Realty and Mortgage Professionals:
Team of the Future
With "For Sale By Owner" programs becoming rampant on
the internet, a do-it-yourself trend seems to be the future for
home owners looking to sell their homes. To remain a viable alternative
to the FSBO method of home selling, Realty and Mortgage Professionals
MUST change their approach to business or risk being consumed by
the wave of change. After the current Sellers' market evaporates,
an evolved team approach should become the standard in real estate.
When professional people work together toward a common goal, the
magic of "synergy" makes the end result easier without
a lot of additional effort from either. In this new age of marketing,
simply placing your home in the MLS and holding open houses miss
the mark for effective marketing strategies. Working with a professional
team that includes a Mortgage Professional and a REALTOR, you'll
have a hands-free system working for you. The ability to offer multiple
financing options for your home along with a high-touch response
system will give you an edge by making it easy to capture buyers
for your home.
The system we utilize works as follows. By placing focused ads
in several publications, the team generates many more calls from
Buyers and can track the effectiveness of this marketing effort.
Contained within the body of the ads is a response mechanism offering
hassle-free, pre-recorded information to interested callers. Buyers
call while at the peak of their interest and listen to a recorded
description of your home. A critically important feature is that
the caller's telephone number is identified and forwarded to both
the Agent and Mortgage Professional
even if the caller forgets
to leave their telephone number. This capability multiplies your
chances for a sale. The marketing of your property is accomplished
around the clock whether or not an Agent is sitting next to a phone.
Additionally, this system allows the professional team to track
WHERE the call was triggered.
For example: if ads are placed in the New Milford Times, News Times,
a sign rider, and a flyer, each ad will have a different response
number assigned to it. This way, as responses are logged, it can
be determined WHICH advertising medium is most effective at triggering
the responses. So marketing efforts (and dollars) can be re-deployed
based on the results to reach the market attracted to your particular
property.
Once the responses start, the "weeding-out" process begins.
The Mortgage Professional pre-qualifies interested people, making
sure that they actually qualify for a mortgage to purchase your
home. This capability also screens out the tire-kickers and time-wasters,
yielding only truly motivated and - more importantly - qualified
Buyers for your home. When working as a team, this process is handled
more efficiently with each professional handling the details for
her/his part in the transaction.
By embracing technology and the synergy of a team approach to home
selling, home Sellers WILL have an excellent tool at their disposal.
This approach ultimately translates into savings for Sellers. As
real estate commissions continue to be forced downward by forces
using the internet, only those with innovative marketing skills
and alliances will be left standing.
Mark Atkinson is a partner in A&M Mortgage Solutions, a mortgage
resource for those buying, selling or refinancing real estate. He
can be reached by phone at (860) 350-8400. E-mail at Info@AM-Consult.com.
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