Why do people try FSBOs instead of listing with a REALTOR?

The answer might surprise you…

A lot would assume it's all about commission, but only 40% of sellers do it for that reason. That means 60% don't!

Another interesting fact: Only 5% of people will never use a REALTOR. The othere 95% are open to it.

In fact, did you know 92% of FSBOs will end up working with a REALTOR?

The question is: Will it be you or your competitor? You need to reach out to them. There's a 4-6 week incubation period for most FSBOs. So, commit to working with them for that time.

When calling them, use this magic sentence: "I'm not calling to list your house. I respect your decision to sell on your own."

This will bring their defenses down. Then, ask to come by and take a look at their house. No pressure to list. It's about incubation and relationship-building.

If they decide to list with you, be ready for that conversation. Walk through the house, take notes, and casually ask if they might work with a...

Hey guys, I want to share two real estate opportunities that many agents are overlooking:

The first opportunity is targeting the most likely seller in America - baby boomers aged 45 to 55 who are downsizing or right-sizing their homes.

According to a recent study, 10.4% of all listings will fall under this category.

Now, when these baby boomers downsize, their current homes may need some repairs or upgrades. Many of them may not have the money or the desire to fix them up, and that's where you can come in.

Reach out to these homeowners and ask if they would consider selling their homes without having to do any repairs or upgrades. Let them know that you are working with buyers who are willing to put some sweat equity into the property. This messaging will resonate with many of these sellers who are looking for convenience.

The second opportunity is to capitalize on the decline of iBuyers in the market.

Many iBuyers have gone out of...

About a year ago, my wife and I decided to downsize as we hit our fifties. We have four kids, but three of them had already moved out, leaving us with just one. So, we moved from a bigger house into a smaller one. We realized that there are a ton of people just like us all around the country.

Before we downsized, we used to live in a big house near a golf course, and whenever we received marketing from REALTORS, it was always the same thing: The marketing was all about them getting a listing, and we could read right through it.

They just wanted our commission, and it wasn't very effective.

Over the years, we received door hangers, mailers, and all sorts of stuff, but as a REALTOR myself, I couldn't help but wonder if these methods were effective or not. Sure, anything is better than nothing, but what can you do to be more effective?

The key is to focus on the why of someone considering making a move, instead of what you need.

Why...

Okay guys, we all know that there's not enough listings to sell in our markets across the country, but there's still pretty strong buyer demand despite the interest rates. Every agent that I talk to has buyers, but their biggest struggle is finding buyers' homes. So what we need to look at is a deeper level, we'll call it, underneath where the market is seemingly at. We see that there's just, on the surface, it doesn't look like there's a lot of listings, but underneath that, just boiling underneath is what we can call shadow inventory.

I'm gonna give you a classic example:

I sold my house about a year ago, but for about six months leading up to that sale, I would have sold my house. And what I mean by that is we put the home on the market, you know, and we then sold the house. But I would have sold before that. If an agent had approached me and said, "I've got a buyer and I can sell your house today," I would have absolutely signed...

Here's a target market right now that could be a massive opportunity for us:

We should be looking for opportunities. In every market shift, there's an opportunity. And one opportunity we're starting to see is retirement.

People are accelerating their retirement plans. In fact, the number of retirees in the marketplace is up 13.7% in the third quarter of this year.

Why?

A lot of people just don't wanna face the challenges of recessionary markets and things happening, and that's out of their control. They just want to exit and enjoy the rest of their time, right?

So when you have a retiree, by definition, a lot of times what they do is they want to downsize. They wanna scale back their lifestyle, so they can afford the retirement. And we're seeing this a lot with empty nesters and just people that are ready for the next phase of their lives.

So these retirees are perfect target audience for us in that they're probably...

Hey guys, have you ever heard of a blended interest rate?

A blended interest rate is gonna become really important to a lot of us selling real estate in the coming months and years as these high interest rates stick with us.

So here's what a blended interest rate is:

Imagine a buyer has a budget, and they're gonna go out and buy, let's say, a $700,000 house. They have $100,000 down, and now they have $600,000 they're gonna finance. But they can't quite swing the high interest rates that are out there today. It's just gonna put 'em in a place where they can't afford it.

But they're willing to be creative and if you have a seller that's going to be creative, you can still put this deal together.

So here's an example:

Let's say that they were able to go out and get a first mortgage for $400,000 at the current interest rate. Let's call that 7.5%, which is probably where it's headed pretty quick. And the seller was willing to carry a...

I had one of my best agents come to me a couple years ago and she said, "Jim, I got a listing that's priced right. And we're getting showings. But we're not selling the property."

And I said okay, let's go take a look at it. So I made an appointment with her and we went up and looked at the property. And immediately when I pulled up, I knew what the problem was. The property had a steep driveway. And I told her I bet a lot of people were commenting on the driveway. And she said, "Yes, true. We're getting a lot of negative comments on the driveway. And I think that's really the biggest reason why people aren't, you know, looking at the house. Or looking at the house, but then rejecting it."

So we went in and explained to the sellers that they can have the best price property in the world. And actually, have the best house in the world, but that driveway could be the stumbling block for getting it sold.

So I'm gonna give you a...

Hey guys, quick idea for you. Actually two.

First one is: Have you mapped all the home anniversaries for clients you sold a home to in 2021? Maybe you go back even further. You could go back to 2020, 2019 and map those home anniversaries of those closings, and then give everybody a call as their anniversary comes up.

You can say, "Hey, happy home anniversary. By the way, I did a quick updated CMA on your home for you to let you know what your home is worth and to show you how much equity you've built up over the last 12 months. It's incredible. Let me show you what's happened here."

That will be a value added call. People will appreciate you're making the call and they'll be looking forward to it next year.

Okay. That's a one idea.

Second idea is this time of year, everybody's starting to file their taxes. Get it in front of it. Send everybody you closed a home with in the last 12 months a copy of their HUD and closing statements so their...

A couple interesting stats are coming out. And they show that we have a new generation that's upon us.

And I'm gonna start with the first stat, which is talking about young adults.

So young adults (adults described as 25 to 34) have come back to live at home. Now in 2020, this hit an all time high —17.8% of young adults, 24 to 30 came back home to live with their parents. That's the highest it's been since 1960 guys.

And last year in 2021, it still was 17%, which was the second highest year since 1960.

So that's one side of what some people are starting to call the "sandwich generation."

Now who's in the middle of the sandwich? Guys like me. People that are 44 to 60 years old—I'm 52 right in the middle. So we got our kids coming home, but who's coming on the other side? Potentially older parents, right?

So parents that are maybe 60, 70, 80 years old also might need to come and be a part of the family, right?

...

One thing that we should do this year is cut the dead wood.

What does that mean?

It means we don't wanna be walking up a mountain, our mountain being our figurative goal set that we've set for ourselves and have a backpack full of rocks on our back.

Now, what is that backpack full of rocks?

Those are clients that don't wanna sell, that don't wanna buy, that are wasting your time, that are frustrating, that are angry people that we do not need to be carrying around on our backs anymore.

We need to cut them loose and work with people that really wanna buy and sell.

So going into the new year, how can we approach our business a little bit differently?

One is to work with ready and willing clients which sounds crazy, but it is so simple that it's obvious, right?

We need to work with ready and willing clients.

Having a ready and willing conversation is important. So I'm gonna give you my "ready and willing" conversation script when I'm...