Mortgage rates, prior to June, were stabilizing after a volatile first quarter.  Potential home buyers and existing homeowners were settling in to the fact that a 4.5% conventional mortgage rate could be had; some days you had to pay a couple of points, some days only one.  FHA and VA loans were about an eighth of a percentage point higher.

Twitter is all the rage in social media.  But how can you get business from Twitter when you’re restricted to 140 characters?   Simple.   Use my AKS (Anyone Know Search) Method. 

Here’s how it works:

Go to Search.Twitter.com and type this in the search box: anyone know a realtor in [fill in your city or town]

Here’s an example: 

Check the results.  If you’re lucky, you’ll find a real estate need (the word lead has been taken to the place where they keep bad words, like “used car”).

Now, send a tweet reply to this person and offer your help.  Since you are fellow Twitterers, you share something in common, making it more likely the person will talk to you.   Try it. (And send me my 25% referral fee in small bills.)

But there’s more to the AKS strategy. Continue reading this post

I know that most everyone looks at me as an Internet guy who is good at lead conversion. As much as that is one of my strong points, one of my favorite things I do is teach my agents about Customer Education. Over the past few months I have spent a ton of money to educate myself on new concepts I could bring to the real estate world to help my company increase our business.  

One of our biggest obstacles, and most likely one of yours, is the lack of commitment that many home buyers are making these days. When I started my search a few months ago, I had no idea what I was going to learn.

I learned how to use Customer Education in our business to help drive sales.

Usually, as Realtors, we are quick to blame everyone and everything else about why a customer didn’t end up buying a home from us. I have observed this since I got into the business in 2001.  Since then I have realized that in order to become successful in this business, in fact in any business, is to accept responsibility and learn from our errors. Over the past year our Real Estate Agents have averaged 8 new buyers per month but only sold 1 home per 8 buyers per month.  

After analyzing these numbers, I realized that the reason Buyers were not commiting was because of the lack of information or more importantly their misinformation. After all, we are all products of the media these days and if they say the Real Estate market is bad, that’s a great excuse for Realtors not to become successful.  

If the Realtors don’t believe in the market, how can the buyer believe? Continue reading this post

Hi everyone! It’s been some time since I have written. The good news is I have been busy developing new skills to teach my staff. Any of you who know me know I’m very into training and keeping my staff updated

on their training, etc. Of course, most of the time, I have been teaching others how to do what we do here at Tropical Realty in Melbourne, Florida. Recently, however, I have decided I needed to work a little more on my business than traveling around the country. 

Since the beginning of the year I have been working on how I can take my team of 20 Real Estate Agents to the next level.  One of my goals is to help all my Agents become successful. I’m so fortunate to have such a wonderful group of Agents working for me. Even though some might be struggling and not working as hard as I like, they are all great people. With that said, I also have a business to run and to grow.  I won’t be happy until my Agents are all doing at least 36 transactions per year each or more.  I know they can do it, and I’m learning day by day how to be a better teacher. Up until recently I had always blamed my Agents for not working our system strong enough. But, recently I realized that I have been training all wrong and have to change the way I teach. 

Here are 6 things about training that I’ve learned so far:

1. The only way you can become better is to commit at least 1 hour per week to training and becoming an expert in just a few skills.  Just 1 hour per week can have a profound benefit to your business.
    
2. It’s not about knowing 4,000 things a few times.  It’s about doing 3 or 4 things 4,000 times.  Once you do, you are an expert! Continue reading this post

I know that there are so many of you out there who read this blog and are excited about taking your business to the “next level” by using the Internet. 

Lately, at The eHomes Realty Network, I have been getting a lot of inquiries about the cost to get your Internet business off the ground.  Below are your basic costs to get going.  The marketing program you choose will vary from area to area. 

Website

I’m a big believer in using “template websites”.  There are many choices in custom websites also, but I prefer to put my money into marketing and generating business.  Most template websites are 90% customizable, affordable and already have a ton of generic content.  You can easily spend $10,000 – $20,000 on a custom site. 

IDX

Over 90% of the real estate leads we capture at Tropical Realty of Suntree are from people registering to view home listings on our website.  I highly recommend an IDX vendor versus your free MLS providers IDX.   There are multiple IDX companies available.  HomeGain offers an IDX website with their AIMS product. We will be launching our 100MPH Marketing Software in about a month for the state of Florida.  However, it won’t be available nationwide for some time.  I also recommend iHomefinder.com. Their tool is very easy to use, reliable and has a good capture mechanism. 

Pay Per Click

Using pay per click can be very costly if you don’t know what you are doing.  If you are using Google and/or Yahoo!, Continue reading this post

This month’s Agent Success Newsletter features Debra Gravelle, a Realtor® at Grant County Properties in Moses Lake, Washington. In our exclusive interview with Debra, she discusses the value of trying new online marketing programs, and how her business has skyrocketed in the past six months as a result of finding the right ones.

Listen to Debra’s feature story:

Also read the full story: Continue reading this post