New Agent Advice

[Dainen VanGorkom]

Hello BP,

My names Dainen VanGorkom. I am a new real estate agent in Iowa. I currently have three listing and I am having a hard time selling them. Also, I am having a hard time finding additional clients (buyers or sellers) to work with. Does anyone have any advice on strategies to sell a cold listing or best methods to find new clients? Thanks BP.

[Taylor Dasch]

Wow your doing pretty well for being new! It is a lot harder to sell them now but the market seems to be slightly improving. Do you have professional photos done on your listings? If not that is one of the most important factors aside from price. 

If possible - and depending on activity on the listing - lower the price a bit. 

I do open houses a lot, not because I think it gets a buyer but I know sites like Redfin and Realtor.com will email the property out to promote the open house and put it in front of more potential buyers. 

Price is the most important - I have been pricing listings about 7% below what the comps suggest ( If the seller allows it) and even then I was worried it wasnt enough. 

Photos and Open houses definitely help.

As far as finding new clients you will just have to dive deep into a whole bunch of strategies and find out what works for you. Im doing a lot of time wasting honestly trying to figure out which lead gen source to double down on. 

[Sarah Roberts]

Three listings wow thats impressive! I'm also a new agent and I am having a hard time selling my first listing. You're not alone! Personally, I'm going to print out flyers of my listing and ask small businesses if I  can put a flyer in their window.

[Scott E.]

If your listing is not selling it almost always comes down to 1 issue - You're priced too high.

With that being said, a good agent will sometimes be able to sell an overpriced listing through good staging, great photos, creative marketing, and strong sales skills.

The first thing I'd do is a deep dive on the comps to see if your pricing is right. Or get your brokers price opinion.

For finding new clients, a strategy I hear new agents say they have a lot of success with is just sitting open houses. Probably a bit painful and boring when times are slow like this, but I've heard many agents say this is a good way to pick up buyers.

[Dainen VanGorkom]

Quote from @Scott E.:

If your listing is not selling it almost always comes down to 1 issue - You're priced too high.

With that being said, a good agent will sometimes be able to sell an overpriced listing through good staging, great photos, creative marketing, and strong sales skills.

The first thing I'd do is a deep dive on the comps to see if your pricing is right. Or get your brokers price opinion.

For finding new clients, a strategy I hear new agents say they have a lot of success with is just sitting open houses. Probably a bit painful and boring when times are slow like this, but I've heard many agents say this is a good way to pick up buyers.

 Thanks, for the advice. I have heard sitting the open houses does work. You mentioned staging, do you think it's better to stage new construction or leave it without staging just based off your knowledge and experience? Thanks 

[Scott E.]

Quote from @Dainen VanGorkom:

Quote from @Scott E.:

If your listing is not selling it almost always comes down to 1 issue - You're priced too high.

With that being said, a good agent will sometimes be able to sell an overpriced listing through good staging, great photos, creative marketing, and strong sales skills.

The first thing I'd do is a deep dive on the comps to see if your pricing is right. Or get your brokers price opinion.

For finding new clients, a strategy I hear new agents say they have a lot of success with is just sitting open houses. Probably a bit painful and boring when times are slow like this, but I've heard many agents say this is a good way to pick up buyers.

 Thanks, for the advice. I have heard sitting the open houses does work. You mentioned staging, do you think it's better to stage new construction or leave it without staging just based off your knowledge and experience? Thanks 

My opinion is that 100% of move-in-ready homes that are being listed for sale should be staged. Whether it's new construction, recently remodeled, or maybe a little dated but still being marketed as move-in-ready.

Staged homes sell faster and for more money than non-staged homes. There have been studies on this. (And that's why all of the big production builders stage their model homes)

[Eliott Elias]

The market is slow, and chances are you priced them too high. A good LA will price a little bit under market value to attract attention. 

[Carlos Ptriawan]

Quote from @Dainen VanGorkom:

Quote from @Scott E.:

If your listing is not selling it almost always comes down to 1 issue - You're priced too high.

With that being said, a good agent will sometimes be able to sell an overpriced listing through good staging, great photos, creative marketing, and strong sales skills.

The first thing I'd do is a deep dive on the comps to see if your pricing is right. Or get your brokers price opinion.

For finding new clients, a strategy I hear new agents say they have a lot of success with is just sitting open houses. Probably a bit painful and boring when times are slow like this, but I've heard many agents say this is a good way to pick up buyers.

 Thanks, for the advice. I have heard sitting the open houses does work. You mentioned staging, do you think it's better to stage new construction or leave it without staging just based off your knowledge and experience? Thanks 

 I am not an agent but I've analyzed markets almost every few days, a staged home would get a higher price relative to the predicted Zillow price. This is not even a question. Even in good times if a house has not been staged the DOM would increase with a lower price than the staging house. 

[Sean McDonnell]

@Dainen VanGorkom

As long as you are comfortable working with investor clients (which you probably are since you are on this site), I would look around for real estate meetups in your area and attend as many as possible with the goal of having a genuine conversation with one new person each time. Then add that person to your database and follow up with them to schedule a coffee/lunch. If there is not a real estate investing meetup in your local area, then start one! 

[Mohammed Rahman]

Hey @Dainen VanGorkom - being a new agent and having 3 listings already is really great!! 

Right now, you're facing the same thing a lot of other listing agents are facing: demand is drying up as buyers try to make sense of what the market is doing. In more populated metro areas like NYC, we're seeing buyer buzz coming back slowly and steadily but not as to where it was before rates started to rise. 

[Shawn Mcenteer]

Hi @Dainen VanGorkom if you have experience and enjoying working with investors I can help. I do a lot of standard abc business but its all from what my REI clients. Process is simple but like most things that does not mean its easy.

[David Greathouse]

Id assume the inventory is low there as it seems to be everywhere, but my guess is your price is too high.  I look at the number of showings I am getting and then adjust accordingly.  If you're not getting showings at all, something is way wrong!  If you are and aren't getting offers, you need feedback from the agents that have showed it.  That way you can review them with your seller and discuss strategy.  Rely on those agents who have seen it and ask them for advice.

[Wale Lawal]

@Dainen VanGorkom

Here are 11 ways to get clients in real estate:

1. Buy Real Estate Leads
2. Engage With Your Community
3. Ask Existing Clients for Referrals
4. Create a Website
5. Post On Social Media
6. Specialize In a Niche
7. Try Cold Calling
8. Host Open Houses
9. Contribute to News Articles
10. Offer Free Services
11. Join a Real Estate Referral Network

Read this article for more information https://www.forbes.com/advisor...

All the best!

[Lawrence Potts]

I’d say price may be high, but there are a lot of other levers you can use to incentive buyers to negotiate. You are reaching across the table to the buyer and asking them this price in return for a home. They need to feel like they’re winning without you compromising your client’s interest. What concessions can you offer? Seller credit? Home warranties? There’s so much you can do to add convenience to a buyer.

I’d also add that it could just be marketing: what are you doing right now that makes your listing show up in front of the eyes of your target audience? Who is your buyer? Single college graduates with their first career job and first home search? Married families looking to upgrade from their first home purchase? Retirees looking to downsize and reduce overhead and maintenance? You need to get your listing out in front of the right eyes. And it’s merely a numbers game: 300 mailers once won’t cut it. 10 cold calls every 3rd day won’t be much. Mass numbers! Try 5,000 mailers 🤣 (hyperbolic, don’t do it unless it makes sense in your market and target audience). My point is that you need to market harder to the right eyes. Where are these buyers looking? Zillow? Instagram? Craigslist? Do what gets their attention.

Hope that helps! Congratulations on getting such a big start as an agent! Very impressed 👏 keep grinding and hustling, early success doesn’t mean letting off the gas. You’re going to kill it if you keep growing.