It’s been an interesting first 5 months in Brevard County Florida.  Arguably we have one of the worst Real Estate markets in the country.  Our prices came down from $275k average at our peak in 2005 to $117k average currently.  The good news is that we seemed to have leveled for about a year and days on the market are averaging 90-120 days for most homes with 30-60 days for homes priced correctly.

Many consumers have been burned by a short sale or two and have decided to stay away from them.  We like that!  We also been able to increase our home sales price to $144k this year by better understanding our buyers and our leads.

Like I said, it’s been an interesting first 5 months.  We are on track to beat our numbers from last year by at least 20% maybe more.  We are closing 30-46 homes per month which is up from our average last year of 28 closings.  It’s very exciting. 

So what can I attribute our continued growth each year?  Two things, Buyerlink and lead conversion.

BuyerLink is a no-brainer since I capture twice as many leads at half the cost of what I was paying with Google and Yahoo!.  Once you do capture the lead, you have to be able to do something with it.  The key to lead conversion is systems.  Because BuyerLink produces so many leads, you need to be sure to have a solid conversion system including listings, drip campaigns and most importantly phone call follow up.

If you don’t have a system in place, not only do you not get the return you are looking to get, you can waste a ton of money!

I could spend hours going over most of this stuff, but the reality is, converting leads is just not that hard.  Half of it is attitude.  Continue reading this post

We are pleased to announce a new club for real estate members, called the BuyerLink Winner Circle. Today we inducted the first 6 members, who, together, averaged over a 1,000% return on investment (ROI) in 2009 from BuyerLink! Read the press release.

The first 6 members of the BuyerLink Winner Circle are:

• Michael Lissack of Buy-in-Naples.com in Florida ($13 million total property value; and $325,000 total annual commissions from a $1,200 monthly budget, equaling a 2,256% ROI)
• Debra Gravelle of RE/MAX Professionals in Washington (15 home sales, $2.3 million total property value; $50,000 total annual commissions from a $200 monthly spend, equaling a 2,083% ROI)
• Mitch Ribak of Tropical Realty in Florida (290 home sales; $44 million in total property value; and $1.4 million total annual commissions from a $6,000 monthly budget, equaling a 1,944% ROI)
• Diane Varni of RE/MAX Allegiance in Virginia (over $28,000 total commissions from a $350 monthly budget, equaling a 667% ROI)
• Ron Petzel of Realty Executives Mainstream in Florida (55 home sales; $7 million in total property value; and $206,000 total annual commissions from a $3,850 monthly budget, equaling a 445% ROI)
• Dave Richert of RE/MAX Town and Country in Illinois ($850,000 total property value; and $21,250 total annual commissions from a $600 monthly budget, equaling a 295% ROI)

(Numbers have been rounded.)

Interested in becoming a part of this elite group? Please email us and we’ll be happy to explain further.

HomeGain did an awesome job this past Monday with their full day of training for 100 customers (HomeGain Nation 2010).  If you were lucky enough to be there, you enjoyed over 8 hours of great information on a variety of subjects, but most of all, on how to use the HomeGain products to best increase your business.

I had the privilege of speaking about the BuyerLink product.  Well actually, my talk was more about how to capture a lead and how to create the leads you capture into customers for life.

I covered Landing Pages and how to create the best landing page to capture the most leads.  I discussed our 100MPH marketing system which helps you turn leads into customers.  I also talked about different aspects of creating traffic.  And what I believe to be most important, we had a great conversation with everyone about making phone calls, how important they are and what to talk about during your first phone calls.

When I got home I realized, based on some emails I received and based on the conversations I had with so many after I spoke, that many of you might have questions after you went home and decided to try to implement some of what we discussed.  After all, it was a lot of information in a very short period of time.

With that said, on Wednesday this week, March 10, at 2pm Eastern, I am going to hold a webinar on lead capture and conversion.  We will talk about creating your landing pages  and then discuss lead conversion.

If you were not at the HomeGain event, this would be a good opportunity to learn some great tips on how to accomplish the above categories.  After all, Lead Capture and Conversion are the most important aspects of real estate Internet marketing.

I look forward to helping you take your Internet program to the next level!

Have you ever wondered how to really capture and convert leads?

Have you read posts on here from me and others that are getting tons of sales each year by using HomeGain’s BuyerLink product along with great lead conversion systems?

Do you want to add 12 sales, 24 sales or more a year to your bottom line?

If this sounds good to you, then let me show you how. In one week from today, on March 1, at the HomeGain Nation event in San Francisco, get ready to learn the tricks and secrets of lead conversion.  I have spent the last 8 years working to increase our lead capture and conversion rates.  It’s not rocket science, but it does take a strong work ethic and a great solid system to make it happen.

I will demonstrate how to capture leads and more importantly how to turn those leads into customers for life.  This is a step by step process that I have developed so that my agents, regardless of experience.  It’s all in the systems and on March 1, I’ll be revealing this for you to learn.

By this time next year you will be having your best year in real estate.  Why?  Because the system I teach works.  This past year we sold 311 homes with 90% or more of those from the BuyerLink product we buy from HomeGain. Our goal this year is 425 home sales.

I’ll be giving away a few copies of my new book, of which Louis Cammarosano (General Manager at HomeGain) wrote the foreword, titled “100MPH Marketing for Real Estate“.

See you there!

Nothing beats attending HomeGain “Live” Nation in person, but the videos are second best!

This video features Mitch Ribak of The eHomes Realty Network in Florida, Linda Davis of RE/MAX Realty Group in Connecticut, and Dave Marron of First and Elm Realty in California.

These three Realtors® became successful by mastering techniques of leveraging the Internet to get people to their websites, turning visitors into clients, and building profitable real estate businesses as a result.

Watch the HomeGain Nation session video: “Traffic, Leads, Conversion: BuyerLink”

Keep checking back as we will be adding more videos over the next couple of weeks.

Up next: “Home Staging Session” with Lise Desormeaux of RMR.

Also see more HomeGain Nation videos on the HomeGain YouTube channel and on the HomeGain Nation Blog.

homegain.com

I haven’t sold a house in about 5 years. Ok, maybe one, but only because an old friend insisted. I’ve found a niche: Listing real estate in Ledyard, CT. I love the marketing and the negotiating and have the systems in place to do it pretty well. I do it well enough, that a year ago I dissolved my team and sold my company, RE/MAX Realty Group in Gales Ferry. I moved to a home office but stayed with the company and kept my awesome assistant. Now I concentrate on what I do best.

Seth Godin in a blog post today calls it Island Marketing. Ledyard, CT is my island. I’m slightly famous in my town because I focus on just 15,000 people. I support everything local and run ads in tiny economic publications like the Ledyard Fair Brochure, the Ledyard Home and Garden Tour Guide, and the Memorial Day Parade booklet. You can find my Blog URL on school calendars, baseball jerseys, and Parks and Recreation schedules.

I don’t plan to sell a house this year or even next year. So why would I be such a big fan and user of BuyerLink™?  When I worked with a team, HomeGain’s BuyerLink product kept my buyer’s agents busy. Today I use BuyerLink as an extra source of income by referring my HomeGain buyers to those same agents on a referral basis. I provide no other support as I did when I was a team leader. They are happy for the business and travel Eastern CT showing houses. I stay happy on my Island enjoying the fruit.

Linda will be participating in a session titled “Traffic, Leads, Conversion: BuyerLink” at HomeGain Live Nation in San Francisco on August 3rd at 2pm. Twitter #homegainnation