3 Tips to Find Listings in the Current Market

Well, that was quite a summer real estate market! Huge year over year valuation gains, bidding wars and lower than low levels of inventory. At one point there were even more NAR members than listings!

However, things do appear to be cooling off a bit and leveling out in many areas. But that doesn’t mean that the inventory shortage (and increased competition) is going to just disappear. It will mostly likely be more of a slow fade. Then again, maybe not. Predicting and timing markets is a tricky business, and hardly an exact science.

The point is, finding listings and sellers isn’t going to get easier overnight. You need motivation, a plan, data, and market insight. You need to get in front of would-be sellers to earn their trust and pique their interest. Here’s 3 ways to do it with help from RPR…

1 Put RPR data to work for you

One of the most important things you can do with potential clients and prospects is build trust and confidence. If someone is apprehensive about selling, the housing market or even the economy as a whole, they need reassurance that they’re making the right moves. They want to hear more than opinions; they want charts, graphs, stats and info from expert sources.

You can deliver that and much more! With RPR, every REALTOR® is a click or fingertip away from accurate, up-to-date property and market data. The trick is figuring out how to convey this hard data to customers in an easy to digest manner.

Here’s a couple of examples of how to put RPR data to work for you:

  • Run an RPR Market Activity Report and use those facts and figures to create a social media post (or flyer) to give an update on the area. It could be one street, one neighborhood or one ZIP code. You can even draw the area by hand on a map! Include active, pending and sold information for the last 3-6 months. Or include how much home values have increased in the last calendar year. While many homeowners are aware that their homes have risen in value, not all of them know the exact figure. Providing this type of information can really open their eyes, get them thinking, and position you as the go-to source for local market knowledge.

  • Create an RPR Neighborhood Report and use that data to make a quick video that will create buzz about a particular neighborhood. Just record footage of the neighborhood and use a quick video editor app such as Ripl, then record your voice over. In 30-60 seconds, you can give important stats on the area’s home values and sales activity, the demographics of the population, economical statistics, and quality of life tidbits including parks, commute times and public transportation. And of course, amenities such as restaurants, retail shops, walkability scores and more. Post the video to Instagram or Facebook and alert your sphere that this neighborhood is perfect for their lifestyle. This is a great “soft sell” approach, where you’re giving a neighborhood update that isn’t 100% about home prices, and can go a long way in connecting you to a community and its residents. Be sure to include a call to action line at the end, such as, “I’ve done a ton more research on (NEIGHBORHOOD NAME) and if you’re interested, I can create a report and share it directly with you.” Hint: the reports you follow up with can easily be made in RPR!

2 Fine-tune your prospecting

Prospecting is the ultimate proactive approach to new business. While some top producers acquire listings strictly through referrals and repeats, most agents need to put in some hustle to find new prospects and leads. And RPR is built to help you succeed at it!

Tapping into RPR as a resource in these efforts is a smart approach, as there are many ways to apply its data, reports and maps to a prospecting plan. You can go in-depth with geographical prospecting to find every homeowner in a specific area who’s owned their home more than 15 years, then make a mailing labels list (up to 2,000, for free, every month), and send each one a report on their home. Or you can keep it as simple as creating a one page flyer about their home and drop them off in person or send out a handful of mailers. With RPR as a prospecting tool, you have options.

For an in-depth look at everything RPR offers, we encourage you to download our exclusive e-Book on prospecting for new clients and leads. Get How to Farm and Prospect for new Clients: an Exclusive RPR eBook and you’ll have one of the industry’s go-to sources for prospecting.

It’s filled with tips, step-by-step how-to’s, quick video lessons, success stories and more. Keep it on your desktop and add it to your digital library to learn:

  • Prospecting/Farming basics: the who, what and why’s of geographic farming
  • Formulas for Turnover and Absorption rates
  • A step-by-step guide on how to set up geo farming areas in RPR
  • How to generate a mailing labels list/CSV file
  • Which RPR reports are best suited for prospecting
  • Agent success stories that you can emulate

This guide is the north star when it comes to real estate prospecting. It’s a map to success and all you need to do is read it, follow it and put it into action to gain warm leads and new clients. Click the link and download your exclusive copy today.

3 Make a lasting impression with your listing presentation

Congrats! If you’ve made it to the presentation phase, you’re now just minutes away from nailing down a new listing and hitting paydirt. This is your time to shine, put your best foot forward, knock their socks off and every other cliche in the book. Your listing presentation is a resume, a capabilities brochure and a first impression all rolled into one.

Using the tools and reports within RPR to create your listing presentation is a smart and savvy way to impress your clients and give you a sharp, competitive edge.
The first thing you’ll want to do is have a pre-discussion with your potential client. During this first step, make sure you do plenty of listening. Ask leading questions that get them talking about why they are selling. Find out all you can about their priorities and goals.

Doing this type of homework will help you tailor the presentation around their needs. For sellers, the most important part of working with a REALTOR® is the agent’s ability and experience in pricing the home. This is where you and RPR come together to form an unstoppable team. Here are some boiled down highlights you’ll want to consider using:

  • RPR’s Realtor Valuation Model® (RVM®): this pricing tool sets the standard for automated real estate valuation models. It goes beyond the traditional AVM by incorporating listing and sales data from the MLS into the equation. The RVM® is also accompanied by a Confidence Score—a value between zero and five stars that indicates the level to which each of the multiple models agrees with other estimated values for a given property. High confidence scores indicate that other models yield similar estimates for the property. Watch this short video for details.

  • RPR’s CMA is used to determine a price or price range for a property that is both quantitative—based on comps and market information, as well as qualitative—reflecting your knowledge of the property, neighborhood and market. RPR’s wizard walks you through five simple steps to generate a comparative analysis. You’ll confirm the home’s facts, search for and adjust comps, and land on your own list price by reviewing the analysis.

  • RPR’s Refine Value tool: If your seller has home upgrades, consider RPR’s Refine Value tool to determine the value of a home based on property characteristics, improvements made and market conditions. Use the simple sliding scales to refine the home’s value based on your assessment of local market conditions, the interior and exterior of the home’s condition, lot size, view and privacy.

  • Seller’s Report: Now bring it all together with the RPR Seller’s Report. This custom report can be created quickly, and includes a photo of the property, plus your photo and contact information. Plus, you can add customized pages. Inside, you’ll find details on the subject property, local market conditions, side-by-side property comparisons, mortgage and distressed information, tax assessment history, and more. Here’s a guide to learning all the details about a RPR Seller’s Report.

To create a truly compelling listing presentation, you must stand out from all the other agents, provide relevant data and prove your value. You must convince the owners that you’re the best REALTOR® to help them realize their home selling goals.

Check out this article, “21 Steps to a Stellar Listing Presentation” for a step-by-step plan to winning that listing.

Find sellers with RPR

As you can see, if you have the will, RPR has the tools to help you gain listings. Use these assets and resources to identify, market yourself and pitch your services. Sellers are out there, and RPR can help you find them!

Published On: September 30th, 2021Last Updated: January 25th, 20227.8 min readCategories: Tips / StrategyTags: , , , ,

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5 Comments

  1. Jane Ferraro-Kane October 19, 2021 at 5:24 pm - Reply

    Thank you for this!!

  2. James Surgeon October 20, 2021 at 2:33 pm - Reply

    I wasn’t aware of all the tools RPR offers.
    Have used in past but its been years.

  3. Keisha Greene October 20, 2021 at 8:29 pm - Reply

    This is just Great! I didn’t know RPR had all these features and I believe it will truly help with my business. Thank you 😊

  4. Suzanne Murphy-Spackman October 25, 2021 at 9:16 am - Reply

    Great info, thank you

  5. Ida Long October 26, 2021 at 4:24 am - Reply

    This is great. I didn’t know that rpr had all these tools and features to help us. Thank you how much.

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