Real Estate Cobrokers Deliver Significantly More New Homes Sales Than The Internet.

The Internet is delivering steady walk-in (unqualified) traffic to new homes sales centers, but it is the real estate cobroker that is delivering sales. In many markets, cobroker sales represent 60-80 percent of all sales.  It is easy enough to verify. Ask your local builder what their percentage of cobroker sales is. They will be happy to tell you.

When you really understand the market, it makes sense.  Cobrokers bring ready, willing and able prospects to the sales center, most of them prequalified for the mortgage that will be needed to purchase a home, new or resale, in that price range.

Very few people buy the home they saw on the internet otherwise real estate agents would not have to show more than one home to their prospects. Realtors screen their internet prospects who many times have a long list of homes they want to see, sometimes in different cities.

Homebuilders need to come to grips with the fact that it is the Realtor, not the internet, that generates sales and market to them as the dominant sales source that they are.

Some builders are doing this already.

Prove me wrong and I will retract this blog.

Comments?

How To Sell New Homes Prospects A New Home – Or A Resale (And Vice Versa)

Builder-certified new homes cobroker training schedule

Short sales are stressing real estate agents out!

What has to change is us. We must quit talking about thinking outside the box, and actually get out of it.  Which brings me to the first real change in real estate sales and listing training, in years:

A seven-video course to teach general agents to do the one proven thing that will increase their resales and listings…FARM NEW HOMES PROSPECTS!

Why? Because they not only buy new homes, they buy resales (and have homes to list).  We have spent over a year preparing this greatly needed opportunity for homebuilders and general agents to accept each others process and goals, then work together to help the other reach them.

Sessions are now scheduled. Join us.

Real Estate’s New Gold Standard – A New Homes Prospect

There you have it. The title of a six-part video series to be released within days, and the premise is going to surprise home builder’s and real estate agents alike. The training is designed to help home builder’s more new homes. How? By helping genereal agents sell more resales and get more listings. What?  Of course, this is not my idea. This is already being done, by a new homes team that focuses on ‘new homes prospects’ because ‘we are first and foremost resale and listing agents (ReMax). We are saving the details for the training, but here is the secret: The secret to new hoes sales success for general agents is not learning how to sell new homes. They don’t sell. They don’t even show homes. They introduce their prospects at the sales center!

To become reall active in the new homes sales process (finding, qualifying and diving a new homes prospect to a sales center), they need to be taught how to find new homes prospects and what to do with them when they do. Why? Because many of these new prospects will buy what? Resales! On teh other hand, as agents start experiencing the ease, fun, and excitement tht comes with ‘new’, they will become bettre at qualifying their resale prospects for “New” and thus will be forced to learn how to show new homes communities to their resale prospects.

The problem up to now (based on my 30 years experience as a new homes cobroker) is that there is no training among general real estate offices.

Commercial break: If your office would like to for once and forever be able to point your agents to new homes training from one of their own kind, who understand the importance of the agent’s resale and listing business, yet understands the need for agents to show new homes, especially in this market. I will have the program established within the nxt two weeks or so, probably on a subscription basis. So get the recruiting edge. Be the first in your market to offer “real new homes and condominiium trainnng.” while helping your agents get focused on the easiest sale in real estate.

Should You Reposition Your Community To Meet Shifts In Consumer Demand?

Dr. David Parker of Parker and Associates says his firm repositioned ‘several communities the first half of this year to take advantage of the long-terms shifts in consumer preference.” Dr. Parker, a personal friend, has been positioning and repositioning communities on a worldwide scale for most of his life.

Market position may not be everything, but it is extremely important in a slow market.

During the last major recession, I had the opportunity to serve as the marketing consultant for 27 condominium  communities funded by a large lender. My task was to interview the developer, evaluate the property then advise the lender to either wholesale, repositon the marketing and pricing strategies, the products and so forth.

When meeting the developers then and now, I always ask one question. “Who is your market and why do you think so?”  Each and every time, the developer gave the wrong answer, one generally based on “experience”.  Never once was I shown a market research or psychographic study.

Case # 1 – 40-Unit Condo, Space Coast of Florida.  No sales.  The developer said his market was the “mover and shaker.” His advertising was addressed to this market.  Researcher said “No, this is not your market. Your market is the “Achiever”.  Bring the achiever in and the movers and shakers will follow them in.  As is my practice, I spend an afternoon or longer one-on-one with the research representative, questioning their data sources, assumptions and recommendations.  Once I am satisfied that we clearly understand and agree on their findings, a positioning summary is presented to the advertising agency, landscaper, architect, and merchandizes to make sure we are all in agreement.

I had never heard the term “Achiever”, but was told that the Achiever they referred to probably worked at the Kennedy Space Center, had a PHD from MIT and had a record of outstanding accomplishments. The locals never heard of him or her, he said.

I then sought out the most creative agency I could find. As it turns out they had never marketed a new homes community, but it didn’t matter. I needed creative. For an “achiever” they recommended a lunar astronaut. A person who would be well known in the market as an achiever.  Bulls eye!

Once the campaign broke, announcing that the lunar astronaut owned a condominium in this community, the movers and shakers started coming out, especially after a second achiever, an itinerant world traveling veterinarian purchased.

Looking back, I didn’t have much to do with it. But I learned a great lesson. The research must go deeper than just ‘feasibility’ , and the marketing company needs to understand the research before they can deliver the right message.

Note: If you have a case study to share about repositioning, write the blog and I will post it, subject to approval of course.

In the meantime, if you would like a free consultation regarding your issues and opportunities contact David or his son Chris at 904 992 9888 or email them at info@parkerassociates.com.

Thank you in advance for forwarding this to those it may help increase sales.