Any realtor will take an interest in them, but there are some real estate professionals who specialize in pursuing expired listings. They believe that they have the expertise and forward thinking to be able to work with sellers who are frustrated with their previous realtor’s inability to sell their home. Now of course there are many instances where a home’s failure to sell is more attributable to factors other than what the listing realtor has done, but this is often the home owner’s perspective.
It’s a part of the business, and it happens to nearly every realtor. Learning how to work with these types of clients is highly advisable, but success is dependent exclusively on one criterion – will you be able to generate more buyer interest in the property. That can be challenging, as can be finding these clients. Here at Real Estate Leads, our online real estate lead generation system is an excellent way for realtors across Canada to have the strength of Internet marketing working for their benefit.
You’re able to generate clients of all types, including ones who have had their home listed previously but without success. Today we’re going to look at some of the good – and not so good – points about working with expired listings. We’ll then offer a somewhat different approach to getting them to list with you.
Initial Hurdles
Expired listings can usually be attributed to one or more of the following factors; price, condition, marketing, agent neglect, or something completely out of left field. The prospective client might not think very highly of realtors based on what they’ve experienced with the one who recently listed their home. This is your opportunity to make a different impression on them, but you will have to clear these initial hurdles and in order to do so you’ve got to distinguish yourself as being different right off the bat.
Take a Consultant Approach
You want to approach this type of prospective client from a much different angle than you would when making first contact with a homeowner who hasn’t listed their home before. Your value now isn’t so much as a salesperson, but more as a problem solver. Your focus needs to be on getting to know the prospect and their requirements. This is especially important because long-term success comes from referrals from very satisfied clients who valued your help.
The conceptual approach you should be embracing is that you will help the owner of the home get past their emotional response to the previous failure to sell the home. You will be reorienting them to a more positive perspective based around what is required to sell the home, and more specifically what you can – and will – do differently to make that a reality in as short a time frame as possible. Be specific and measurable when you present this plan to them.
You must understand the importance of first moving them away from emotion and instead towards pragmatic business decisions involving the look, condition, and pricing of their home. What we’ll detail now is a very effective way of doing this; the flyer and formula.
Logical Decisions Based on the Facts and Market Dynamics
This flyer is geared to do a great deal of your work for you and do it before you ever speak to them. Presenting would-be clients with a Market / Property Profile Formula that sheds light on the forces that influence whether their property sells, as well as what forces dictate the time homes in the area spend on the market, is a very effective way of beginning a discourse. The prospective clients are lead to understand the forces they can control, and those they cannot.
Presenting the formula in a flyer gives them time to think it through in full and hopefully come to a realization that a new and different approach is needed to get their home sold in a reasonable period of time. You’ve presented yourself as an authority on the subject in a very non ‘pushy’ way, and in particular you’ve made it so that they can contact you if they’re so inclined. Often, it’s the way you’ve presented them with real information that they can digest on their own terms and timeline makes these owners much more agreeable to seeing what you can do for them.
Present Data and Explain Simply How It Should be Interpreted
The flyer should lead them to an easily-formed understanding of how the market works, telling them what they need to know and the data they need. Then you provide your knowledge and expertise to share how that data should be interpreted. This is Sales 101:
- Define the problem – why the house hasn’t sold
- Offer solutions – Suggest making decisions based on data AND realistic perspectives and insights on it
- Call to action – Your contact information and your invitation to help
Arrive with Full Confidence in Your Ability to Gain the Listing
You’ve now established yourself as a market expert, but you’ve done so in the most non-pushy and simply ‘offering to help’ manner possible. You’re not there to sell them something, or speak badly about the competition. You seem like someone who can shed some light on things the owners and their previous agent could have done better – or didn’t do at all. You’re an expert in your field, there to solve their problem and get their home sold, if that’s still a priority for them, of course (with your knowing full well that of course it is).
Lastly, you need to arrive with a thorough understanding of what was and wasn’t done during the home’s previous listing. Have a list of concrete solutions for reasons the home didn’t sell before, and present them to the owners with full confidence that they’ll make real differences in selling the home. You’re there to get the job done with new solutions, and nearly every homeowner who’s had a previous listing of their home be unsuccessful will be very receptive to someone like you when you’ve taken this approach.
Sign up with Real Estate Leads here and receive a monthly quota of qualified, online-generated leads delivered to you exclusively, and for your exclusively-served area of any city or town in Canada. That area is yours alone, and the buyer and / or seller leads you receive will not be shared with any other realtor. It’s a great way to supercharge your lead prospecting efforts and many realtors have already gotten on board and quickly seen it to be money well spent for growing their real estate business.
