Sacramento Real Estate Blog

I was going to write a little something about the Placer County real estate market, but I just picked up a message from a client of mine who I’m going to show some homes to tomorrow. I didn’t know that’s what I’m doing, because I called a few times this week to try to confirm the appointment with no answer, but now that it’s the evening before, lo, a message has appeared. So I thought instead that I’d try to tackle a list of ten misconceptions we as Realtors® have about the world, since I’d just bumped headlong into one of them that I’m partcularly apt to suffer from if I’m not careful:

1) “I can schedule my time, because clients will schedule appointments in advance.” Some folks do schedule and keep appointments quite well, of course, and usually the guy who call’s you for the first time 20 minutes before he arrives in town is a pretty poor prospect anyway. But often you find out what you’re doing pretty late in the week, a day or two at most before you do it, and often those folks who only give you a day or two to prepare for them turn out to be pretty serious.

OK, so now all I need is nine more, and I got myself an article, there, fella!

2) “I can qualify a buyer based on how they behave.” Many of my absolute best clients have been people who went against whatever prevailing notion I had in my head of what a good client was. For example, I had to bite my tongue about the young couple who upset me when they wouldn’t get in my car but instead wanted to follow me. I knew they wouldn’t buy anything, because they were so “stand-offish”, but I told myself I would just be courteous and see what happens. What happened was this: they bought the first condo they looked at. It was a “one-stop-close”, the sales equivalent of a hole in one.

3) “I have to sell myself before I sell the house.” No, no, no, no, no. Clients aren’t buying me, but they might be buying a house. Focus on the houses. Offer to take the clients to them. Offer to take them back. Offer to call the other agent to get ahold of the seller if they have questions. Offer to do research on the house and the neighborhood and the comps for them. Offer to take them back out again for more houses until they find something. If they find something, offer to write it up. If it falls out, offer to go out again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

None of this has anything to do with me personally. This is not cavalcade of stars, and I’m not Brad Pitt. I’m not even Dustin Hoffman.

4) “Clients are reading my blog, so I have to publish engaging content.” Good old Jim Cronin, a nice fellow who does a better job of putting up with me than anyone else in the real estate blogging community, tends to fall victim to this one repeatedly. I think the reason he does is that for him it’s true — his clients do read blogs, because his clients are blog authors (by definition). My clients have no interest in me, and — by extension — my blog. See #3, above. My clients are looking for a house, Jim’s clients are looking for clients who are looking for a house.

I actually disproved this one to my satisfaction once upon a time. I checked the stats lately, and disproved it again. My conversion rate to an activity that will lead to a sale is better than forty-five percent for my home page. For my blog, it’s less than twenty-one percent. For people reading my blog in an RSS reader, the numbers appear to be surprisingly close to one tenth of one per cent.

5) “My blog is a way to establish myself as an expert, so clients will use me.” This is a variation on the theme in #3, above. Actually to some extent it’s true enough, but you’re establishing yourself as an expert in the eyes of an algorithm, in order to get an opportunity to be an expert once a client finds you. But being an expert, recall from point 3, has nothing to do with you. It has to do with what you can impart to clients about houses, house prices, and the process of buying or selling a house, which is what you’re helping them do (otherwise they’re not clients — see how simple?).

6) “Social networks are a great way to get business.” Pared down to it’s essential dumbness, we used to state this when I was nineteen as “I drink, therefore, I am”. Sure, everyone gets one or two transactions from their “sphere”, and your broker likes to tell you to work your sphere so he can get a tasty split on those one or two deals (times 1000 agents — that ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it). No, a great way to get business is to spend half your business life prospecting. I prospect, therefore I don’t starve. A party with a bunch of Realtors® is a party with a bunch of Realtors® Sure, you should go to parties if you want, they’re fun. But they’re not work. Ditto MySpace, MyBlogLog, and ActiveRain, or, as I like to call them, MyLovelyWife’sSpace, YourBlogLog, and PassiveBrain, respectively.

7) “Consumers have a choice about where to search for homes.” My erstwhile imaginary friend has a lovely article about this, which has earned critical approbation from my perennial actual enemy. To some extent this one is true enough, too, but it’s irrelevant to marketing. The point about marketing is to get them to choose you. It’s not to “brand you as an expert” (see number 5, which is just a variation on number 3). I can brand myself as an expert by talking about all the different ways a buyer can search for a home in Sacramento. I have a business to the extent that I own a substantial share of a number of the ways.

“Buyers choose you for your expertise.” No, buyers choose you because they found you somehow connected to the thing they want, which in the case of Real Estate is a house. They stay with you if you deserve it. You deserve it primarily to the extent that you’ve gotten over #1, #2 and #3.

9) “Treat a buyer right and they’ll always come back to you.” No, treat some buyers right and they’ll always come back to you. If you haven’t lost a client to a competitor, you haven’t been in the business long. This isn’t personal — see #8. Someone else interposed themselves between “your client” and the thing they want.

10) “There are ten things in this list.”