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  WARM CALLING (Part 2)
 
 

Income-Planning Worksheet

Advanced tip: Permission Marketing

Warm Calling

Advanced tip: ABCs of Prospects

Broker tip: Add Rehab to Your Business

Prospecting Buyers

Call-Ins

Advanced tip: Use Personal Assistants for Prospecting

Advanced tip: Public Speaking

Community Involvement

Prospecting in Print

Tracking Prospecting Results

Advanced tip: Lead Analysis

Quiz: Prospecting

Bright Ideas: Prospecting

Code of Ethics: Prospecting

More Resources: Prospecting

  Note: Due to the implementation of the National Do-Not-Call Registry on Oct. 1, 2003, this article needs to be revised and edited to conform to the new rules. This page should remain "not live" until these changes are made.


Part II: Calling Someone Who Needs You

No successful real estate career can rest solely on people you know. At some point, you must start to expand your sphere of influence to those who are already interested in buying or selling real estate, but don’t know you directly.

FSBOs (For Sale By Owner)

One out of every five FSBOs eventually sells through a real estate salesperson, according to the 2000 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, and click on report name to launch a PDF.

TIP: Check classified ads and yard signs—the two primary ways FSBOs promote—to locate these prospects.

8 Steps to Listings FSBOs
1. Introduce yourself either by phone or in person.

2. Either send overnight or leave behind a packet of information on you and your company. Include statistics on how fast you sell an average home.

3. Emphasize what you have to offer: access to the MLS, transaction knowledge, information on current pricing.

4. Point out (subtly) the amount of time it takes to show a home.

5. Don't imply the homeowners don’t know what they’re doing.

6. Emphasize skills. Ask: “Would you want to put on your own roof, set your own broken arm, or replace your own transmission?”

7. Call every 10 days for a month.

8. If that doesn’t work, wait three months. If the property is still on the market, try again.

FSBOs Need You Too

· Price their homes competitively. They don’t know about changing market conditions, rising building costs, or how to demonstrate to buyers that a price is justified.

· Be objective about their homes. They won’t recognize physical defects that might turn off buyers or may waste money on unnecessary improvements.

· Negotiate for them. They seldom know how to counter a low first offer or to negotiate terms and adjustments.

· Show buyers how to finance the purchase. Unless the buyers have their own agent, they may not know how to qualify for a loan or it may take too long.

· Handle objections. It’s hard for sellers not to be defensive in the face of objections.

· Promote their homes effectively. Writing ads that are effective and comply with the Fair Housing Act takes experience. Nor do FSBOs have access to MLS and other selling options.

· Keep buyers from bothering them. Most FSBOs have no idea of the time and effort needed to show homes and negotiate sales. They don’t want their lives or their jobs disrupted.

· Fill out all the legal forms correctly. Preprinted forms often leave out information vital to closing the sale.

· Find qualified buyers and sort out the true buyers from the lookers. The ability to determine if a buyer is serious is a great time saver.--Courtesy of Chip Morrison, RE/MAX Prestige, Atlanta

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