay.

While saving the seller a few thousand dollars seems miniscule compared to the hundreds of thousands buyers are paying for the house, this little gesture goes a long way with some money-conscious sellers.

9. Give the Seller a Flexible Possession Time

Since many sellers also need to buy a home, many get nervous about finding a home they can afford and actually want to buy. To relieve the seller’s fears, your buyer can be flexible with the seller when it comes to them having to move after they sell the home.

Of course, cash offers have an advantage when it comes to flexible possession dates. However, there are two main strategies buyers with financing can use to give the seller more time to move. Each has benefits and drawbacks for both the buyer and the seller. The key is finding the right solution for both parties.

No-cost Rent-back 

If the seller needs time to stay after the home is sold, then a no-cost rent-back can give them time to stay in the home long after the home has been sold. 

The challenge with this strategy arises when your buyer needs a mortgage loan. FHA loans and conventional loans have a requirement that the new buyer occupies the property within 60 days of ownership. If the seller needs more time than that, your buyer may have to qualify for an investment loan.

Recently, our team had a seller who was waiting for their new home to be built. The winning buyer agreed to get an investment loan so they could allow the seller to rent back the home for up to six months after closing. This saved the seller from the cost and inconvenience of having to move twice. Once moved in, the buyer plans to refinance the home to a lower interest rate owner-occupant loan. 

Most states provide a pre-approved form for post-occupancy. To protect your client and yourself, if your state doesn’t provide these forms, advise your client to have a lease drafted by a local real estate attorney.

Replacement Home Contingency

If a no-cost rent-back doesn’t work for your buyer, try using a replacement home contingency. A replacement home contingency is a two- to four-week contingency for the seller to find, contract, and inspect a replacement home. If the seller cannot complete this by the end of the time period, they may extend the time or the buyer or the seller may terminate the contract.

The benefit of this technique is that you don’t run into the 60-day occupancy requirement as you would with other options, since the closing and possession will be coordinated with the seller’s replacement home purchase.  

The downside is that if the seller cannot find a replacement home, they can terminate the contract and stay in their current home. In this case, the buyer may lose any money they paid for inspections and appraisals.

Having good communication with the listing agent and understanding the seller’s needs is key to making deals like this work.

10. Communicate!

I am appalled when I get offers in my inbox from agents who didn’t even bother to call or text before they sent it over. What kind of agent does this? A lazy agent who doesn’t really want to do their job, that’s who!

When writing an offer for my buyers in this competitive market, I want to make accepting it as easy as possible for the listing agent. To do this, I always call the listing agent (yes, on the phone! … and no, not in a text message!) to get a crystal-clear understanding of what the seller’s situation is and how we can draft an offer that meets their specific needs. 

Call me old-school, but I appreciate the details when I’m presenting offers to my sellers. Many of the other listing agents I know do too. So write a detailed cover letter that contains bullet points of key features of the offer, and how the buyer’s offer takes into account the needs of the seller. If needed, explain the buyer’s situation and their financing. 

Lastly, I call or text the listing agent and let them know that I sent them an offer and ask them to confirm that they received it. This shows them that I am proactive and communicative.

Bottom Line

The way to beat out cash offers on a home is to relieve as much stress and eliminate any fears the seller may have. You can do this by writing your offers in a way that reduces the hassles of financing and takes into consideration some of the other concerns a seller may have. We wish you the best in applying my team’s 10 strategies for writing winning offers!

The post How to Compete With Cash Offers: 10 Ways to Write Winning Offers appeared first on The Close.

Here on The Reynolds Team, giving up is not an option. Our persistence and strategy led to more than $1 billion in sales in 2021 and we’re on track to hit our goal of closing a thousand buyers in 2022. Our agents use a 10-step search plan to find homes for their desperate buyers. I’m sharing our property search plan with you because I want each and every one of you to succeed.

1. Kick Off Team Meetings With an Internal ‘Wants & Needs’ List

Our first step to finding homes to show desperate buyers is to post to our internal “Wants and Needs” list. This is a private Facebook group for our team and brokerage where agents list what their buyers are looking for in a home. 

To cast as wide a net as possible, we also review our clients’ “wants and needs” at our weekly team meetings. This helps keep our buyers’ needs top of mind for listing agents. The minute a new listing comes in, our listing agents will already have showings lined up from the list.  

If we can match a new listing with a buyer from our “wants and needs” list, we call this a “Love Connection”! We don’t stop there, though. If a connection isn’t made through our brokerage and team, we reach out to other agents in our network.

  Pro Tip

If you want to learn more about The Reynolds Team, check out my interview with team leader Sarah Reynolds Oji on The Close Weekly Podcast.

2. Contact Top Listing Agents From Other Brokerages

This technique is great for buyers who have a home to sell or a low down payment. The secret is to get access to homes before there is a lot of competition for them through the MLS. 

To do this, we begin by looking up the top agents in the specific neighborhoods that our buyers wish to live in. We often don’t know who is selling the most homes in any given area, so we train our buyers’ agents to search the MLS for properties sold over the past six to 12 months. 

Then they sort the list by the listing agent’s name. This will consolidate the names and show who has sold multiple properties in the area. With this information in hand, they can contact the listing agents who have sold multiple properties in the area, and ask them if they have any upcoming listings that may fit our buyer’s criteria.

Agents who are neighborhood specialists typically have sellers who would sell their home if they got an offer they can’t refuse, as well as other homesellers who are preparing their home to sell it in the next few months. 

The goal is to make their seller client an unbeatable offer even before they’ve signed a listing agreement. This technique works wonders for buyers with contingencies and special circumstances. In fact, I have bought two houses this way myself!

3. Prospect OLD Expireds, Not New Expireds!

Our team’s next step is to search for expired listings and homes that have been withdrawn from the market. Even in today’s low inventory market, some listings don’t sell the first time around. 

Start by searching your MLS for expired homes over the past three years. Many older expired listings are from sellers who were not able to get the price they wanted. Prices have risen so much over the past year that the unrealistic price they were asking two years ago probably isn’t so unrealistic today!

If a listing has recently expired or has been withdrawn, contact the listing agent and ask them if they know if the property is coming back on the market.

For older expireds, go ahead and call them yourself. The good news is that homeowners of older expired listings aren’t receiving the 20 calls a day from desperate real estate agents that are typical for newly expired listings. Therefore, they are more likely to answer the phone and they are much more pleasant to talk to. 

BONUS TIP: Use Artificial Intelligence to Find Homeowners Who Are Getting Ready to Sell 

When you want to find homes for desperate buyers, human intelligence is great, but artificial intelligence is better. Why? That’s simple. Platforms like SmartZip use artificial intelligence to instantly sift through hundreds of data points on the internet and your MLS with one goal: to find homeowners who are getting ready to sell—before they contact their first agent. 

Even if you don’t find “the one” for your buyers with SmartZip, you can be the first agent to contact homeowners who are likely to sell in the next year. ZIP codes are limited and going fast, so if you want to unleash the power of artificial intelligence, check if your ZIP code is available here: 

Visit SmartZip

4. Write Backup Offers With a Backup Clause Written by an Attorney

In today’s market, you have to be proactive, creative, and BOLD to find your buyers a home. If your buyers love a neighborhood or home, don’t be afraid to write a backup offer on homes that are already pending. 

Bidding wars can drive the price so high that the winning buyer may feel they overpaid and subsequently get buyer’s remorse. Due to this, we are seeing a higher number of contracts terminate shortly after the contract is ratified than we have in the past. This is why we coach our buyers’ agents to encourage their clients to submit backup offers on hot properties. 

To protect our buyers and give them the ability to keep shopping, we have a strong backup clause, written by an attorney, that allows their client to terminate the contract prior to going into first position. This technique works well with homebuilders and fix and flips too!

5. Start Door Knocking With Your Rejected Offers (+ Script)

If you have been working with your buyer for more than a few weeks, chances are you have already made—and lost out on—at least a few offers. This can feel devastating to you and your client. Luckily, there’s a way to turn that rainy day into a glorious win—prospect around your recent offers!

After you dust yourself off and collect your thoughts, print out the offer your clients just made and start door knocking the neighborhood for other potential sellers who may be considering a move in the near future.

With your (redacted) offer in hand, go door-to-door and tell the neighbors that you have a motivated buyer who just made an offer and lost out on the home down the street. Let them know your buyer loves the style of homes and the neighborhood, and that they are set on living in the area.

Rejected Offers Door Knocking Script

When they answer the door, you will say:

copy to clipboard

Hello, my name is [Name] with [Company] and my client made an offer on the property down the street.

[Point in the direction of the home and hold up the previous offer.]

My client lost out on that home to a higher bidder, but they love this neighborhood and the style of homes here. Have you heard of any neighbors who may be thinking of moving in the near future?

[Pause for their answer, then ask:]

Are you considering selling while the market is HOT…HOT…HOT!

Do this and you will be surprised how well-received this approach will be. Many neighbors who love their community will want to help you find a home for your buyer client.

6. Trade Your Buyer’s Contingent Property With a Flip

One of the biggest challenges our buyers’ agents face is finding a home for a contingent buyer. These are buyers who have to sell a home before they can buy. This becomes even more challenging when the home they need to sell is in dire need of repair. 

This was exactly the case for one of my seller clients last fall. They had a home in a desirable area but it hadn’t been updated in more than 20 years. They wanted to find a home in the same area that offered more bedrooms and was already completely remodeled.

Since the homes in the area were built in the ’60s and ’70s, my strategy was to find them a recently flipped home. Using the seller’s home as bait, I contacted the fix and flippers in the area and asked them if they were looking for a new fix-and-flip project in the area. 

Hungry for inventory, several flippers expressed interest in my seller’s home. I told them that in order for them to be able to buy my client’s home, they had to sell my client another home that they had coming on the market. It took a little legwork, but in the end, we were able to negotiate the purchase of newly remodeled home with the caveat that the flipper would buy their home at a fair price. A true WIN-WIN!

7. Prospect FSBO Listings

The buyers’ agents on The Reynolds Team are expected to do the unthinkable … call FSBOs! If you have been selling real estate for more than a few months, you may have also found that these sellers are always reasonable, generous, and a pleasure to work with. 

OK, OK, so that may not be true all the time, but when you contact FSBOs, you will discover that most agents ignore them. They think these homeowners have no interest in listing their home with an agent. 

The truth is, they are happy to offer a commission to an agent who has a bona fide buyer for their home. That could be your buyer, but you’ll never know until you pick up the phone and start cold calling homeowners who have listed their own home for sale. 

8. Prospect Rental & Short-term Rental Ads

Calling the “Home for Rent” and Short-term Rental ads is a great way to find homes for your desperate buyers. Why? Because many investors may be interested in selling in this hot market. With interest rates rising and economic uncertainty everywhere, some investors might be looking to cash out at what they think is the top of the market. 

As a real estate investor myself, I would be interested in selling … if I didn’t have to go through the effort of getting a rented house ready for market. Getting a house “for sale ready” is different than getting a home “rent ready.” 

A “rent ready” home may have white semi-gloss paint, matching trim, and a neutral gray carpet. To get a home “for sale ready” requires nicer features like gray walls with a bright white trim and doors, and nice laminate flooring. Many landlords don’t want to take the chance on updating a property to make it “for sale ready” only to find they didn’t get the price they wanted.

What investors may not realize is that many buyers in this low inventory market are willing to pay nearly the same amount for properties that haven’t been updated as the recently renovated competition. This makes now an outstanding time for an investor to unload some inventory without having to invest the time and money to update their property.

On our team, buyers’ agents call the for rent, VRBO, and Airbnb advertisements to see if an investor is ready to sell. If that doesn’t work, it’s time to coach the buyer to reconsider some of the diamonds in the rough. Worst case scenario, you will have conversations with local rental property owners that might lead to future business. 

9. Coach Your Clients to Consider Aged Listings

If we haven’t found a home that matches our buyers’ needs at this stage, agents on our team still don’t give up. They then coach their clients to reconsider the aged listings (listings that have been for sale for longer than seven days). 

These homes may not be priced as well—or they may even be a little overpriced for the condition—but with a little coaxing, you may get the seller to come down a few dollars. 

Of course, your buyer may have to wait a few more years for the Instagram-perfect kitchen or yard, but they will be able to stop paying rent and start building equity—and that’s what’s important, isn’t it?

If you don’t have your hopeful buyer in a house after all this, it’s time to look in other areas.

10. Take Your Buyers on ‘Turf Tours’ of Other Neighborhoods

While I’m sure this idea has already crossed your mind, you may not have had much success getting a stubborn buyer to look into other areas. Well, I’d like to help you with that! Buyers tend to buy in locations with which they are most familiar. They might want to be close to work, schools, or shopping, or may be trying to invest in an up-and-coming trendy neighborhood.  

This can be difficult if the area they want is priced far above their budget. Some buyers will tell you they would rather rent than to consider moving outside their comfort zone. This can be a huge mistake since homeownership is what is going to help them build enough equity to afford to live in their desired neighborhood someday. 

If they say they want to live in a specific area because of the recreation and lifestyle, then consult them on how they can have a similar lifestyle in another location that is more affordable.

To get clients to consider new areas, our team conducts “Turf Tours.”  First, we ask them to take a ride with us. (Yes, in the same car!) We say, “I have an area I would like to show you. I just have one condition. You can’t ask me where it is until we have already seen the area and some homes.” 

Curious, they will usually agree. To be successful at this, you must remember that you are a consultant, not an order taker. The clients tell you what they want to achieve and why they want to achieve it. Your role is to serve as a consultant who guides them toward reaching their goals.

Bottom Line

This is our strategy for finding homes for buyers in today’s market. Our goal on The Reynolds Team is to serve over 1,000 buyers in 2022. To achieve this, we know we MUST leave no stone unturned when searching for homes. We hope you will do the same. Please share tactics that have worked for you and your team in the comments.

The post The 10-Step Plan My $1 Billion Team Uses to Find Homes for Desperate Buyers appeared first on The Close.

1. Buyer Love Letters Aren’t Working? Try a Love SONG

Brock & Lori Harris, Realtors, Los Angeles, CA

The Los Angeles real estate market is one of the busiest in the nation. “In some markets, it’s causing absolute chaos! No agent wants to have to sort through 50+ offers, but it’s happening often.

“We’ve routinely had buyers who’ve written on homes with 40 to 60 offers, and these have resulted in some pretty creative strategies to get their offers noticed. One musician client of ours wrote and recorded an original Buyer Love Song to accompany their offer, and guess what—it worked!”

2. This Duplex’s Value Jumped by 6x in a Single Month

Marina Vaamonde, CEO of HouseCashIn, Houston, TX

“A few months ago, someone bought a rundown, uninhabitable duplex just down the street from my house for $10,000. This property was practically a tear-down. A month later, there was a For Sale sign up in front of it. List price? $55,000. They didn’t do a single thing to it. I don’t even think they set foot in the place.”

“It eventually sold for $65,000; not bad for an investment held for about a month!”

3. Remember When Sellers Were Asked to Pay Closing Costs? Lol

Jimmy Hughes, Realtor, Oklahoma City, OK

“This market has completely flipped who pays for what when it comes to closing. Buyers are now paying for closing costs—it’s practically expected in offers! Prior to this year’s market, many lenders I’ve worked with literally didn’t even have a way to account for this in their systems because it happened so rarely.” 

4. An Offer So Good the Clients Decided NOT to Sell

Martin Orefice, Realtor, CEO, Rent To Own Labs

“Recently, clients of mine approached me with questions about selling their home—not uncommon with the astronomical prices we’re seeing right now. At every stage of the preparation process—running comps, getting an appraisal, evaluating competition—our best guess at the home’s value kept going up.”

“These clients were torn between the options of selling and trading up, or building an addition on their current home. Throughout the process I was never sure which way they were going to go. They eventually decided to go ahead and list the house, and the showings with offers started pouring in immediately. The offers were well above our sky-high asking price. As they were considering those offers, all of a sudden, they decided not to sell.”

“They took the offers they were getting to the bank, applied for a cash-out refinance, and completely transformed their very modest starter home into a dream house.” 

5. Showings Limited to 10 Minutes & a Line of Buyers Out the Door

Rob Kittle, Broker, Fort Collins, CO

“I can’t overstate how elevated the supply / demand in Colorado has been. It’s not uncommon for homes and property to be selling at unprecedented prices, often for all cash, often with no contingencies.”

“For really desirable properties (in a great location, with great schools, and with excellent community amenities), things are amplified. We recently listed a home where the demand was so strong that in order to give everyone who wanted to see the house a chance, we literally had buyers lined up outside, a time limit of 10 minutes per showing, and over 70 showings in a single weekend.”

6. Coming Soon = Under Contract Before the List Date

Cassie Alongi, Co-founder, We Buy Any House in California, Riverside County, CA

“In my local market (Riverside County, CA), we have the option of listing properties in our MLS as “coming soon” just before they actually hit the market. If these listings are in a highly sought-after price range ($350,000 to $600,000), it is practically a guarantee that you’ll get multiple, sight-unseen offers, many without inspection or appraisal contingencies, before showings are even allowed.”

7. Yes, Perfect Transactions Really Do Exist

Ryan Braswell, Broker, Bohemia, NY

“It seems like there’s nothing but stories of the outlandish and unbelievable from our market, and despite all of that, I still found a unicorn client. One showing, one offer, one contract, one inspection, one closing. No delays, no drama. The bank said our deal was so clean they didn’t even need an appraisal.”

8. Neighborhood Prowler? Nope, Just a Desperate Buyer

Lauren Reynolds, Realtor, Fairfield County, CT

“Last summer I was unlocking the front door of a house that was off-market to show a client, and a woman with a New York license plate stopped me asking if I was interested in selling my home. She thought I was the homeowner and she had been prowling the neighborhood looking for houses to buy that weren’t on the market yet. I think that shows you how competitive, and aggressive, some homebuyers have become!”

Your Turn

Got a wild story about your local real estate market! The Close wants to know! Tell us in the comments below.

The post 8 Stories That Illustrate Just How Ridiculous the Real Estate Market Has Been in 2022 appeared first on The Close.

Of course, even experienced agents are having a hard time choosing which marketing materials to spend their hard-earned time and money on. That’s why we worked with our friends at SERHANT. to put together this definitive guide to the seven real estate marketing materials every agent needs to build a better personal brand in 2022. Whether you need Instagram Reels templates or business card advice, we have you covered.

1. Professional Pictures: One Headshot, One Lifestyle

One of the most important lessons that Ryan Serhant teaches in his Sell It Like Serhant: How to Build a Personal Brand course is that your personal brand needs to be curated and authentic. After all, people should want to work with YOU, not just “a real estate agent.” There are millions of real estate agents, but only one you. This is why headshots are by far your most important marketing material. 

  Pro Tip

For your lifestyle shot, pay particular attention to your body language. The goal is to look open and approachable, not guarded. You can see the difference in the two pictures above.

Your headshots literally put a face to your personal brand and are the only a that cannot be copied by other agents. So take the time to make sure your headshots are both curated and authentic. Ryan recommends creating two headshots to use in your real estate marketing materials: one professional headshot and one lifestyle shot. 

2. Professional Social Media Templates (Including Stories & Reels Templates)

When it comes to social media marketing materials, many agents make the mistake of assuming that bringing their authentic selves to social media means they need to create everything from scratch. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, that behind-the-scenes Reel you shot at your open house doesn’t have to look like a Hollywood movie, but it does need to look polished and professional. 

This is where professionally designed social media templates come in. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel every time you post on Instagram or Facebook, you can use templates designed for real estate agents by professional graphic designers. The difference between professional social media templates and generic templates from Canva is night and day. 

You can see examples of some of the best social media templates along with the best places to buy them here:

3. A Website That Shows Off Your Personal Brand

After your headshots and social media templates, your website is your next most important marketing material. It’s also one of the only brand assets you will truly own. After all, no matter how hard you work on them, you don’t really own any of your social media profiles, or even the shiny new website your brokerage provides for you. 

While you might be tempted to add bells and whistles to your website, like IDX listings, lead capture, landing pages, and a customer relationship manager (CRM), make sure it reflects your personal brand first. For a good example of a website that centers personal branding, check out Carlin Wright’s website above. Notice how she uses her lifestyle picture front and center? This was no accident. Her website is about her, not “real estate.” 

If you want a site like Carlin’s, you can hire her designer, Luxury Presence, to build and host your website starting at around $180 per month, plus design fees.

Visit Luxury Presence

Or, if you want more control and want to level up your own skillset, check out our guide to building a website using WordPress here:

4. Strategically Designed Business Cards

Even in the age of Realtor TikTok stars, there’s just something about a well-designed business card printed on quality paper stock that can’t be beat. Sure, popping up in someone’s social media feed once a week is great, but your business card might get pinned to a bulletin board, kept in a wallet, or sit on someone’s desk for months on end. Not bad for a 50-cent piece of paper, right?

Of course, like your website, your business cards should reflect your personal brand. So make sure to use your brand colors, fonts, and if you’re brave enough, your headshot. As far as strategy goes—whether you’re working with a designer or creating them yourself—it can be helpful to ask yourself, “Is this a business card I would keep? Why or why not?” If the answer is no, you need to go back to the drawing board.

5. A Facebook Business Page

Even though your teenage niece will probably tell you Facebook is like, SO over, you still need a business page, even if you never post on it. Why? Demographics. The average age of a Facebook user is a little over 40 years old, and a whopping 20% are over the age of 55. Sounds dull, right? Well, what if I told you that according to data from Zillow, the average age of a homeseller is 45? 

With demographics like that, a Facebook Business page is not optional for serious Realtors. It’s not all about demographics, though. If you want to advertise on Facebook or Instagram, you will need a Facebook business page. So even if you also think Facebook is like, SO over, you’re going to need to build one. 

If you don’t already have one, we have an easy step-by-step guide to building a Facebook business page here:

6. Postcards (That Look Like Instagram)

Want to get laughed at? Tell someone under 30 that you’re sending them a postcard. If they’re under 20, you might have to actually explain what a postcard is. Of course, while we have nothing against 20-year-olds, they’re not exactly the right audience for your real estate marketing materials. Not even close. 

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) 2021 Homebuyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report, the average homebuyer is 47 years old. Take it from me, people our age like getting postcards and older people LOVE getting postcards. My mother is in her seventies, owns several homes, and sits down on her recliner every morning to go through her mail. You know where she’s not spending her mornings? TikTok!

But just because you’re sending postcards doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with them—assuming your personal brand is fun, that is. For example, check out the Instagram-inspired postcard from Coffee & Contracts above. Why use Instagram-inspired design for your postcards? Simple. Television ads and even ads in newspapers are inspired by online design trends these days. 

You can check out more real estate marketing templates from Coffee & Contracts, including Instagram Reels templates and memes, from The Broke Agent here:

Visit Coffee & Contracts

7. An Email Newsletter

Like postcards, email newsletters are another crucial marketing material that will make your niece roll her eyes. It also happens to be one of the best ways to market to your sphere. Why? Simple. You don’t own your social media profiles, but you do own your email list. 

Email is also much easier to scale than social media, and much less expensive than pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. The return on investment (ROI) for your time and effort is also better. According to statistics from Campaign Monitor, the average open rate (what percentage of your list opens one of your emails) is 21.7%. So as long as you keep growing your list, the number of people you reach with your content will continue to grow without any extra work. 

If you plan a content calendar for your email newsletter, you can keep your sphere engaged for years with just an hour or two of work per week. Here are a few easy real estate newsletter ideas to get you started:

Over to You

Do you think these are the right real estate marketing materials every agent needs to build their personal brand? If not, what would you include instead? Let us know in the comments.

The post 7 Real Estate Marketing Materials That Will Help You Build a Better Personal Brand appeared first on The Close.

The first step is to take my 10-question real estate sales personality assessment. As a certified MBTI practitioner and real estate coach, I have used this assessment with more than 1,000 people—from brand-new agents to billionaire real estate CEOs. I sincerely hope that it helps you too. 

For this assessment to work for you, you need to take it seriously. If you don’t answer the questions as honestly as possible, the results won’t help you, and they may even lead you down the wrong path. Once you’ve finished the assessment, return here for resources to help you tailor your lead generation approach to your personality. See you soon!

Take My Quiz

The Best Lead Generation Strategies for Every Personality Type

Here is a rough overview of the different lead generation strategies that work for each personality type. Just make sure you take the quiz to find your own real estate sales personality. Below the strategies, we include some helpful resources to get you started.

Why Finding Your ‘True Self’ Will Help You Succeed as an Agent

As Shakespeare said, all the world’s a stage and we all have many roles to play. In my life, I have three main roles: parent, spouse, and real estate agent. Each of these roles requires me to behave and respond accordingly to meet each unique situation.

Think of each role as wearing a different hat. When I am wearing my parent hat, I must be responsible, polite, and calm. My spouse hat helps me to be patient and loving, and when I wear my real estate agent hat, I must be confident, outgoing, and responsive.

But who am I really? Who am I when I’m not a parent, spouse, or real estate agent? What is my true self? The real Sean is the person I have always been. From the time I was four years old, through my twenties, today, and someday, into my sixties. It’s the part of me that doesn’t change. 

In order to succeed at real estate, I had to dig deep and find my true self through tools like the MBTI. I discovered my true self loves reading, learning, and spending long periods alone. This doesn’t sound much like the personality of a nationally recognized, top-producing real estate agent and real estate coach, does it? Fortunately, I have found ways to incorporate the real me into my real estate career so I don’t lose interest or burn out … and so can you!

Why Aligning Your Personality to Your Business Is Crucial to Your Success

Your personality plays a crucial role in your success (or lack of it!) in real estate—but not in the way you might think.

Too many unsuccessful agents try (and fail) to adapt their personalities to “fit in” better as real estate agents. They think they need to be highly extroverted to succeed, so they push themselves way too hard to “become” the fast-talking extrovert they see on “Million Dollar Listing.” This approach is doomed to failure, and at the very least, it’ll make you miserable in your chosen career.

To achieve long-lasting success and happiness in real estate, you must approach your business in a way that’s aligned with your personality. Here’s why. Studies show that changing your personality is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for most people. The scientific evidence is clear. While most people understand that our upbringing and life experiences shape our personalities, modern researchers have discovered that our personalities are also partially determined by genetics. 

So that means the harder you push against your personality type, the more miserable you will be, and the faster you will burn out. I’ve seen this happen many, many, times in my career.

Personality Is Crucial, but Sometimes You Still Need To Eat the Dog Food…

I would love to tell you that you will always enjoy every part of your real estate career, and you will never have to do the things you don’t enjoy, but that would be a lie. While personality is a critical factor in determining your approach to real estate, it’s not the only factor. Your budget and urgency will also play an essential role in determining the best strategy for your success.

Suppose you have an unlimited budget and the time to slowly develop your real estate business over many years. In that case, you could write a blog that ranks number one on Google or become a real estate influencer on social media. I know agents who have done both, but again, it took them years to get to this level. 

Short-term goals and urgency to make money will often require you to do things outside of your comfort zone to achieve the results you want in the time frame you want them. The good news is, we all can “flex” out of our personality preference for short periods of time.

This means that even I can “eat the dog food” and spend a few hours each quarter calling my sphere of influence (SOI) to invite them to an ice cream social. 

However, if we stay outside our comfort zones for long periods, we can become stressed, irritable, or worse, burnt out. This is one of the main reasons many top-producing agents eventually fail. They spend years forcing themselves to work outside of their comfort zone, and eventually, they burn out. Ask me how I know.

As a result, I sought out a personality assessment to help me better understand the agents I was coaching, with a goal of helping them build sustainable real estate careers that complement their strengths. I wanted them to be excited about the business again.

Next Steps: Learn My 16 Strategies for Real Estate Success

Want to stop pushing the boulder up the hill for good? My book, 16 Strategies for Sales, will help you laser-focus your lead generation strategy so that it works seamlessly with your personality, not against it. 

Get the Book

Bottom Line

Knowing your real estate personality will provide you with a deeper understanding of the best approach to grow your real estate business. You can increase your sales by gaining awareness of your personality type and adapting a sales strategy that complements your innate strengths and abilities.

The post What’s Your Real Estate Sales Personality? Take Our Quiz & Find Out appeared first on The Close.

1. Slow Down & Take a Break

Many struggling agents drop out of real estate or pile on more work when they hit a slump of real estate motivation. We want to gently nudge you in a different direction because we bet you can get that motivation back no matter what challenges you’re facing. 

Let’s start with the fact that research increasingly shows that it’s general happiness that drives work satisfaction. Shawn Achor, author of “The Happiness Factor,” argues that 75% of success is predicted by three things: optimism, social connections, and how you perceive stress.

There is an important correlation between burnout and quality of life. So while many people pile on additional busy work when they are struggling, it might backfire and make you feel even more overwhelmed and tired.

Instead, do the opposite.

Let’s focus on that 75% factor. Reducing stressors in your life, changing your schedule, hitting concrete objectives, and working on improving happiness can get your motivation back and help you to begin hitting your goals.

2. Identify & Solve Your Most Pressing Problems 

Your problems are virtually impossible to deal with when they’re tearing around in your head, so take a few minutes in a quiet space to write each one down. They might not look as scary on the page as they do in the deep recesses of your imagination at 3 a.m.

These nagging issues are weighing you down like anchors, literal drags, and will zap you of all real estate motivation. The solution is to develop actionable, concrete plans for each problem. 

Have a medical issue you’ve been putting off? Schedule that doctor’s appointment.

Have toxic friends who only hold you down or stress you out? Got to cut them loose.

Of course, not all the obvious stressors in your life will be this clear-cut, and you probably won’t be able to fix all of them in one day. That’s OK—just do your best and make a plan to address the ones that need more work.

Freeing yourself of anchors allows you to be more optimistic and less stressed so that you can focus on bigger and more complicated problems.

3. Divide & Conquer Your Schedule

Now that you have identified and worked out solutions for some of your stressors, it’s time to tackle your schedule. Scheduling is a common cause of feelings of helplessness and chaos. No one really prepares you for how overwhelming it can be to run your own business.

One important way to conquer your schedule is to be highly specific when assigning tasks. For example, don’t just schedule “lead generation”—schedule specific tasks you want to complete, like “email three warm leads.” Put specific tasks into specific time slots and stick to them. Be sure to schedule your most challenging tasks first thing in the morning when your mind is sharpest. 

Also, try to limit your distractions and interruptions. If you can break up your work into specific tasks, schedule them early, and truly focus on each one, research indicates that you’re more likely to get more done with less time procrastinating. Achieving these small goals will go a long way to helping you regain your real estate motivation.

4. Make Time for Relaxation & Fun

Believe it or not, scheduling time to grab lunch with a friend or go to a fitness class makes you better at your job. If you have a hobby you want to get back to, time with friends you’ve been skipping, or something new you hope to try, it’s time you made it a part of your life.

  Pro Tip

Consider volunteering with an organization related to real estate, like Habitat for Humanity.

Instead of selling a house, build one. You’ll help your community, work some muscles, feel a real sense of accomplishment, and maybe even have a rejuvenated sense of purpose.

5. Lean on the Experts

There are some incredible resources out there from agents and brokers who’ve been in your exact position. Videos, TED Talks, books, and even inspirational quotes can help you find a little kernel of wisdom or a tip for mental fortitude that will help you soldier on when you lose that drive. 

A great starting point is to learn how top agents regained their lost real estate motivation. You’ll gain tips and insights from the experts, and perhaps most importantly, you’ll see that you’re not alone in feeling this way.

Our collection of the 28 best real estate books has a few that are perfect for building motivation, including Angela Duckworth’s “Grit” and Leigh Brown’s “Outrageous Authenticity.” We find ourselves coming back to these again and again.

We also have a selection of our favorite 19 TED Talks that specifically speak to building real estate agent motivation. Dan Pink’s “How Motivation Can Be Hacked to Take Your Career to the Next Level” and Kelly McGonigal’s “How to Make Stress Your Friend” are especially helpful. 

And if you enjoy videos, check out our 27 best YouTube channels for real estate agents and our own YouTube channel, where you’ll find content like our Top 5 Real Estate Productivity Hacks.

Podcasts can be another way to tap into motivational expert advice and experience. We have our own podcast, The Close Weekly, where we bet you’ll find some helpful resources, and we also have this list of nine other excellent podcasts that agents should listen to every day. 

If you’re short on time, check out our compilation of 89 motivational quotes, which speak to failure and success and offer genuine wisdom. We especially love one from Terrica Lynn Smith, a broker, author, and motivational speaker: “…you need to be courageous, even when things come up against you … you need to be vibrant because your energy is what’s going to attract your business.”

6. Be Receptive to New Ideas

As you dive into these quotes, books, and videos, remember that you have a lot of control over how you receive all of this expert advice. 

According to Stanford professor Carol Dweck, there are two mindsets that people typically have: a fixed mindset, where individuals believe they simply have certain traits and can’t change, and a growth mindset, where people believe there is no limit to what they can accomplish.

According to Dr. Dweck’s research, people with growth mindsets generally take more chances and have greater success. She argues that someone with a growth mindset sees challenges as exciting, focuses on the process of building, tracks trial and error, forgives imperfection, and develops grit and persistence.

So as you’re looking to the experts to help you regain your motivation for success in real estate, remember to focus on maintaining that growth mindset.  

7. Revisit Your Goals & Set Some New Ones

We bet at some point in your career, you’ve set some goals for yourself—where you want to be in a year, three years, and five years. Maybe you’ve even broken it down into financial and personal goals.

Take some time to revisit these goals and think about what is actionable and what can be achieved long term. For example, maybe you want to hit a certain number in sales, but your weekly goals need to be broken down to more actionable to-do’s and tasks. Did you set a goal to make 100 calls a week (20 per day), and you hit that goal? Congratulations! 

8. Level Up With a Checklist

While we strongly encourage you not to pile on work for yourself when you need a reset, there are opportunities for leveling up that feel manageable and concrete. Ask yourself, do you see ways to be challenged? An area where you can practice or stretch yourself?

At The Close, we love checklists. When you feel that loss of motivation, these actionable step-by-step guides might be just the thing to lead you out of it. Here is a list of our favorites that could help you bump up to the next professional level and reach some of your loftier objectives.

9. Tap Into Your Creative Side

If you’re feeling a little burned out by the business side of things, consider taking a break to focus on something business-related but creative. Consider a new logo, business card, or maybe make an infographic. Tap into that right brain for a little while and have some fun with our guides, templates, and generators for branding and marketing.

• Real Estate Branding: How to Build Your Brand (+ Case Studies)
• The Best & Worst Real Estate Logos of 2022 (+ Pro Design Tips)
• 89 Creative Real Estate Company Names (+ Our Name Generator 2.0)
• 107 Best Real Estate Slogans & Taglines (+ Slogan Generator)
• The Best & Worst Real Estate Business Cards of 2022
• 97 Real Estate Infographics + How to Make Your Own & Go Viral
• Canva for Real Estate Agents: The Ultimate Guide for 2022

10. Consider Taking a Course With Actionable Content

There are plenty of real estate courses that promise maximum success with minimal effort. But we’ve found one that’s a little different, and it might be just the kind of class you need. 

Ryan Serhant, of “Million Dollar Listing New York” and SERHANT., has put together a crash course on branding and sales called “Sell It Like Serhant.” You can read our in-depth review here, but its strength is that it’s extremely actionable. He and his fellow instructors lay out a clear strategy, complete with step-by-step guides and an in-depth workbook. 

It’s not cheap, but if you’re really looking for something to shake it all up, this course could be the key to rethinking your entire professional strategy. 

Learn More

Bonus Tip: Take a Deep Breath

Yes, I know. It’s a cliche. But it’s a cliche because it works. 

Stop whatever it is your doing and breathe along with the animation below for at least a full minute:

Keep practicing your breathing whenever you feel the stress taking over, and take a look at our article on meditation for some beneficial videos.

Bringing It All Together

You can do this! And we’re here to help. 

Conquering your lack of motivation takes courage and a lot of chutzpah, but if you trust these tips, you’ll come out the other side feeling better and back on track. 

After all, the sparks of motivation begin when you start seeing the possibility of what you can do, not when you’re focusing on what other people are doing.

Over to You

We hope we’ve given you some strategies to get back on track. If you’re someone who has gone through bouts of a lack of real estate motivation and have some wisdom to share, please let us know in the comments.

The post What To Do When You Lose Your Motivation as a Realtor appeared first on The Close.

In this article, we offer a host of great tools to help you write a new bio, including our exclusive, mad-libs-style bio generator, three free real estate bio templates, nine bio examples that we love, plus a list of industry buzzwords to help spice up your writing. Use our exclusive real estate bio generator as a starting point.

Real Estate Bio Templates

Our three free real estate bio templates were designed exclusively for our readers. Download these templates or copy them to your clipboard to make them your own.

New Real Estate Agent Bio Template

This template is perfect for new real estate agents without a lot of experience to lean on. Focus on your community ties, your excitement, and your enthusiasm, and show your potential clients who you are.

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[Real estate agent name] has been an active member of his/her real community for [years of experience] now, and is so excited to be turning that community focus toward real estate.

With a passion for service in the [your community name] area, [real estate agent name] is ready to help with your homebuying and selling needs. As a proud member of the [brokerage name] family, [real estate agent name] carries the values of hard work, integrity, and outstanding client service into everything he/she does.

When [real estate agent name] isn’t making homeownership dreams come true for his/her clients, he/she enjoys spending time [leisure activity 1] and [leisure activity 2]. [Real estate agent name] lives in [locality of residence] with [family members].

Successful Real Estate Agent Bio Template

Your bio isn’t written in stone; you should revisit it at least once a year to see what sort of tweaks you can make to sharpen your message. Here’s a real estate bio template perfect for those of you who are coming off a very successful year and want to further that momentum.

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[Your locality] and [your broader regional locality] are great places to live and work, which is why [real estate agent name] chose to call it home. With roots in [hometown], [real estate agent name] came to [your locality] in [date you arrived]. Real estate is a passion for [real estate agent name], and with his/her background in [former career or education], it is easy to see why more than [clients serviced last year] families in [year] called [real estate agent name] for help buying and selling.

[Real estate agent name] has been a part of the [brokerage name] family for [amount of time with the brokerage] years, but he/she isn’t just passionate about helping families find their next home. [Real estate agent name] has served on his/her local [charity organization] and loves being a part of other [your locality] community events.

A passionate [hobby], when [real estate agent name] isn’t in the office or volunteering, you’ll often find him/her at [location where the hobby takes place], enjoying time with his/her friends and [family members].

Long-form Real Estate Agent Bio Template

Sometimes you’ve got a little more room to write, but that extra space can be intimidating. Here’s a good bio template for times when you have room to really express yourself.

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[Real estate agent name], of [brokerage name], based in [your locality], is a [years in the business] veteran of the real estate industry and has represented clients all over [larger regional locality] in over [number of transactions] real estate transactions. [Real estate agent name] has built a solid foundation of clients in this community through her/his professionalism, attention to detail, and commitment to always put his/her client’s needs first.

He/She studied [academic focus] at [school name], and afterward began work in [previous industry or “real estate”]. Passionate about [a particular aspect of real estate], [real estate agent name] has continued to leverage his/her know-how and experience to exceed his/her client’s expectations.

Active in the community, [real estate agent name] is a proud part of the [nonprofit organization]’s effort to [community initiative]. [Quote from real estate agent about their nonprofit community work.]

In his/her free time, [real estate agent name] is an avid [hobby] and [another hobby]. Spending time in the [location one of the hobbies takes place] together with his/her friends and [family unit] as well as his/her [pet name and type] is never something [real estate agent name] takes for granted. [Quote from real estate agent about how lucky they are to have the chance to do their hobby in this place.]

Download Your Free Real Estate Agent Bio Templates

9 Real Estate Bios We Love

Before you dive headfirst into writing (or rewriting) your bio, take a look at these examples of real estate bios from rock star agents and brokers from around the country. Find ways to incorporate their savvy strategies into your new bio.

Connecting on a Personal Level

1. Gentry Todd Radwanski, Realtor, The Boulevard Company

I’ve sold $40+ million in property the last three years, received sales awards, and grown my business’ metrics each year, but the number I focus on every day is the exact number of clients who have homes and investments currently in Charleston. My approach is deeply analytical and I work tirelessly to ensure my clients are up to date on their home and/or their investment.

Prior to real estate, I spent the first part of my career (and most of my life) in my family’s business, commercial construction, primarily building schools, hotels, and municipal buildings in eastern PA. Having been part of a building family, home flips and investment property came naturally. My career in general brokerage began by helping a few friends with their investment properties and snowballed from there into helping many more on my way to becoming a top-producing agent in Charleston.

Like everyone who falls hard for Charleston, I am a total foodie, outdoors enthusiast, and history nut. When I’m not hustling houses, you’ll find me around Charleston kayaking, biking, jogging, boating, exploring our nation’s best food scene, or at one of our dog parks or beach side. It’s easy to sell something when you have an absurd passion for it. It’s why many of my out-of-town clients get an itinerary to explore as many parks, restaurants, beaches, and historic sites as they do neighborhoods and houses. Along with my sidekick (my dog Brutus), I spend most of my free time reinforcing all the reasons Charleston is home!

What We Love About Gentry’s Bio

Gentry does a great job of talking about how his background prepared him for success in real estate. His real estate agent bio is laid-back but professional. He shares the activities that he enjoys and reasons why he loves his community. He also offers insight into what it’s like to work with him and what clients can expect.

CLOSE INSIDER TIP: Buyers and sellers want to work with a person, not a robot. Make sure your bio reflects who you are, your interests, and something unique about you. More prospects will turn into new clients if they can connect the dots between what’s important to them and what’s important to you.

Demonstrating Leadership

2. Brendan Bartic, CEO of the Bartic Group, Keller Williams Realty

As a Colorado native and a seasoned real estate professional, I recognize and value the trust my clients place in me, and I strive every day to exceed their expectations.

I have been a leading top producer for over 18 years. My sales consistently rank in the top 1% of all Keller Williams Teams internationally.

Prior to entering real estate, I served my country in the United States Army Infantry with multiple tours in Iraq and Kuwait. These experiences instilled in me the discipline it takes to build the most powerful real estate team in Colorado.

Outside of real estate, I take pride in giving back to the community and serve as a Board Member of Third Way Center, which helps high-risk, disadvantaged youth become successful adults.

What We Love About Brendan’s Bio

Most real estate agents write their bio in the third person, but Brendan takes a more personal approach by writing in the first person. His bio comes across as strong and effective—we can feel Brendan’s leadership qualities from reading his profile.

CLOSE INSIDER TIP: Leadership is an essential trait for any real estate professional. Your clients depend on you to lead them through one of the most important financial decisions of their lives, so make sure your bio communicates your leadership abilities.

Connecting to the Community

3. Suzi Farajiani, Realtor, Douglas Elliman

Coming from three generations of Realtors, Suzi grew up in a family of real estate developers. She specializes in residential buying and selling with an emphasis on marketing properties as well as consulting for investing purposes.

Suzi’s achievements include working with her family on buying and selling properties, renovating homes with her husband, and collaborating with developers to create new and unique construction projects.

When it comes to Los Angeles real estate, Suzi admires the city’s landscape and how it interacts with its architecture.

Suzi says, “I am certain that Los Angeles has everything that anybody could ever need in a home, and that’s what I love about the city—its abundance in style and neighborhoods.”

When it concerns her clients, Suzi believes in a philosophy of transparency. She says, “I feel creating something of value has to lead first with integrity, which then creates a solid foundation to do great business together.”

During her spare time, Suzi can be found soaking up the sun on the beaches of Malibu where she was raised. Organizations that Suzi has worked closely with include Habitat for Humanity, UNICEF, The Boy & Girls Club, Alzheimer’s Association, Manna Worldwide, and Break the Cycle.

What We Love About Suzy’s Bio

Suzy does a great job of underscoring her knowledge and familiarity with her community and also why she loves living there. Her attention to detail lets local buyers and sellers know that she’s deeply connected to the community that matters to them.

CLOSE INSIDER TIP: Real estate is a local business. When writing your bio, remember that your audience is made up of residents of your local community. Make sure you’re identifying yourself as both a subject matter expert and an enthusiastic advocate for the place where you live and work.

Showcasing Expertise

4. Shannon McNulty, Realtor, McNulty Levac Realty Group

Shannon McNulty has been passionate about real estate since her earliest years growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Shannon always knew that she wanted to chart a path helping others and found her true calling in real estate serving her clients and guiding them through one of the biggest investments of their lives. Over the past decade, Shannon has been involved in the sales and marketing of $1 billion of real estate in Western Canada and has won awards including the President’s Club Award (representing the Top 1% of all Vancouver Realtors) and the Medallion Club Award. Shannon feels incredibly blessed to work with amazing clients who become her friends and a strong part of her network.

Passionate about real estate investment, Shannon is an active investor in Western Canada’s emerging real estate markets and shares this knowledge and experience to assist and educate aspiring investors with their goals. A long-term resident of the North Shore, Shannon enjoys spending her weekends in the forest with her Sheepadoodle Smudge.

What We Love About Shannon’s Bio

Shannon does a great job of keeping her agent bio local while at the same time trumpeting her accomplishments that span the region. The professional, third-person narrative adds sophistication and success while still sounding approachable.

CLOSE INSIDER TIP: Experienced and successful realtors can level up their bio by demonstrating proof of their success and positioning themselves as subject matter experts. There’s a fine line between sharing your successful track record and bragging, so tread lightly here, but if you’ve got accomplishments that are worthy of noting, note them.

Leveraging Past Experience

5. Stephanie Weitzner, Realtor, Realty Austin

As a child of real estate investors, Stephanie has been excited about real estate since she was a kid but took the long route when turning her passion into her profession. Stephanie’s interest in advocating for clients initially led her to law school, after which she spent years as a litigator in New York City, working for firms both large and small.

Moving to Austin and finding inspiration in this phenomenal city led Stephanie to realize that she wanted a career that was more connected to her new hometown. When purchasing her first Austin home, she found that she wasn’t ready to let go of the experience. Although she had already taken (and passed!) the Texas Bar Exam, she was hooked on real estate, and there was no turning back.

Stephanie feels fortunate to have discovered, through the peers and mentors who guided her, a unique way of working in real estate that aligns with her personal and professional values; working by referral means that she focuses on her clients and their needs with a long-term perspective, helping clients with real estate issues or questions wherever and whenever they arise. Moreover, she views herself not just as a Realtor but as an adviser, helping clients not only to buy or sell but to strategize toward long-term wealth building with real estate.

When she’s not running around town, you can find Stephanie at home with her husband, Sujan, and their super-cute kiddo, Zoe. Stephanie loves languages (help her practice her French, Spanish, German, or Turkish!) and aspires to someday learn to juggle.

What We Love About Stephanie’s Bio

Stephanie is a relatively new agent, but you don’t even notice because she’s given us so much rich background about her life and how she ended up in real estate. We’re hooked because she has fantastic life experiences, not because she has a certain number of years in the business.

CLOSE INSIDER TIP: While we think this bio is a tad long, it offers us reasons to trust this agent with our business. Don’t be afraid to admit that you’re new to real estate, but include all of the ways you’re qualified, dedicated, professional, and whip-smart.

Engaging & Enthusiastic

6. Fernando Ventresca, Realtor, The Jennifer Rosdail Team, Keller Williams

As a long-time San Franciscan, I bring passion and excitement for the city to my approach in finding a home for you. I felt at home in San Francisco the moment I arrived and instantly fell in love with it. You probably fell in love with this place pretty quickly too—if you are like 90% of us and came from somewhere else—and now it’s time to put down some roots and stay a while.

I will help you obtain the San Francisco property you’ve always dreamed of by focusing our strategy on your individual style, needs, and budget. I enjoy keeping up with the latest restaurants, shopping, events, and “only in SF” attractions that make each neighborhood unique, and we will leverage that knowledge, the power of Keller Williams, and the experience of the Jennifer Rosdail Real Estate Sales team to your benefit.

What We Love About Fernando’s Bio

When we read Fernando’s agent bio, it’s his enthusiasm for San Francisco that shines through. If you’re a transplant like he is, you immediately feel a connection. His bio is brief, helpful, and positive—and did you notice you have no idea how many years he’s been a Realtor?

CLOSE INSIDER TIP: Maybe you haven’t been in real estate a long time—or any career, for that matter. We all started out somewhere, and it’s OK to focus on your skills, your hunger to prove yourself, your love of your community, and not how many deals you’ve done.

Real Estate Agent Bios That Are Outside the Box

7. The Logan and Bernard Group, Real Estate Team, Compass

Real estate is a powerful thing. Where you live becomes the center of your universe: your “home base” and a place where memories are made. Even an investment property can have a profound effect on your life’s story—when chosen correctly, it becomes long-term financial freedom and a vital part of your well-diversified portfolio.

Anchored by Logan Link, Bernard Link, and Nicole Grinsell, allow the Logan and Bernard Group to guide you through the real estate process. Whether a buyer, a seller, or an investor, we think of our clients as family. Lean on us—we are here to keep the process fluid, successful, and as low-stress as possible.

Thanks to a combined 20 years as real estate professionals in Marin County, we are proud of our reputation for excellent negotiation skills, cutting-edge marketing, and invaluable connections, both locally and globally.

Not quite ready to buy or sell, but curious about neighborhood options, local schools, our techniques, or current real estate “buzz”? Don’t be shy—reach out to us (note: includes link to contact).

Think of the Logan and Bernard Group as your Marin County Concierge. If we don’t know the answer, we will find it.

What We Love About the Logan and Bernard Group’s Bio

This bio is unconventional, but it totally works. We love how it starts with powerful, emotional language; from the first line, you’re hooked and want to keep reading. This group bio takes an intimate, narrative approach that makes the reader feel connected to Logan and Bernard, thus making the conversion from prospect to client easier.

CLOSE INSIDER TIP: The real estate bio is written about you, but for your clients. Crafting a narrative (even within your bio) that captivates your audience is a strong strategy. With every sentence of your bio, stop and ask yourself, “Is this serving my reader?”

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8. Aaron Seawood, Broker, Team Carte Blanche, Triplemint

Aaron Seawood has raving fans and an impeccable reputation as an advocate, partner, and confidant. “I’d call Aaron the Rolls Royce of real estate brokers. He’s hands-on with physical help and emotional support, which people so often need when taking the step of selling or buying their home. Hands-on, heart on, wisdom on. We didn’t expect to make a real friend from our broker, but we have. Aaron turns the business of selling real estate into an art” remarks one of his many satisfied clients.

A dominant force in the New York real estate market for well over a decade, Aaron formed Team Carte Blanche on the premise that when good people work together, good things happen. With that mindset, he vetted an all-star team that contributes their unique skill sets to each client, so they feel the impact of many with the singular focus of one.

Keenly aware of the nuances that make for a sophisticated real estate experience, he spares no expense to make that a reality for each client. Whether guiding first-time buyers through the complexities of New York City real estate or advising athletes and celebrities on their property plays across the country, Aaron’s level of commitment to his clients can only be described one way: “All-in.”

Prior to real estate, Aaron was an entertainment executive spawning collaborations with a roster of platinum artists and producers with notable stops at Virgin Records and Queen Latifah’s management company, Flavor Unit. Navigating high-stakes situations honed his skills as a negotiator, problem-solver, and artist advocate, which translated nicely into the rough-and-tumble world of real estate. Aaron has called New York City home for over 25 years, and lives in Brooklyn Heights with his wife, two children, and a rescue puppy, Knox. He loves cycling, photography, and the occasional cigar.

What We Love About Aaron’s Bio

This is another bio that is fairly unconventional, but we love it. While it’s definitely on the long side, we kept reading because Aaron almost leaps off the page with personality and confidence. He shares his fascinating background, and while it’s not all directly real estate-related, it’s pretty awesome and makes us want to know him better.

CLOSE INSIDER TIP: Consider including a testimonial in your bio. It can speak to who you are, but maybe more importantly, how others see you. Knowing that you’re trusted and respected by other people can go a long way in establishing your credibility.

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9. Katie Clancy, Sales Vice President, The Cape House, William Raveis

When we want the freshest oysters, we don’t go to the fish counter at the grocery store—we go to John, the East Dennis oyster guy. When we want a perfectly tailored suit, we don’t go to the mall—we go to Puritan Clothing in Hyannis. When we want the best chocolate this side of the Alps, we don’t go to the candy store—we go to The Hot Chocolate Sparrow in Orleans. When you want a home on Cape Cod, entrust your dream to me, Katie Clancy and The Cape House team.

What We Love About Katie’s Bio

We couldn’t resist including this short, pithy, very entertaining example, just to show you that there is no one way to do a bio. Katie’s sense of humor, local knowledge, and professional confidence shine through, and she doesn’t even talk about herself until the last sentence. This blurb is followed by a list of her accomplishments, awards, and local engagements, but really, she had us at oysters.

CLOSE INSIDER TIP: Be yourself and remember that the whole point of a bio is to show who you are. You can do that with a 3,000-word memoir or a brilliantly concise and memorable list of beloved local businesses.

Want to Outsource Your Real Estate Bio Writing?

If writing a real estate bio is high on your to-do list but you can’t find the time, consider hiring a freelancer to do it for you. Fiverr is a resource of professional writers willing and able to put together a killer real estate bio for you—for a price as low as five bucks.

Find a Freelancer on Fiverr

Real Estate Bio Toolkit: 4 Tips to Write a Great Bio

Ready to start writing a compelling real estate agent bio? Before you put pen to paper, review these tips designed to help you craft an engaging bio that will connect with readers and convert leads into clients.

1. Your First Sentence Is Crucial

Inspirational speaker Matthew Ferrara has said that many people will make up their minds about you in the very first sentence of your bio. Don’t use that sentence to meander your way toward your message. Jump right into demonstrating your value and capture your reader’s attention early.

2. Bigger Is Not Better

A longer real estate agent bio does not make you seem more impressive. In fact, it makes it less likely someone will even read it at all. Studies show that 50% of readers won’t read more than a single screen worth of text on their phone. Keep your bio to less than 200 words and make them captivating.

3. Social Media Links Are a MUST

A great bio will make a reader say, “I’d like to learn more.” Include links to your social media to give them that opportunity. However, if you don’t regularly engage with your audience on social media, including social links in your bio can be detrimental. Remember to only link to platforms where you spend time online.

4. Use Your Brokerage’s Clout to Build Your Own

Your brokerage has likely invested a lot of time and money in building its reputation in your community. You can leverage these investments to springboard your professional reputation—building on the good vibes they’ve already established. If their ideals run counter to your own, you’re likely at the wrong brokerage.

Spice Up Your Real Estate Agent Bio With These Buzzwords

Struggling with the perfect description for yourself and what you do? Here are some of our favorite buzzwords and descriptors:

Bringing It All Together

Someone who has chosen to read your bio is clearly interested in you. They want to see if you’re a good fit both personally and professionally and get a sense of what it would be like to work with you. Why not give them what they’re looking for? 

If you’re authentic and let your personality shine through, your real estate agent bio may serve as the very first step toward a new client relationship that could last for years. Please share any questions you may have about writing an effective real estate agent bio in the comments section below!

The post 9 Real Estate Agent Bio Examples We Love (+ Templates & Bio Generator) appeared first on The Close.

Get Free Infographic Template

97 Infographics Designed for Buyers, Sellers & Real Estate Agents in 2022

Our collection of infographics is designed to inspire you, giving you examples of how shared with clients can position you as a subject matter expert (especially if you use graphics customized for your market). They’re ideal for sharing with clients to explain the various processes involved in buying or selling a home. 

Have a client who’s starting the buying process? Send one about the mortgage process. Have clients who are thinking about selling? Check out the infographics on staging a house. We even have some humorous real estate infographics that only agents will appreciate.

14 Infographics for Buying Real Estate

6 Infographics for the Mortgage Process

10 Infographics for Selling Real Estate

4 Infographics for Closing

5 Infographics for Moving

14 Infographics for Homeowners

9 Infographics for Real Estate Marketing

10 Infographics Just for Agents

25 Non-Real-Estate Infographics for Inspiration

Why Real Estate Infographics Work Well for Realtors & Brokers

Are you not entirely sold on real estate infographics yet? Do you think your plain Jane emails and blog posts are going to work better? Well, here are a few extremely persuasive reasons you should be using infographics as part of your marketing arsenal.

Colorful Visuals Are More Engaging to Readers

Picture this. You’ve just spent a long day plowing through emails and sitting through endless meetings when you get an email from your real estate agent.

You like her, but you’re still not quite 100% sold yet. Curious, you open the email and are presented with a wall of text. Do you read it or quickly close the tab and jump back on Instagram?

If you’re anything like the rest of us, that text looked like homework. More to the point, it looked like totally optional homework.

Infographics Can Inform, Teach, Entertain, or Persuade

Here’s a helpful analogy to understand the power of real estate infographics: if your email is a book and your video is a movie, infographics are comic books. They’re handy instructions with useful diagrams: easy to follow and remember, and useful enough to save for later.

Infographics Can Go Viral & Help Build Your Brand

Savvy real estate agents are always looking for content to share—and what better than a colorful, helpful infographic. Here’s the thing, though. Most agents have no clue how to make one. 

How to Create Real Estate Infographics for Real Estate Quickly & Easily

Now that you’ve got dozens of sweet infographics you can share with your sphere, you probably think you’re all set, right? Not so fast.

While these real estate infographics are pretty amazing, they’re not helping your brand, are they? Many of them are promoting someone else’s brand. 

Well, as promised, here is our quick rundown for creating your own eye-catching infographics that you can brand as your own.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1. A good topic for an infographic. What common questions do you get that would make a compelling infographic? Think about what pain points your buyer and seller leads have and create something to help them.
2. A free account or subscription―around $10 per month―to an online design service like Canva. A subscription allows you to access more templates, images, fonts, and more. It’s a small price to pay for professional-looking infographics.
3. An outline of what big ideas you want to share and the background information you think your audience needs to know. 
4. About 20 minutes.

Canva is generally considered the easiest to use and is our pick when it comes to design options. However, all the sites listed here offer templates, tools, and other bells and whistles you might prefer.

• Visual.ly
• Canva
• Piktochart
• Infogram
• Visme (can embed videos)
• Snappa
• Venngage
• Animaker (can make animated infographics)
• Easel.ly
• Picmonkey

Once you have an account set up, choose a template, and start designing your infographic. Remember to keep your text small, but not too small. Otherwise, it will be tough to read on smaller monitors and phones.

Keep images and colors bright and eye-catching. You want your audience to read your infographic, but also save it and send it on to their friends.

Once you have a design you’re happy with that is in keeping with your branding (font, colors, etc.), add your logo and contact information to the bottom, and save your infographic as a PNG.

Remember to save a copy in Canva or whatever application you use so you can edit and update it later if your information changes.

6 Customizable Infographic Templates

You can also use these Canva templates to create your own custom shareable infographics. They are perfect for social media and even listing presentations. Clients will learn some real estate basics and you’ll look super creative and tech savvy. 

List with Me

Contract-to-Closing

Mortgage Pre-Approval Checklist

Staging Advice

Local Housing Market

Information on Your Brokerage 

7 Tips for Making Great Infographics

While the applications you need to make real estate infographics are relatively easy to use, making an infographic that will go viral and capture the world’s attention isn’t. Here are a few tips to make sure your designs not only look great but actually do their job.

1. Don’t Crowd Too Much Text in a Small Space

One of the biggest mistakes people make when creating infographics is to jam tons of information into too small an area. Unless you think your audience will have magnifying glasses handy, make sure you don’t use too much text.

2. Learn the Basics of Color Theory

Some colors just look terrible with other colors, so take the time to learn about complementary colors and the basics of color theory before you start designing.

3. Use Illustrations Instead of Photos

Illustrations generally work better than photos. First, because photos are rectangular and hard to place, and also because illustrations are easier to “read” at a glance.

4. Understand Sizing for Social Media Posts

Infographics will shrink to fit your social media feed which means they may not be legible when downsized, especially on mobile phones. There’s not much you can do about it, so just try to make them look sharp so people will want to click to make them bigger.

5. Don’t Try to Use Shapes Other Than Rectangles

Infographics are rectangular, so they fit onto mobile devices, including phones and tablets. If you try using large squares or horizontal rectangles, they’ll be too hard to scroll and read on both. 

6. Hire a Pro for Listing Presentation Infographics

Canva works well for infographics, but when it really matters, hire a professional graphic designer who can take your design and ideas to the next level. Of course, if you’re going to spend the money on a pro, you probably want to create evergreen infographic content that you can use again and again.

7. Make Sure They ‘Flow’

The best real estate infographics explain complex processes in a simple, visual way. Step-by-step instructions, for example, flow from one to the next and work well as infographics.

Where to Share Your Infographics for Maximum Impact

Want to share some of the infographics in this article or infographics you’ve created on your own? Here are a few places to share them where you’ll get maximum engagement.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a massive social media site and “visual discovery engine” with more than 440 million active monthly users (and counting!). It’s also 100% visual, so your infographics will be shared like hotcakes. Even better, Pinterest has a search function, which means other users will find your infographics if you add the right description and title.

Your Email List

Include infographics in your emails, and to increase your open rates, signal to your recipient list what they’re getting if they open your email. For example, if you want to share info about closing costs, a good email subject line would be: 15 Things Every Buyer Needs to Know About Closing Costs (Infographic).

  Pro Tip

Send the right infographic to the right segment of your audience. A 65-year-old homeowner will probably not be interested in a first-time homebuyer’s guide.

Twitter

If you want lots of retweets from coworkers and industry contacts, tweet your latest (useful, usable, and easily digestible) infographic.

Instagram

Because Instagram will likely replace Facebook and Twitter to become the social media channel of choice for millennials, your infographics will be a welcome change from the boring and repetitive listing photos your competitors are posting.

Your Blog

Using bold, colorful real estate infographics in your posts will greatly increase the chance your audience will read them. Even better, it gives them an excuse to download something from your website that also has your URL and branding on it. Now, instead of being in the back of their mind, your branding will be in their download folder.

Where to Find More Real Estate Infographics

Want more compelling infographics or don’t have time to make your own? Here are a few sources for impactful real estate infographics to share. However, don’t put your logo on them, as they are copyrighted content. 

• NAR.realtor
• Keeping Current Matters
• Florida Realtors
• Pinterest (don’t forget to follow The Close on Pinterest!!)
• Theclose.com

If you love infographics, then bookmark this page. We will be updating with new and awesome infographics periodically. Stay tuned.

Over to You

If you’ve made it this far, you’re either stoked about real estate infographics or bored. Either way, there is a 100% chance you have questions, and we have answers. So, go ahead and ask us in the comments section below.

The post 97 Real Estate Infographics + How to Make Your Own & Go Viral appeared first on The Close.

Our real problem isn’t a question of volume—it’s conversion. Despite this explosion in lead volume, agents nationwide aren’t turning them into clients at nearly the same pace. How do we solve our conversion problem? First, we’ll share the four primary reasons real estate leads don’t convert, and then give you an effective real estate lead management strategy that can address them. Plus, we’ll provide the tools you’ll need to get started. 

The 4 Reasons Real Estate Agents Aren’t Converting Leads

Real estate agents everywhere are suffering from terrible conversion rates. Only a small margin of that sixfold increase in leads we discussed are becoming actual buyers and sellers. It’s not uncommon for typically performing agents to convert only 1-2% of their online leads—sometimes even fewer. Why is this rate so low? Here are four major reasons.

1. Speed to Lead

We live in an instantaneous customer service environment. When a prospect completes a real estate lead capture form, they expect to hear back from someone on your team within minutes. The reality is, the typical real estate agent is responding to leads within days, not minutes, starting a relationship off on exactly the wrong foot. Any delay will immediately lower your potential conversion rates.

2. Fumbled Lead Handoff

It’s rare that a real estate lead is generated, addressed, and converted by the same person. More often than not, there are multiple services or people in the process, which generates opportunities to miss important details when a lead is handed off to the person who will ultimately service them. 

In marketing, we call this a “leaky funnel.” As leads are progressing down the sales funnel toward a transaction, they drop out because of poor communication and unmet expectations.

3. Consistent, Multitouch Follow-up

Many Realtors make the mistake of thinking that the leads they generate online from their website, social media, or services like Zillow Premier Agent will be consistently hot, ready-to-buy-and-sell-tomorrow leads. That simply isn’t the case. 

In fact, it’s not uncommon for leads who have personally requested a direct follow-up from you to require multiple, varied messaging before you ever make contact. Too many Realtors will reach out to a lead once and never do so again after they leave a single voicemail.

4. Effective Lead Prioritization

Your leads aren’t just names and numbers on a spreadsheet. They’re people with their own timelines, priorities, and levels of urgency. Realtors who don’t have a system to sort leads by priority based on opportunity, need, and customer-service value will end up missing a chance to convert because they’re not striking while the proverbial iron is hot with the right clients at the right time. 

Solving the Conversion Problem: Real Estate Lead Management Strategy in 4 Steps

To solve the lead conversion problem and overcome these four hurdles, you need an effective real estate lead management strategy and ideally, an easy-to-use platform to help you execute your plan. 

Top Producer, paired with their exclusive real estate lead management platform FiveStreet, offers tools to respond to your leads faster, follow up consistently and effectively, create a seamless handoff to the right person, and prioritize your high-value leads above all others.

Visit FiveStreet

Step 1: Activate Your Lead Autoresponses

Which conversion problems does this step solve?
Speed to lead + consistent, multitouch follow-up

Autoresponders are your first line of defense against poor conversion rates. An effective autoresponse tool both answers questions before they’re asked as well as opens the door to conversations that will lead to active clients. 

In an industry when an agent’s time is often gobbled up by showings, closings, and other vital face-to-face client interaction, we can’t always jump to provide a personalized response in real time. Autoresponders allow you to meet consumer expectations without sacrificing the important face-to-face interaction needed to get you to the closing table. 

Ready to activate your lead autoresponses? Here’s what to do: 
First, you need a customer relationship manager (CRM) or a lead management system like FiveStreet that offers autoresponders. When a new lead comes in, we suggest sending two messages:

• Email: Send an automated email to any lead that introduces yourself and your team (if you have one), and connects your prospects with any of the important places you’re active. We recommend links to your social media, your blog, and your website, as well as links to client resources like buyer-readiness checklists, your digital listing presentation, and more.
• Text message: Send an automated text message to any lead who acknowledges that their request has been received and you’re looking forward to helping them. Encourage your recipient to respond directly to the text message with questions, specific needs, and more.

Step 2: Distribute Leads Seamlessly to the Right Person

Which conversion problem does this step solve?
Speed to lead, fumbled lead handoff, effective lead prioritization

If you’re a solo real estate agent covering the soup-to-nuts operation, this step isn’t for you. But, if you work with a team, or even if you hire a virtual assistant, an Inside Sales Associate (ISA), or engage in any type of paid lead generation, your leads need to be handed off. 

A manual, ad-hoc lead handoff process leads to missed communication, sloppy follow-up, and low conversion rates. An automated, trackable lead distribution system like the one offered by FiveStreet takes the guesswork out of getting the right lead to the right person in a timely fashion. 

Ready to start assigning leads seamlessly to the right person? Here’s what to do: 

Depending on the size of your operation, you can take one of two approaches:

• Solo agent: Set up a tracking system using a spreadsheet (or, if you’re a FiveStreet user, use their lead tracking dashboard to get a sense of exactly when and where your leads are coming from). Next, record your efforts to reach out and convert them in your CRM (like the one offered by Top Producer). 
• Real estate team: First, determine which types of leads are right for each team member; for example, send listing leads to listing agents and buyer leads to buyer’s agents. Then, set up a lead broadcast system (FiveStreet offers an excellent option here) that directs the right leads to the right team members, at the right time.

  Pro Tip

This isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it strategy. If you go through the process of setting up a lead broadcast system, monitor your agents’ effectiveness with the leads they receive. FiveStreet’s analytics dashboard allows you to measure the effectiveness of lead conversion by date, source, type, agent, and more.

Step 3: Prioritize Leads Based on Need + Opportunity

Which conversion problem does this solve?
Speed to lead, fumbled lead handoff, effective lead prioritization

There’s no way around it—not everyone can be your #1 priority all the time. Effective lead prioritization is all about understanding the specific needs of each unique lead and measuring opportunity gained versus lost if you don’t act immediately. 

Put another way: Part of increasing your conversion rates is better understanding of who needs your attention today and who doesn’t need it until tomorrow. A great way to do this is to get consistent with the use of tags in your CRM profiles, marking your immediate, medium-term, and long-term nurture leads. 

Ready to start effectively prioritizing leads based on need + opportunity? Here’s what to do:

Use your CRM’s existing tagging system (or create custom tags of your own) and classify all the leads coming into your system as one of the following:

• Buy / Sell NOW (follow-up daily)
• Actively Considering Buying / Selling (follow-up 2x weekly)
• Passively Considering Buying / Selling (follow-up 2x monthly)
• Undecided to Buy / Sell (follow-up 1x monthly)
• Cold Lead (follow-up 1x quarterly)

After these tags have been applied, make the first part of every work day about follow-up. Emails, phone calls, or text messages are all acceptable, but make your leads receive and interact with effective communication. Don’t forget to provide value every time you talk—lip service is worth nothing in the real estate industry. Your words need to be backed up by action.  

Step 4: Create Multiple, Automated Lead Nurturing Campaigns

Which conversion problem does this solve?
Consistent multitouch follow-up, effective lead prioritization, fumbled lead handoff

It’s not uncommon for real estate leads to require upward of eight marketing touches before they begin to actively engage with you. And, even after they engage, your leads may not be ready to become a client just yet, which is why consistent, automated nurturing campaigns are so important. 

A lead nurturing campaign is designed to bring your lead from their starting point all the way through to when they are ready to actively begin working with you as a client. 

“But Chris, leads aren’t all created equal. How could one campaign effectively nurture the people who need two weeks, two months, or two years?” One campaign won’t do that. 

That’s why you need multiple, automated campaigns you can apply to all types of leads based on your most common lead experiences.

Ready to start creating multiple, automated lead nurturing campaigns? Here’s what to do: 

Start by assessing the leads you typically receive. Are they buyer leads? Seller leads? Both? Next, assess the typical time frame you’re spending getting buyers and sellers to the starting line. Then, use CRM resources like those available from Top Producer to implement lead nurturing campaigns based on that expected timeline. 

If you want to create your own automated campaigns, you can do that too. The Close has resources that can help:

Bringing Your Real Estate Lead Management Strategy Together

You’ve read each of the steps individually, but sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. So here’s a quick snapshot of what a typical day might look like for an agent who has put this strategy into action.

Top Producer + FiveStreet: A Potent Combination for Real Estate Lead Management

If you’re looking for a platform to help you put this strategy into action, we suggest Top Producer’s exclusive real estate lead management tool, FiveStreet. Combined with their CRM, Top Producer X, and the strategy we’ve spelled out here, you’ve got every opportunity in the world to crush your conversion goals. Visit FiveStreet today to get started.

Visit FiveStreet

The post Convert More With This 4-Step Real Estate Lead Management Strategy appeared first on The Close.