Why You Need To Build Up Your Listings Inventory
Powerfact: Listing Agents Work Smarter, Not Harder.
By Real Estate Coach and Speaker Darryl Davis, CSP
We are in a new real estate reality, and one question that I had an agent comment on recently was about how much work it is to help buyers now, since it’s a sellers market. There are so few homes on the market that agents are now writing multiple offers for multiple listings and doing more work for the buyers now than ever before. All of that takes a lot of time and effort, and sometimes, the compensation from the selling agent ends up being lower than you’d like based on the amount of work you have put in.
From a business standpoint, it takes more work to GET a listing than it is for that listing to sell. Right now, worry less about running around with buyers, and put your focus on getting listings and building up your inventory.
From a time and effort standpoint, yes, buyers require a lot of work. It’s harder to get listings than buyers right now. They are at a premium. They’re like the Rolls Royce of our business. The agent that has the listings (Rolls Royce’s) will be compensated at a higher rate – because they have the premium product. They did the smart work.
Unfortunately for the buyer’s agent, when a market is hot and there are multiple offers coming in, the sellers agent doesn’t have to compensate as well because they have so many offers.
So, what’s an agent to do?
Build Up Your Inventory
Get those listings! If the listing market is hot and properties are selling quickly, I tell all the Power Agents to price their listings right. The problem with getting a listing and having it sell quickly is that it’s bad for business. I’m going to use a shoe store analogy. If I own a shoe store and my inventory keeps flying off the shelves, and I’m not restocking the shelves, that’s bad for my business. If the shelves are empty too long, then I lose buyers and people will go to the next store.
If the homeowner is not in a hurry, price it above the market and let the market catch up to it. If the listing is on the market, say for a month or two months, you have a month or two months of advertising, yard signs, and you’re attracting more listings because of the yard signs. In other words, the more yard signs and advertising and time that a house has on the market, the more listings it will attract, and that will help our industry as a whole because of the shortage.
Getting Buyers to Commit to You
When working with buyers, you NEED to get buyers to commit to you.
It is vital for an agent to have that buyer agency agreement in place, and you need to have buyers signing and agreeing to work with you exclusively. If they’re not willing to do that, then you are spinning your wheels — You’re working really hard, and you’re not getting paid for it.
If they find another house with another agent, then you lost all that time and wasted your energy. It’s critical to get skilled at getting the buyers to choose YOU over any other agent.
Ready, Set, Go!
Are you ready to start taking things to the next level? Start building up your inventory and learning the skills you need to get buyers to commit to working with you.
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Power Agents, you’ll find lots of tools to help you navigate listing conversations with more ease, success, and confidence in the Listing Appointment tab in your Classroom. There’s an entire 103-page virtual listing presentation in there as well as visuals to help you communicate the importance of pricing right – the first time!
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