3 Ways to Go Over & Above When Working With Referrals
Change is everywhere. Families grow, downsize, divorce, and make career moves, among other impactful circumstances. One thing is constant though … everyone needs a place to live, and oftentimes, their destination is far from home.
Last year, approximately 1.5 million employer-assisted relocations took place, according to the Employee Relocation Council. In the same period, vacation home sales rose 57 percent, to 1.3 million properties, well above their most recent peak level in 2006, according to the National Association of Realtors®. All contribute to a country on the move.
We set out to learn a little more about how keen real estate agents are capitalizing on the surge in relocations and vacation properties by building a robust referral market. Kyle Else, a Realtor® with Keller Williams, Palo Alto, California, immediately came to mind. Kyle has spent the past decade building a solid referral practice in one of the country’s hottest relocation markets: the Silicon Valley.
“Directing the attention of a client’s trust in my brand to another agent is a high-risk task,” said Kyle. “I take it very seriously and expect the referring agent to do so as well. We each represent the other and want the relationship to grow. That means we both need to service a referral to the best of our abilities by closing the deal to their advantage.”
Kyle begins by making sure everyone is comfortable working together, followed by a formal referral agreement. Then he turns to Realtors Property Resource® (RPR).
“Whether I’m providing information to a new client or to a referring agent, I always rely on RPR’s tools and data to set the foundation for the transaction,” he said.
“RPR allows me to work creatively to provide thoughtful gestures or items of value that might be a little unexpected but extremely welcomed by a customer or referring agent.”
Here, in Kyle’s own words, we learn just a few of the ways he uses RPR to make inroads with his referral clients.
“RPR’s real estate platform is robust and the ability to make refinements towards a property’s value based on local market conditions leads to a winning negotiation and peace of mind when making a referral.”
This was really insightful. I have two clients who are going to be relocating this year and I will utilize these measure in helping them find property.
How we do find points of interest and demographic info on RPR
I research points of interest near a subject property address on the RPR Report Details > Summary Tab. From this page click on the “Bigger Map” button. Then click the “POI” button inside the top-right frame. I usually discover or get reminded of POI’s such as: Daycare, Gas, Fire and Police stations. Clients that are not familiar with the neighborhood are thankful to learn about such POI categories plus it helps with my RVM before presenting an offer.