This month’s Agent Success Newsletter features Alisha Wade, Associate Broker at RE/MAX Achievers in Arizona. In our exclusive interview with Alisha, hosted by Peter McCullough, she discusses how foreclosures are affecting her business and gives advice to other agents who may be facing challenges in a market full of foreclosures.

Listen to Alisha’s feature story:

“Arizona is in top 5 cities for foreclosures in the country – 20% or higher of all inventory are foreclosures. It may be awhile before the market turns around, which makes it really important for an agent to know how to do foreclosures and short sales, and not be afraid to learn how to do them.”

“Short sales are priced $10-15k below cost (and more for foreclosures ) but the danger is when the house won’t appraise, even for a home that was in great condition. It’s great for the home buyer if that happens, but not the seller.”

7 Tips from Alisha Wade:

1. Learn bank processes. Foreclosures are actually very easy to do as long as you know the banks processes. Sometimes the addendum can be 14 pages long – and you really have to read them thoroughly!
2. If you are writing a contract

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This month’s featured real estate agent in our Agent Success Newsletter is Sharon Detrick or RE/MAX Suburban Northwest in Houston, TX.

Here’s the feature story:

In less than five months this year, Sharon has already closed 5 home deals with AgentEvaluator homebuyers compared with two deals in 2007.

Why the difference?

After adding in references to her proposals that she sends to potential clients, she’s been experiencing a higher response and interest level from those consumers in her services.

Although it varies year to year (she’s been a HomeGain AgentEvaluator member since 1999) she’s definitely seen an increase since having added the references.

“I was hesitant to add in references because I didn’t see the value,” stated Sharon. “Obviously nobody is going to put in a negative reference, but apparently consumers really do want to see what others say about you – and know that real live people have had positive experiences with you as their agent.” Continue reading this post

In this month’s Agent Success Newsletter, we featured Brian Block of the Block Real Estate Group, LLC with RE/MAX Allegiance.

A large part of a real estate agent’s success is being likable. We all prefer to work with people we like. The same applies to selecting a real estate agent.

Met in person, it’s easy to assess an agent’s personality right away. But business over the Internet may not always be so simple. Writing styles don’t always translate – it could be too dry, too silly, too short or too casual. Plus, not all agents are aware of Internet best practices. An agent might email too often, not reply fast enough or come across too short. A website might have an unclear font, unattractive colors or show too many photos.

All this speaks to the agent’s personality. It’s an interpretation of who you are and what you can do for your client.

One HomeGain agent, Brian Block, has found a mix of online marketing tools where he can efficiently and effectively show his personality, and communicate via the Internet to the degree where he can convert online prospects into clients – resulting in over 70% of his business. Continue reading this post

Ann Marie Clements of RE/MAX Realty Group in Maryland was the Featured Real Estate Agent of the Month in our March Agent Success Newsletter.

Here’s the story:

If you ask Ann Marie what she thinks of today’s conditions, she’ll tell you that it’s great market for a Realtor®. After 20 years in the business, Ann Marie’s business is growing every year – it’s already up 40% from last year!

Ann Marie Clements was also just featured on the March 2008 cover of REALTOR® Magazine in which she discussed her success with finding new clients on Facebook.

How is Ann Marie able to be so productive?

She relies on two main things: referrals and HomeGain.
“I just sold one house for $700k and another one for $480k, both as a result of HomeGain leads,” said Ann Marie. Continue reading this post

“The Power of Persuasion”

In this month’s Agent Success Newsletter, HomeGain is pleased to recognize Leonard Klein of Schweppe Burgdorff ERA in Montclair, NJ for his excellence in salesmanship and persuasion. With home sales slow in many markets, the following testimonial from Leonard’s client may provide powerful insight into the challenges of working with today’s home sellers.

The home seller’s testimonial is as follows:

“Right off the bat, Lenny impressed us with his professionalism and quickly gained our trust. He advised us wisely about what work needed to be done and to increase the value of our home, and once the house was ready for showings, Lenny came in (proverbial guns ablazing) with some mind boggling advice to list our house a bit lower than we hoped to sell for. His theory was that the lower price would generate increased interest among buyers. We threw caution to the wind and trusted his advice.

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