How to Recession-Proof Your Real Estate Business as a New Agent
In today’s economy, it’s more important than ever to make sure your real estate business is recession-proof. Here are some tips for new agents to help them achieve this goal. Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been in the industry for a while, these tips will help you stay afloat during tough times.
Call Expired and Withdrawn Listings
Expired and withdrawn listings are properties that have been on the market but have not sold. An expired listing is a property that was listed for sale but did not sell within the specified timeframe, while a withdrawn listing is a property that was taken off the market before it sold. Both types of listings can represent great opportunities for real estate agents.
There are a few reasons why these listings can be such a good opportunity. For one, the owners of these properties may be more motivated to sell than those who have not yet had their listing expire or withdrawn. Additionally, these owners may be more open to negotiation on price since they’ve already been through the process once before.
Don’t Stop Marketing
Many businesses hit the pause button on their marketing efforts when a recession hits. After all, tight budgets are one of the defining characteristics of a recession. However, real estate agents cannot afford to do this if they want to keep their business afloat during tough economic times. In fact, marketing during a recession can be a great opportunity to steal market share from your competitors who are cutting back on their own marketing initiatives.
Here are three reasons why you should keep marketing your real estate business during a recession:
1. People are still buying and selling homes during a recession.
While it’s true that the number of transactions tends to go down during a recession, there are still plenty of people out there looking to buy and sell homes. In fact, many people see recessions as opportunities to buy properties at below-market prices. As such, if you can continue marketing your real estate business during a downturn, you’ll be in a good position to capitalize on these opportunities and maintain or even grow your business.
2. A downturn in the economy presents an opportunity to capture market share from your competitors.
When times are tough, some real estate agents will inevitably cut back on their marketing efforts due to budget constraints. This presents an opportunity for you to gain market share by continuing to market your business aggressively. Not only will this help you weather the storm better than your competitors, but it could also put you in a good position to come out of the recession stronger than ever before.
3. Marketing during a recession can help you build long-term relationships with your clients.
While it’s important to generate new leads during a recession, it’s also important to focus on building relationships with your existing clients. After all, these are the people who are most likely to continue doing business with you even after the economy has recovered. By maintaining consistent communication with your clients and delivering quality service, you can develop relationships that will last for years to come.
With that in mind, here are a few marketing strategies that will help you recession-proof your business and come out on top.
1. Get creative with your marketing budget.
Just because you may have to tighten your belt doesn’t mean you have to nix your marketing efforts altogether. There are plenty of cost-effective marketing strategies you can utilize to make the most of your reduced budget. For example, spending time on social media is a great way to stay top-of-mind with your sphere without breaking the bank. You can also get creative with your content, repurposing blog posts into social media posts or creating video content that you can post across multiple platforms.
2. Appeal to buyers and sellers alike.
While it’s important to focus on your target market during a recession, it’s also beneficial to appeal to both buyers and sellers. After all, even if people aren’t buying homes, they may still be interested in selling—and vice versa. By catering your marketing efforts to both groups, you’ll ensure that you don’t miss out on any opportunities that come your way.
3.Think longterm.
It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind of running a business and lose sight of the bigger picture. But during a recession, it’s more important than ever to think long-term—both in terms of how you want your business to grow and how you want to be perceived by customers and clients. For example, now is a great time to focus on building relationships with other local businesses or investing in search engine optimization so that you can attract more organic traffic down the line.
Maintain Your Relationships With Past Clients
By staying in touch with past clients, you create a pipeline of potential business that can keep your business afloat during tough economic times. While it’s important to stay focused on drumming up new business, it’s also crucial that you maintain relationships with your past clients. Here are a few tips for how you can do that.
1. Stay in touch with past clients after the transaction is complete. A personal phone call or handwritten note goes a long way in maintaining relationships. You can also stay in touch by sending them monthly newsletters or market updates. Doing so keeps you top-of-mind in case they have any future real estate needs or know someone who does.
2. Make yourself available to answer any questions they may have about their recent purchase or sale. Even if it’s been several months or years, your past clients will appreciate knowing that they can count on you for advice and guidance.
3. Check in with them periodically to see how they’re settling into their new home or community. This is a great opportunity to catch up on what’s new in their lives and see if they have any additional real estate needs.
By staying connected with past clients, you create loyalty and goodwill that can help sustain your business during tough economic times—or any time! By taking the time to nurture these relationships, you set yourself apart from other agents and position yourself as a trusted advisor for all of your clients’ real estate needs.
Build A Financial Safety Net
A financial safety net is a way to make sure you have enough cash on hand to cover expenses if your income takes a hit. For example, if you lose a few clients or deals fall through, you’ll still be able to cover your mortgage, car payments, and other bills.
Building a financial safety net can seem like a daunting task, but it’s actually pretty simple—it just takes some planning and discipline. Here are a few tips:
1. Save up three to six months’ worth of living expenses. This may seem like a lot, but it’s actually not as difficult as it sounds. Start by evaluating your monthly expenses and then multiplied that number by three or six. Once you have that number, start automatically transferring that amount into savings each month, so you don’t have to think about it.
2. Create passive income streams. Diversifying your income sources is always a good idea—but it’s especially important during economic downturns. If you have multiple streams of income, you’ll be less likely to feel the effects of a recession as severely as someone who only has one source of income.
Real estate agents can create passive income streams by investing in rental properties or becoming involved in home-flipping ventures.
3. Build up your emergency fund. An emergency fund is different from your savings account because it’s money that’s solely set aside for unexpected expenses—like an unanticipated car repair or medical bill. Many experts recommend having enough money in your emergency fund to cover three to six months’ worth of living expenses—just like with your savings account.
The bottom line is this: by taking the time to build up a financial safety net now, you’ll be better prepared to weather any future economic storms that come your way—recession-proofing your real estate business in the process.
Make Price Adjustments on Your Listings
Home sales and prices have taken a hit in recent months. However, there are steps that real estate professionals can take to weather the storm and come out ahead.
One of the most important things you can do is adjust your list prices accordingly. In a buyer’s market like we’re currently experiencing, it’s important to be competitive. Overpricing your listings will likely lead to them sitting on the market for longer than necessary. On the other hand, pricing your listings too low could leave money on the table. The key is to strike a balance and price your listings in a way that entices buyers without giving away too much.
Another important tip is to make sure your listings stand out from the competition. With so many homes on the market, buyers have more choices than ever before. That’s why it’s important to make sure your listings are in tip-top shape, both inside and out. This means decluttering, deep cleaning, and making any necessary repairs or touch-ups.
Automate and Outsource Low-Value Tasks
Low-value tasks are the day-to-day activities that take up time but don’t generate any income. Answering emails, scheduling appointments, and updating your website are all examples of low-value tasks. These tasks are necessary to keep your business running, but they don’t directly generate revenue.
By automating repetitive tasks such as email marketing and social media postings, you can free up time to focus on more important tasks such as developing relationships with clients and working on transactions. In addition, by outsourcing tasks such as transaction coordination and administrative work, you can reduce your overhead costs while still providing a high level of service to your clients.
The following are some specific examples of tasks that can be automated or outsourced:
Email Marketing: Automating your email marketing allows you to stay in touch with your sphere of influence without having to dedicate hours each week to crafting individual emails. There are a number of affordable email marketing platforms that make it easy to automate your email communications.
Social Media: Automating your social media postings frees up time that can be spent on other tasks, and it ensures that your social media accounts are active even when you’re busy with other things.
Transaction Coordination: Transaction coordination is a time-consuming but necessary task that can be easily outsourced. Transaction coordinators handle a variety of tasks, such as scheduling appointments, ordering inspections, and preparing documents for closing. By outsourcing this work, you can focus on developing relationships with clients and generating new leads.
Administrative Work: Administrative tasks such as answering phones, filing paperwork, and setting appointments can be easily outsourced to a virtual assistant or an administrative assistant. This will free up your time so that you can focus on generating new business.
During a recession, it’s more important than ever to be strategic about how you run your real estate business. One way to do this is to automate and outsource low-value tasks. This will help you reduce your overhead costs while still maintaining a high level of service for your clients.
Never Stop Prospecting
Prospecting is the process of identifying and qualifying potential customers. In the real estate industry, this means reaching out to people who may be interested in buying or selling a home and determining whether or not they are ready to take action.
Even in the best of times, only a small percentage of people who are thinking about buying or selling a home will actually take action and contact an agent. During a recession, that number can drop even lower. That’s why it’s so important for agents to keep up their prospecting efforts; by continually reaching out to potential customers, you increase your chances of finding someone who is ready to do business.
How to Prospect Effectively
The most important thing to remember when prospecting is that it’s a numbers game. The more people you reach out to, the more likely you are to find someone who is interested in working with you. Here are a few tips for effective prospecting:
– Use Multiple Channels: Don’t just rely on one method of reaching potential customers. Mix things up and reach out via phone, email, social media, mail, etc.
– Be Persistent: It can take multiple contacts before someone is ready to work with an agent. If you don’t hear back from someone after your first attempt, reach out again—and keep reaching out until you get a response.
– Keep It Personal: In today’s world of automation and mass marketing, consumers are craving personalization and customization. When prospecting, take the time to personalize your message and make it relevant to the specific person you’re contacting.
– Offer Value: When reaching out to potential clients, always offer them something of value—whether it’s information about the current market conditions or information about the home-buying process. If you can show them that you’re knowledgeable and helpful from the start, they’ll be more likely to want to work with you down the road.
Develop Short-Term Goals
Setting goals—both short and long-term—is an important part of running any successful business. Having goals gives you something to strive for and keeps you focused on what’s important. But during economic downturns, when business is slower, and finances are tighter, it’s even more important to set goals. That’s because goals help you stay motivated and focused on generating new business, even when things are slow.
The first step in setting any kind of goal is to determine what you want to achieve. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s important to be specific about what you’re hoping to accomplish. The generalizable formula for setting effective goals is known as S.M.A.R.T.:
S = Specific: The more specific your goal is, the easier it will be to measure your progress and determine whether or not you’ve achieved it.
M = Measurable: Without being able to measure your progress, it will be difficult to know if (and when) you’ve hit your target.
A = Achievable or Attainable: If your goal is too ambitious, you’ll likely become discouraged when you don’t hit it. On the other hand, if it’s not ambitious enough, you probably won’t see much of a return on investment for your efforts. Try to strike a balance between the two extremes by setting a goal that is both challenging and achievable.
R = Relevant or Results-Oriented: Make sure your goal is relevant to your overall business strategy; otherwise, you risk working hard without seeing any real results in terms of growing your business.
T = Timely or Time-Sensitive: Setting a deadline for yourself will help ensure that you stay focused and on track toward hitting your goal.
Keep a Daily Routine
A daily routine will help you stay focused and motivated, even when times are tough. Here are some tips for keeping a daily routine that will help you recession-proof your real estate business.
1. Wake up early and start your day with some exercise.
2. Get dressed in clothes that make you feel powerful and professional.
3. Make a list of things you need to accomplish that day, and then start working on them one by one.
4. Take breaks throughout the day to clear your head and recharge your batteries.
5. At the end of the day, take some time to reflect on what you accomplished and what you could improve for tomorrow.
6. Make sure to get enough sleep so you can wake up feeling refreshed and ready to take on the day ahead.
7. Repeat!
Join A Team
One way to recession-proof your real estate business is to join a team. When you join a team, you gain access to more resources, networking opportunities, and support. Here are three reasons why joining a team is a smart move for your business.
1. More Resources
When you join a real estate team, you instantly have access to more resources. For example, you’ll likely have access to more administrative support, marketing resources, and lead-generation tools. This can free up your time so that you can focus on what you do best: closing deals.
2. Networking Opportunities
As a member of a real estate team, you’ll also have the opportunity to network with other team members. This network can be a valuable resource when it comes to finding new listings, getting referrals, and sharing best practices. Additionally, many teams host events and educational seminars that can help you stay ahead of industry news and trends.
3. Support
Finally, one of the biggest benefits of joining a real estate team is that you’ll have access to experienced professionals who can offer advice and support. Whether you’re just starting out in the business or you’ve been around for a while, having someone to bounce ideas off of or ask for help can be invaluable.
Are you a newer agent trying to stay afloat during this recession? Bernie Gallerani Real Estate is the #1 in the MLS in Middle Tennessee. We help newer real estate agents launch their careers in Middle Tennessee. If you are an agent in the Nashville area, click here to chat now so we can see if we can help you in your real estate career with our new agent training program.
As a new real estate agent, it is important to remember that recessions are a part of the business cycle. However, there are things you can do to recession-proof your real estate business. By following the tips in this blog post, you can make sure that your business remains strong even when the market takes a downturn. Which of these steps will you take to recession-proof your real estate business?