I have a challenge for you today:

I want you to imagine that you're a buyer who just landed in your area and has no knowledge about any REALTORS in the marketplace. So, go ahead and search for homes for sale in your market and see what happens. You'll likely be directed to realtor.com or Zillow. Now, pretend you're a buyer and go through the process of searching for a home on these websites.

As you go through the process, you'll notice that the algorithms push you through a funnel. The first thing they'll ask you is what price point you're looking for. They'll give you a list of price points to choose from, and very rarely will buyers type in a specific price. Instead, they'll be guided to choose a range from a dropdown menu.

Then, the algorithms will ask about bedrooms, bathrooms, and square footage before pushing the buyer further into the system. It's important for us as REALTORS to understand how the algorithms...

Why would you use a pending sign? A lot of REALTORS use a pending sign because they want to encourage people to list their home with them. And they want to show off to the marketplace that their marketing actually worked.

But a pending sign can actually be the worst possible thing you can do for your marketing.

Why?

Because when homeowners in your neighborhood see your listing go up, that's when they're most likely to call you and be curious about the home. The pending sign can help a little bit, but you're going to miss out on the most qualified buyers you can have. 

And I'll give you a classic example:

My wife and I have identified an area of town we want to live in called Echo of the Pines. It's a beautiful area with some nice homes in the neighborhood but very few homes come on the market. The other night when we were driving home, we saw a new for sale sign. As a REALTOR, I get all these alerts, but they become noise and I tune them out.

Why is list price versus sales price such an important number to know and master in your market?

Here's the answer:

Buyers and sellers need to understand that when they're making or accepting offers, this number will have impact. And I'll give you an example:

Every buyer wants to get a great deal, right? Every buyer wants to feel like they're beating the market. So when we sit with a buyer, we need to educate them about what's happening in the marketplace. For instance, in my market today, sellers are receiving on average 99% of list price. Some are getting much more — they're getting 105% or 106% of list price. But the average in our market is 99%.

So with a buyer, what I'll say to them at the beginning of the relationship is:

"Hey, you know, many homes sell for full price in our current market, or even over full price. But the average is 99%. The key is to see how aggressively the sellers price their home compared to other listings in the area....

Do you use a Social Media Blitz every single time you take a listing?

If your answer is no, you're missing a huge opportunity to create energy and excitement around your listings to capture more buyers and sellers and potentially add more closings and referrals.

Here are six posts you should do for every listing you get:

1. The Coming Soon Post

First thing you do when you take a listing is you record a raw, no edit walkthrough video of the house. This could be an Instagram story, a Facebook story, or both. This shows people you're actually taking listings and that there's a new listing in your market.

Now, in some markets, you may have to adhere to your MLS rules before you start marketing the property — it's usually between 24-72 hours in most markets. But in some markets, you can't do it at all. Hopefully, you can do that quick, raw, no edit video where you're doing the quick walkthrough in your market.

2. Launch it into your social media when it...