Hey guys, I want to give you a strategy as we head into the busiest season of the year for listings—February, March, April, and May. This is when the most homes hit the market, so it’s the perfect time to ramp up your efforts.

I’ve got two strategies that can help.

1. Create a Real Estate Resume

A real estate resume highlights your background, skills, education, and successes. Keep it simple—just a one-page document. You can use Canva, where you'll find plenty of great resume templates. Pick one, customize it, and build out your real estate resume.

Once it's ready, send it out to your entire database with a cover letter. The letter should say something like:

"As we enter the busiest season of the year, I wanted to share my real estate resume in case you know any buyers or sellers looking for an agent. I’d love to interview for the job of helping them buy or sell their home."

This positions you as a professional and keeps you top of mind with potential clients.

2. Build & Share Y...

Hey guys, I wanna give you a quick strategy when you are listing a house for the first time and you're having a conversation with a seller.

I call it my "Many Buyer Eyes" Strategy. And here's how it works:

I say...

"Hey, you know what? One thing I do with all my sellers when I list their properties for sale is I treat you as a buyer. And what that means is that I'm gonna act like you're a buyer for your own property and your own price range. So I'm gonna set you up in the MLS as if you're a buyer looking in the 400-500k price range in your market area, in our MLS zone that we're in with similar attributes of your house. Here's why I'm doing this: I want you to see in real time the listings that are being presented to buyers that are searching for home like yours.

So you're gonna see all your competition, all the price reductions, all the pending transactions, they're gonna be coming to you. And I want you to look at them because we want to be responsive in real time. So...

Sometimes a seller will say to you, "Well, just sell it to a cash buyer. I don't want to deal with financing."

Have you heard that? We all have from time to time. When you have a seller say that to you, you need to arm yourself with good information so you counter that. And help them understand that the market isn't comprised of a ton of cash buyers.

The good news is that there are more cash buyers that there has been. We've seen a huge uptake in cash buyers. But the current number as of today, in all across the country, is that 25% of the sales done in the country are now cash buyers.

But what's the reverse of that number? The reverse of that number is 75% of the sales are not cash sales. So they're involving some level of financing. Which means that when we list a property, we have to sell it four times in order to create a sale.

We have to sell it to the market, to get them excited about that listing. That's creating that great first impression.

Then we have to sell...

I want to turn you on to a book that was recently recommended to me called "Atomic Habits." If you haven't listened to it, it's a fantastic book by James Clear. And it gives powerful insights on how to build habits and actually get rid of habits that are holding you back.

One of the things that he mentioned in the book, which has really resonated with me is this idea of "being in motion" versus "being in action."

Being in motion means that you are planning, strategizing, and preparing to take action, right? There's a lot of agents that are really good at being in motion — but they never actually move up to being in action.

Being in action means you're actually doing the steps necessary to hit your desired outcome.

Now, the difference here between being in motion versus being in action is that when you're in motion, you're not taking a risk. Which is why so many agents get trapped in this space.

You're not risking rejection. You're not risking failure. You're not riskin...

According to a recent study by Trulia.com - "Among the 100 largest U.S. metros, conditions in 50 are now shifting in favor of buyers, a ten-fold increase from just five metros a year ago. They determined this shift by examining an average of three buyer/seller balance-of-power indicators and analyzing how they’ve changed in the last year (from January 2018 to January 2019): the share of listings with at least one price cut, the monthly median days on market, and the sales-to-list price ratio (how a home’s final selling price compares to its list price). All three have shifted in favor of buyers.

This shift also shows up in other common housing metrics. Homes sitting on the market longer, for example, can also help push up monthly measures of inventory because home shoppers can count on listings remaining active for longer, giving them more options at any given time.

The shift in favor of buyers is also happening where home values have risen the most over the past six years, suggestin...

First I hope you had an amazing holiday with your family. My wife, Danielle, and I were able to have a fun trip over to Whitefish, Montana by train and spent the holidays in the snow. From both Danielle and I we wish you a happy New Year! 

As we all look forward to 2019 it’s important to consider five key areas of your business that can have a massive impact on your success in the New Year.

Let’s break them down: 

1)      Your Attitude –To change your attitude the first step is to accept that motivation is a myth. Waiting for motivation to strike or for someone or something to motivate you is like waiting for lightning to strike. Houses would never be built, books would never be written, music would never be made if those creators all waited for motivation to strike. The secret to success isn’t motivation, it’s work. Your attitude about doing the work is the key to your success. Acceptance that no magic bullet, no secret sauce, lead funnel, or social media “secret” is going to unl...