In challenging economies with rising unemployment rates and falling home values short sales become a reality. In some markets short sales can account for over 70% of available inventory! While some agents may complain about approaching distressed sellers it represents a massive amount of business. You can help people who are truly in need and generate a great net income for yourself at the same time.
The challenge for many real estate professionals is they get stuck in doing work that only yields $10 an hour. To help you avoid target distressed sellers and still generate a NET income I invite you to consider 3 key parts to the business.
Marketing – When you want to grow your short sale business this is where your focus will be. Daily you will be launching marketing pieces ranging from letters, postcards, videos on YouTube, social networking updates, articles, seminars and more. Creating a comprehensive marketing approach for short sales will keep you in control of your business. When you have a balance of media (from direct mail to online) you will also be able to reach more customers than your competition.
Generate Leads and Handle Leads – With your marketing implemented your phone will be ringing and your email will be full with eager prospects. It may be tempting to outsource this part of the business; however, this is one that you will want to keep in your control in the beginning. Track how many leads it takes to get a new listing. Track how many listings you need to take before one closes. When you have your numbers down to a science then you can add someone to help you deal with all of your leads and hold them accountable to your performance numbers.
Negotiation and Paperwork – Generating business with short sales isn’t hard. Having a net income at the end of the day is what challenges most real estate agents. When you have done the marketing and the conversion of leads into listings you have done the hardest part of the business. Outsource the negotiation and paperwork portion of short sales to a 3rd party company or bring someone in-house to do the work. The negotiation process is time intensive and you can often get a company to complete the work for a nominal upfront fee and a fee based on performance.
When you focus your efforts on the short sale marketing and lead conversion you will have a business that generates closings weekly.
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