Generating Real Estate Leads

Real estate agents tend to mostly rely on image and referrals when generating leads. Getting real estate leads or homebuyers and sellers in the past used to depend on interacting and forwardly introducing one’s self to potential clients. This typically involved cold calling home owners who may or may not be interested in selling their property, thus generating real estate agent leads.

This practice existed in an era where cold calling was the norm in making business contact. However, today’s real estate market is far more sophisticated and skeptical when it comes to cold calling. Here is a list of ways to get real estate leads in today’s fast paced and digital centric marketplace.

Have a Website

One of the best ways to have real estate leads come to you is by having an online presence. The Internet has grown by leaps and bounds over the past decade to the point where it is the dominant source of information for many individuals. The best way to get Realtor® leads is to have these leads come to you.

Doing this requires an online presence in today’s market. A billboard with your face on it just isn’t going to cut it in a real estate market that thrives on a rapid flow of information. Where else can one go for faster information than the Internet? A personal website can not only be a home launching pad for you to get leads, but it is also a great personal marketing tool. It is a continual presence online that can showcase past clients and also be a tool for future clients to contact you.

Have a Blog

Online blogging is another field that has grown tremendously over the past several years. Blogs were originally seen as nothing more than online journals that people inexplicably posted for public consumption. However, blogging has gained a great deal of repute and acceptance over the past couple years because of its ability to relay thoughts and feelings of the writer in a far more effective way than dry pieces of prose online.

The beauty of a blog is that many of the sites that host blogs do so for free. This enables you to get real estate leads via your blog for no cost at all. Hands down this trumps the unnecessarily expensive practice of purchasing real estate leads. Having a blog can also let future  clients identify with you as a person rather than as a distant realtor non communicative Realtor®

It is by far the common goal of every real estate agent to generate a constant, ever-changing, and steady flow of real estate sales leads. For most agents, this once meant a time consuming and fairly labor intensive process of tasks such as cold calling, in addition to sending out mass mailings. It meant taking time away from those tasks if more drastic measures were necessary, such as handing out business cards or going door-to-door to gain business.

Technology Makes Life Easier

However, with the advent of the internet, and advances in technology that have linked people worldwide, agents can now generate real estate sales leads through other means, including those that do not require massive and sometimes non-renewable resources.

Consider the following when trying to generate any real estate sales leads:

1. Mass e-mail – instead of sending out hundreds of paper letters to potential real estate sales leads, do the same thing electronically, thereby saving resources as well as time, since the letters will reach the recipients in a matter of minutes.

2. Blog – Having a real estate blog is a great asset in generating real estate sales leads. Don’t try to publish everything – visitors will become confused, and leave quickly. Publish a few bits of relative content, and keep it updated regularly.

3. Websites – The Internet can be advantageous in generating potential real estate sales leads, especially for agents. Numerous websites offer advice, listings, and other resources that were once impossible to come by.

4. Search Engines – Search Engines are by far the best way to become noticed on the Internet. Blogs and search engines can go hand in hand, as by keeping relative content on the blog, it will be noticed by more search engines, and thus more real estate sales leads.

5. Social Networking Sites – Usually frowned upon in terms of the working world (it has been known to cause some issues for businesses), sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn can be a great asset to agents looking to generate real estate sales leads. Promotion on social networking sites, used in a positive manner and with professionalism, can only benefit an agent.

Go Green to Attract Clients

Going “green”, once considered a radical concept popular to only a few, has become a worldwide movement. It is now considered gauche to use paper as though it was going out of style, as well as to use the resource of gasoline driving around a neighborhood with what might be a fruitless purpose (e.g. looking for real estate sales leads that might not materialize.)

Using technology and other “green” means to reach potential real estate sales leads is not only a concept that will aide the world, but will make an agent infinitely popular to any potential clients. Showing a willingness to advertise and promote via paperless methods, as well as a concern for both the environment and the world surrounding everyone, will help those clients to see the agent as someone willing not only to help the world, but to help them as well.

Depending on where you live and how familiar you are with the foreclosure process will determine how you view purchasing a foreclosed home. To some people it is attending an auction and making a bid and to others it is negotiating a sale with the bank, who now owns the foreclosed property. In reality there are three ways that a foreclosed property can be purchased, and each one has its benefits and drawbacks.

The first one is the preforeclosure sale. There are times when you find out a home is going to be foreclosed upon, and at this point you can offer to buy it from the current owners. Here you can possibly do the most good, since the current owners will be able to control the damage to their credit a bit better and the banks usually like to get out from under the loan amount. The catch is that you usually have to pay what is owed on the property. A related method is the short sale, which is where you offer to buy the home below the loan amount and the bank agrees to sell it at a loss to avoid the expense of foreclosure or repossession. The problem with short sales is that the current owners could find a way to become current on their loan or the bank could change its mind and not sell for that price or any other detail could go wrong and cancel the sale.

After the home is foreclosed upon it may go up for public auction. In many places, purchasing a home this way is rarely as easy as it seems. First the rules of the auction usually keep many homes from being a bargain; they must be sold for at least a dollar over what is owed. Second, to hold the home to find financing usually requires a large deposit and then actually finding financing can be difficult. In some local markets, the auctioned property can come with liens that you are now responsible for. Be sure to know what your local laws are before purchasing an auctioned property.

The safest way to purchase foreclosed properties is to negotiate with the bank directly. There are many circumstances that the bank can sell the property directly or with the help of a real estate agent. Here the bank can agree to sell the property at a small loss or at costs, which could save you thousands. If the bank is selling as is or sight unseen, be sure to do your homework and learn as much as possible about the property in question. Otherwise, you may be stuck footing the bill for a damaged interior and cutting into or losing any potential profits completely.

As you can see entering into the investment market is not for the faint of heart, but for the brave, there are deals to be found and profits to be made. Be sure to hire the proper professionals, such as a real estate attorney or tax professional, and do your homework so you know what you are purchasing. This way your investments are more likely to turn to gold.

This question comes up a lot for me from some my clients. And the question is yes and no. You have to be creative. Institutional lenders as far as I know and at the date that I’ve printed this have stopped offering 100% financing for properties.

In the past you were able to walk in to a bank and even get 105% financing. Meaning you can get a mortgage for the full price of the property, plus 5% cash back to help you out with the closing costs.

Many of my members had taken advantage of this program which allowed them to get into the real estate game. Things have changed.

You can pretty much get into a real estate deal if you and the seller agree to the terms. You just need to be creative and persistent some times. Some brief examples could be:

- Find a seller that may be desperate. You could take over their payments or ask them to do a Vendor take back (VTB). Remember you may need to get an approval for the mortgage transfer. check with a broker.
- Use a promissory note in lieu of your down payment to the seller.
- Ask the seller to do a lease option. This works better in a buyer’s market where the listing volumes is higher than normal.
- You could try a purchase option where you ask the seller to sell them the home to you for payment in the future.
- An agreement for sale or the right to purchase.
- Trade something as part of your down payment if it’s valuable enough.
- The list could go on and on..

The above are some examples and are really limited to your imagination. If the seller and buyer agree on the terms and conditions then that’s all that really matters. Remember to make it a win win situation for all parties involved and check with a legal advisor prior to entering into any agreements.

You should always look for a property that has the potential for profit. Don’t just pick up a piece of property because you want to get in the real estate game. Do your due diligence and find a network you can bounce and share ideas with.

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