How to get exclusive listings

Don’t ask the owner for an exclusive listing, earn it!

In last week’s post I told you the 4 keys to finding real estate investment opportunities for your clients. If you missed it, wait no more and read it here! Today I’m telling you about how to get an exclusive listing, so, without further ado, let’s get into it.

As you likely know, getting an exclusive listing is not always easy. The best way to go about getting an exclusive listing is by earning it, not by asking for it. Here are some key things you need to know to get an exclusive listing of a property.

1. SEARCH FOR CONTACTS

First of all, look for listings on different real estate portals. This is a good way to find contact details for individuals selling their houses. When searching for contacts, you can apply the following criteria, which will allow you to focus on potential clients.

• Older listings. Choose 2 or 3 real estate portals and sort the listings by oldest to newest. Focus on any properties that have been up for at least 3 months.

In doing so, you’re targeting individuals who have been trying to sell the property on their own for a long time, but without success. This means they’re likely to be more open to hiring the services of a professional. For this you need to keep two things in mind.

• 1. Not all real estate portals allow you to sort by date posted.
  2. Sometimes the dates aren’t reliable as if the individual updates the listing, they also update the date, replacing the original listing date with the update date.

• Properties adjusted to market price.. Focus on properties that are priced according to the market price, this will give you information about the owner. You won’t have to convince them to adjust the price, which will make it easier for you to explain how you work.

Oftentimes, when you suggest a price drop they become defensive, believing they’re doing a bad job, when in reality, they’re just adjusting to the real market prices.

If you want to save time and not have to go from portal to portal looking for individuals, start your free Betterplace trial and get all individual listings with their real posting date in one place.

2. CALL

Once you have the list of individuals, the dreaded moment arrives: making that 1st call to the owner. Don’t panic, because in the how to convince an owner who doesn’t want agencies post, we give you tips to successfully overcome that first call.

As a professional in the industry, you will always have more advantages than an individual when it comes to selling and/or promoting a property — all you need to do is explain this to them.

For example, one advantage is all the resources you have access to. An agent always has more resources than a private individual when it comes to selling and/or promoting a property (photos, videos, socials, etc.) and even just with these aspects, the quality of the listing increases visibility on portals by 60%. These are resources that a private individual does not have nor apply.

3. VISIT

After having successfully overcome that 1st call by scheduling a visit, now you need to prepare for it. This point is very important as the individual’s first impression of you will greatly influence their decision to allow you to list their property exclusively. Here are a few tips to ‘conquer’ the owner.

• Attract the owner, not the property. The attitude you bring to the viewing is key. If the owner sees that you only want to work with them for the commission, forget it, you won’t get anywhere. On the other hand, if they see that you have a relaxed, positive and transparent attitude, they’ll see that you really want to help them, and you will earn their trust.

• Excuses. Most likely, throughout the visit the owner will give you excuses, such as: I’ve had bad experiences with other real estate agencies, I’m not convinced about paying x fees, etc.That’s fine. Tell them that you’re only there so that they can get to know you, see what you’re like and explain your way of working, and that at no time do they need to sign anything they don’t want to.

This will get their attitude to change and make them open to listening to you. This is when you should explain how you work, what things you can do to sell their house that they can’t, and at the same time, tell them the advantages of an exclusive listing.

Everything mentioned above needs to be backed up with data. It’s the best way to support your work and demonstrate that you came to the viewing prepared.

Prepare a report including relevant data for the owner, like the following:

• • The average time it takes to sell a property similar to theirs in the same area.
  • The supply and demand relationship in the area for a property with the same characteristics. This information will give the seller an idea of the sales opportunities they may have as well as whether it will be easy to sell or not based on demand.
  • The average market price in the area
  • Valuate their property. As you probably already know the characteristics of the property beforehand, take a valuation with you. By bringing a report with you, plus the previous arguments and the valuation price, you’re giving them information that they most likely didn’t know, making them realise they don’t have the knowledge nor the resources to sell their property on their own.

All of the data mentioned in this post can be instantly obtained with the Betterplace property report. You can also do a valuation of the property if you want to save time by automating this process ⇒ Start your free trial