What’s Wrong with the Real Estate Industry?
By Brian Buffini
The real estate industry has had its share of bumps, bruises and enough hairpin turns to make even the calmest agent feel queasy over the past few years.
The market has had to recalibrate after a few hectic years that saw mortgage rates at all-time (and artificial) lows. That resulted in many sellers finding themselves in the enviable position of receiving multiple offers over their asking price and would-be buyers left on the sidelines.
As we approach the middle of this year, the real estate industry is once again losing its way and has become distracted, distorted and deranged.
Distracted
The industry has been beset by lawsuits, mergers and acquisitions galore. Companies are fighting over “private listings.”
As Jon Acuff, one of our favorite guest speakers, noted, “The distraction industry has scaled faster than our ability to focus.”
So what are we focused on? Everything except what we should be.
When you’re distracted by all this noise, you aren’t providing your clients with what they need — superior service as they get ready to make one of the largest financial transactions they will ever make.
Focus your attention on meeting your clients’ needs and providing them with such stellar service that they’ll want to refer you to their family and friends.
Distorted
Real estate marketing has been distorted with companies who want to sell you new ways to source leads, ad strategies, cold outreach scripts, and other ways to get in front of strangers.
Basically, the thought is that these new ways are better than traditional marketing of building your database through referrals.
Well, not so fast. If you look at a recent National Association of Realtors report, you’ll see some numbers that should truly make agents rethink their marketing.
For buyers, nearly half of all clients used an agent that they had used before or one that had been referred to them. For sellers, that number went up to 75%.
Those numbers are proof that trusted relationships and referrals work.
Deranged
Social media is flooded with so-called “influencers” who believe all they need to do is turn on their phone, start recording and clients will come flooding in.
I’m not opposed to social media at all — in fact, Buffini & Company invested in a platform last year for our customers.
But social media is not how you, a professional real estate agent, should make your living. It should be a component that supports your database.
Some marketing “experts” advise that you should be spending 50% of your time on content creation to get eyeballs on your listings. Now, that might work some of the time. But at Buffini & Company, we believe that it all comes down to clients just wanting to know the answers to these three questions:
- “Can I trust you?”
- “Are you good at what you do?”
- “Do you care about me?”
People are still going to buy and sell homes, no matter what the industry — or the world, for that matter — is doing. They are not going to care if you’re a top social media influencer. They are going to care that you have their best interests at heart and that you will help them get the house (or sale) they want, at the price they want and in the timeframe they want.
The world may be chaotic, but when you set aside the distractions, and instead focus on the process and systems that you know work, you’ll find yourself well ahead of the competition.
To hear more of Brian’s thoughts, watch the replay of our most recent Buffini Coaching LIVE: Unleashing Your Power to Influence event.
