Where most good real estate leads will come from in the coming months

These days, everyone is craving more certainty. And real estate professionals are no exception! Chances are, during these challenging times, you’re looking for ways to create as much predictability as possible when it comes to your real estate marketing.

Well, here’s some good news…

Home buyers and sellers want more certainty, too. So, in the coming months, they’re likely to gravitate even more towards choosing an agent in one of the following ways:

• An agent they’ve come to know.
• An agent someone has recommended to them.
• An agent they’ve worked with before.

These are already the most common means in which buyers and sellers find agents. In fact, research by NAR indicates that 41-50% of buyers and sellers hired an agent who was recommended to them. In the coming months and years, that number will likely increase as prospects increasingly go for the safe choice: an agent they know or has been recommended.

So, how do you take advantage of this trend?

It comes down to building relationships, consistently and systematically. There are two groups you should be focusing on.

The first group is your past clients. On average, homeowners have two or three opportunities each year to recommend an agent. That’s a lot of potential real estate referrals. The common scenario is a friend or neighbour who’s moving and asks, “We’re looking for a real estate agent. Do you know a good one?”

To ensure you get those real estate referrals, you need to keep in touch with those clients, ideally with a good client referrals system that utilizes a value-packed real estate newsletter. When you do, trust builds and your past client increasingly sees you as the agent to recommend.

And don’t forget that clients move, at a rate of about once every five years (according to an article by relocation expert Joshua Green.) Getting those transactions is also a benefit of nurturing client relationships.

Now, while you’re doing so much work from home, is the ideal time to contact your past clients and re-engage. If you haven’t done so already, you should also look at how you’re currently staying-in-touch with past clients and, if necessary, get a better real estate marketing system.

The second group is the communities you target. Geographic farming is a proven tactic for getting homeowners in a targeted area to know, like and trust you — and when they know, like and trust you, they are much more likely to feel confident in calling you when they need an agent.

If you’re not currently targeting a farm, now is the perfect time to do so. These days more than ever, people are looking for professionals they can trust. By farming an area using a good geographic farming system, you can quickly become a familiar and trusted face.

Bottom line: In increasing numbers, buyers and sellers are going to be choosing agents they know, or who have been recommended. Harness this trend to get more good real estate leads and referrals, in the coming months and years.