Agents that I coach all over the country are using this and literally everywhere it is generating listing leads. 

You have a Buyer who you have shown everything on the market and they can’t find what they want.  So, you send what I call a “Property Need Letter.” 

You drive the Buyer around the area and select the specific homes and or the specific blocks of streets that truly have what they are looking for. 

Then you send a letter to those specific houses.  The letter has to have a specific structure and language so that it is credible.  In fact, don’t do this unless it is real.  The letter gives some details about the Buyer, what they are looking for and what they are not finding.  It offers a confidential one time showing request. 

My coaching Clients have been doing this for many years.  Right now it seems to be more effective than ever.  Perhaps because there are so many Sellers who are waiting for the market to improve but given the opportunity they would like to sell and move.

If you would like a copy of the property need letters, e-mail me.  Although they are one of hundreds of documents exclusively for our coaching Clients, I’ll offer them to you to encourage you to listen to our free webinars www.FreeCoachingWebinars.com and to introduce you to a bit of our Success work.

It’s one of the most interesting parts of my job.  When an Agent that I coach is in the middle of a tough negotiation I ask them to call me. Debbie did.

The asking price was $769,000.  The offer came in at $625,000.  

Debbie is smart and talented.  As the owner’s anger and frustration arose, Debbie calmly explained that, “All offers are good offers,” that in this market Buyers feel that owners may be desperate.  The key is that she kept the owner objective. 

She did not disparage the offer, the other Agent or the Buyer.  She didn’t compliment them either.  Instead she kept it objective.

The owner countered at $725,000.  The Buyer came back at $640,000.  Again, as you might expect the owner was angry and frustrated. Again, Debbie kept her cool and told him.  “I want to be as upset at you are but my job is to keep my eye on the goal of getting you the price you need to get the job done.  So, let’s decide do we want to tell them we won’t respond until they raise their offer?  Do we want to make a small concession and keep inching closer?  Or do we want to go to or close to your bottom line and send the message that we want to get this done with less “Mickey Mouse” back and forth. 

She explained the risks of not responding and allowed the owner to lead the decision making with her guidance.

So many Agents who are far less skilled negotiators than Debbie empathize with their Client in ways that paint the other Agent or the other party as wrong, greedy, etc.  Debbie demonstrated three key negotiation skills of a talented negotiator.

1. She kept the negotiation and her Client objective.
2. She kept the conversation and the negotiation focused on the goal.
3. She kept herself objective and focused on the goal.  

My recent blog about listings got a lot of positive comment, thank you. 

Let’s be clear on another thing.  If listings are the name of the game, Buyers are the rest of the game.  You don’t make a commission with a Buyer.  In fact, a qualified, motivated Buyer with an urgent need is as good as the average listing (particularly in today’s market) any day; in fact, the better the listing, the more of those valuable Buyers it will attract.  

So, as I said in the previous blog, keep taking listings.  At the same time, keep searching for qualified Buyers who are eager and ready to buy.  The key is to be rigorous in asking the Buyer questions about their financial qualification, motivation and urgency as early as possible in the relationship (with complete respect for Agency and Agency laws).  

Yes, I saw the statistics on how much more money is made by Agents who focus on listings.  And I completely agree that consistent success is based on a listing focus.  I coach Agents every day to extraordinary listing success.  But the statistics are flawed.  Here’s why. 

Most, possibly all, Agents with a team focus on listings.  On their team are Agents who focus on Buyers.  In fact in many those ‘Buyer Specialists’ refer all of their listing leads to the Primary Agent.  The team leader (I call them the Primary Agent, thank you Patrick Daily) gets a portion of all the Buyer sale commissions.  This enormously skews the statistics.  The more accurate measure would be individual Agents who focus on Listings versus the ones who focuses on Buyers.  The problem with that is that the vast majority of individual Agents necessarily focus on both.   

The point is that focusing on Buyers in a smart way is necessary for Agents with or without a team.  For the teams it would be a waste to get all those listings and not benefit from the Buyers they would attract.  For an individual Agent it is also most often a matter of survival.   

Buyers or Listings there is opportunity in this market.  It absolutely takes more talent and effort to find it and close it in this market.  Those who tough it out and learn to succeed in this market will be the top Agents and the leaders as a healthy market re-emerges.  And with a bit of blessing, it will. 

The best kept secret of Real Estate Coaching www.FreeCoachingWebinars.com.  

What does “priced right” mean?  It means the price that, with normal marketing, will sell the property in three weeks or less.  The only exception is the house that is truly unique. 

But wait, what if houses were selling last month for $350,000 all over the neighborhood but this month they are not selling.  Does that mean they are now overpriced?  The answer is yes.  Will they come back to the $350,000 price range next month or in the spring?  Maybe, but for this market this month, it’s not “priced right.” 

In this economy it’s possible that next month or in the spring the price could be less. 

An Agent that I coach had sold seven homes in a neighborhood for prices between $620,000 and $720,000 right up until the summer of 2010.  Between the fall of 2010 and the spring of 2011 she had five others on the market.  None were selling.  She lost one listing to a bank foreclosure.  The bank put it on the market for $549,000.  It sold in a week.  This year four others have sold in the neighborhood; all for less than $600,000. 

It hurt her to see her Clients sell for less than they bought.  For too long she was saying that the houses were worth more and that they were priced right when they weren’t selling.  Her heart is in the right place.  This is not easy for Agents or Sellers.

But let’s be honest and professional about pricing.  Let’s learn the skills, approach, and language required to help Sellers make the best decisions even when they are difficult decisions.

Keep Taking Listings

Here’s why. 

First, I know that in many markets listings are not selling very quickly.  The listings have to be priced right, in very good condition and still may not sell.  (Although by definition priced right means they will sell.  The problem of course is that priced right last spring, just four months ago may not be priced right now in September)

But keep taking listings.  Kyle Killebrew has taken 88 listings so far this year.  That is about 30 more than previous years.  His listing sold percentage is way off from previous years.  He has sold just 68% of them.  Oh, that’s 60 of them isn’t it?  And from the leads generated from all those listings he and his team have sold another 52 houses to Buyers.  Even if less listings sell, having more of the listings means you sell more.

It is tougher to get listings sold in this market.  The Clients’ situations are often negative.  There are job losses, divorces, and involuntary moves.  We are always dealing with these types of situations but in this market and in this economy there are a higher percentage of those negative circumstances. 

There are more Sellers who believe their house should sell for a higher price.  A higher percentage of Sellers who sell are disappointed with the price they get.

All of that is true and keep taking new listings, getting price reductions, and re-listing because there are flurries.  A flurry is when, suddenly, for no apparent reason a bunch of properties sell.  The Agents with the listings benefit from the flurries.  These listing Agents benefit in two ways.

First, their listings sell.  Second, Buyers contact them. 

Kyle said, “Rich, you are right about the flurries.  We sold six properties the first week in September.  School starting, right after Labor Day, I wouldn’t have expected it.  But I’m glad to have had the inventory.”

Keep taking listings.

It is the day after Labor Day.  The decisions that Real Estate Agents make about their business today and this week, shape the next six months. 

There is one basic decision.  Get active, get busy.  Or  be passive. 

Getting busy ensures both a strong finish to 2011 and a strong start to 2012.  Being passive risks a weak finish to 2011 which means suffering low income and a slow start to 2012.

Get busy following up on your leads, prospecting, marketing, blogging, networking, communicating with people. 

What you communicate and how you communicate it is important. 

Communicate the opportunities in the market, low rates, soft prices, and the fact that this will not last forever.  When it changes, and it will; just a 1% rise in interest rates can mean having to buy less house in a less desirable neighborhood.

And communicate it positively. 

When an Agent communicates the difficulties in the market with a discouraged tone of voice then the message to the listener is that this Agent lacks confidence in the market and their ability to succeed within it.  Some Agents say to me, “But Rich, I don’t have confidence in the market or my ability to succeed in it.”

I say to them, “Then get another job.  Or better yet, let’s talk so can realize that there is tremendous opportunity for the people who are able to buy in this market or sell and buy in this market.  It’s scary.  It’s difficult.  It’s frustrating.  And those that succeed through this market will be the most successful, extraordinarily successful as we eventually emerge from it. And we will.”

When an Agent communicates positively with confidence, the listener notices.  It haunts them.  It sticks with them.  It spreads your reputation as the person to go to and refer to get the job done even in this challenging market. 

Be honest.  It’s not easy.  And be confident.  If it can be done, you find a way to do it.  And you are constantly looking for the opportunities.   

The decisions you make today and this week will dictate your success for the next six months. 

There is an article posted on my home page www.RichLevin.com entitled Seven Steps to Insure a Strong Finish to The Yearthat details how you can be sure to finish strong.  

Arnold is launching an Internet Company.  It is a terrific idea.  He has a partner.  He contacted me for advice.  He said that he called an important new Client yesterday.  It turned out that his partner spoke with the same Client earlier in the day about the same topic.  And they didn’t present the same information.  They didn’t contradict each other.  They didn’t support each other either.  It is not the impression they want to make.  And it is a sign that he and his partner are not communicating regularly.

I told him to do what Chava and I do every day.  Meet.  His partner is in Florida.  He is in New York.  No problem, speak on the phone.  Use e-mail, text messaging, GoToMeeting, Skype, and any number of other simple tools to conduct the meeting the same way as you would conduct it in person.

Schedule it for just 15 minutes so that it is not a burden.  Take longer if needed.  Schedule longer only when necessary.  Make it at the same time each weekday.  Have a simple agenda/outline of topics to cover so that there is consistent structure to it.  This structure stimulates creative thought.

If you miss it, no biggie, recommit and make it the next day.  If you miss it for a week or weeks at a time, no biggie, stay committed to it.  Eventually, it is so much the right thing that you will do it consistently and right. 

WAIT!!!  No biggie if you miss it for weeks at a time, but that sucks.  That’s mediocre.  That lacks integrity.  It is also perfectly normal for a human when you are building a new habit, even a very valuable important habit before it takes hold. 

My life and my work continue to teach me that when you berate or belittle yourself you will stay stuck.  But, when you stay positive and committed, you advance more quickly, correctly and creatively. 

We talked about hiring good people too.  I’ll save that for one my next posts.