One of the most common areas of concern for the agents that we engage with has been prospecting. There are many different ways to prospect new vendor leads effectively, and a market with high demand and low levels of supply always poses a challenge.
We engaged with one agent a number of weeks ago, who wanted advice on prospecting. Going after what traditionally was seen as the ‘low hanging fruit’, i.e. properties that had failed to sell and were already on the market with competitor agents, has been a poisoned chalice. You can generally assume that properties that have failed to sell in such an active ‘seller’s market’ comes down to unrealistic vendor expectations in terms of pricing.
A lot of the prospecting data providers will tell you that the smart money is therefore not only on targeting ‘on the market’ properties but should be in predicting who is going to want to move next. After all, using logical assumptions and data that we already hold, we should be able to stand a good chance of predicting people that might be getting that moving itch.
Are you living in your dream home?
As respected industry trainer Stephen Brown says in one of his Kerfuffle Kampus pieces - one of the best questions you can ask people in the post-pandemic era is ‘Are you living in your dream home?’. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But the real magic is asking this of anyone that has bought a house in the past three years.
Anniversary campaigns - the method of reaching out to homeowners on the anniversary of their home purchase, have always been seen as a great, slow-burn prospecting and nurturing method. After all, most agents are notoriously poor at implementing a keep in touch policy and it's statistically proven that the agent that does continually engage tends to reap the rewards when the homeowner becomes a seller.
Why three is better than ten
People used to assume that a ten-year cycle was what was needed, ie, those that had bought houses ten years ago, may have outgrown their current home or were getting itchy feet and looking to move on. Stephen Brown challenges this assumption with some sound logic and we based our advice to our member agent around this.
Stephen’s magic question is simple, but if you were to ask this of anyone that has purchased a property in the past three years - the likelihood is they are going to tell you that they are not living in their dream home and that they have had to compromise on their expectations. They fall into two categories - those that purchased in the year before the pandemic and those that purchased thereafter.
As demand surged and supply dropped, average values have soared and therefore, those that fall into the first category, having purchased before the pandemic, consider themselves lucky to have got in before the price and demand surge, but they also are tempted to realise the uplift in value by selling. Taking advantage of a real seller’s market, this could be their chance to realise a good profit and move onto a more superior home of their dreams.
Talking to buyers who purchased during the last two years, especially those who found themselves caught up in the government’s Great British Stamp Duty Giveaway, you will learn that the answer to Stephen’s question is that in an overwhelming number of cases, they are not living in their dream home. They report instead that they turned up for viewings during the pandemic, only to find themselves competing with 20 to 30 other buyers, and finding and securing a property was really challenging. At some point, becoming despondent and fearing constant rejection they ended up settling for less than their ideal home. Many of these buyers ended up compromising on location, on size, on condition and decided to settle for less. A lot of these buyers have done work to their new homes, but have yet to achieve their true dream home and would consider moving on readily, even after such a relatively short period of ownership.
The agent that we worked with, started to build an anniversary campaign that targeted everyone who had purchased a home in their patch, within the last three years, regardless of whether they had been the selling agent or not.
A simple anniversary letter, wishing the owner congratulations and remarking on what a period of unprecedented sales activity there has been in the last three years, perhaps including a property report to update them on the current state of the market and how it may apply to their property, really seems to work wonders. We didn’t use that opportunity to directly ask for their business - we merely asked them to pass our details to any of their friends, family and neighbours who may be thinking of selling, as there is constant demand for properties in this very popular location.
The results were surprisingly good and the agent in question has been attending a good number of market appraisals that for the most part, are entirely uncontested. They were the only agent to be called out to it, meaning that fees were less likely to be subject to contentious negotiation and that they were focused on prospecting a rich seam of motivated sellers.
Kerfuffle Kampus is full of wonderful insights and Kerfuffle’s consultants can help revitalise your marketing and lead generation efforts, together with our supplier partners. Get in touch with us today, to arrange a free consultation with one of our experts.
