Roanoke Valley Real Estate Careers

Do You Still Need a Website as an Agent?

Do you need a website as a real estate agent in this marketplace? Lots of agents I talk to seem to think they don't need them anymore. Here's why I think they're crucial.

Book a FREE Business Strategy Session

As a real estate agent in this market, should you have a website? A lot of agents ask me if anyone even needs a website in this market anymore.

My answer is this: your website is your calling card. It's where people go to find out whether you're legitimate or not. They want to see whether you list and sell homes.

I encourage anyone who is serious about the real estate business to either join a team with a great website or a company with a great website. It's hard to buy a $50 solution to a website and still be seen as legitimate in the marketplace.

Your website is your calling card.

In short, when companies like mine spend tens of thousands of dollars every month on websites, it's hard to compete if you have a cheap, $50 website. Every website manufacturer out there will tell you it's possible, but it's simply not.

If you're going to be a real estate agent and take the job seriously, I suggest you spend the money on the tools to do the job right. If you have any questions about how we do it and who we use or if you're interested in joining our team, give me a call or send me an email. I hope to hear from you soon!

What’s Our Secret to Getting New Clients?

Our strategy for getting new clients is quite simple. We go out of our way to meet and talk to people we haven’t before.

Book a FREE Business Strategy Session

Today we are excited to discuss with you our strategy to getting more clients. We are in the house selling business, so what do we have to do? Expose ourselves to more and more people every week.

The goal for everyone on our team is to meet 40 new people each week that we have never talked to before. Some people might ask why we are giving away our strategy. Simply put, we don’t believe that our competitors are willing to put in the work we put in to talk to this many new people each week.

You want to meet more and more people all the time.

Last year, we talked to 2,000 people we had never talked to before. When you do that, it’s hard not to get new business buying and selling houses. You want to meet more and more people all the time. If you aren’t expanding your network, you won’t succeed in this business.

If you have any questions for us or want to learn more about expanding your list of contacts, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you.

How New Agents Can Get Leads

If you're new to the business of real estate, the first thing you should do is ask yourself where you're going to get business from. Getting new leads is the hardest part of real estate.

Book a FREE Business Strategy Session

A lot of agents ask me what I would do if I was first getting into the business, so I wanted to drop by with some important tips for brand-new agents.

If I was entering the business today, the first thing I would do is ask myself where I'm going to get business. If you don't have a ready answer for that, you need to put things on pause and figure it out.

Getting business and leads is the hardest part of this business.

When I first got into the business, I spent the first month and a half in the phone book calling the A's and asking if anyone wanted to buy or sell a house. I didn't sell a house until I got to the B's! It took a month and a half to get a sale because I had no book of business.

Getting leads is the hardest part of this business.

If you ask yourself where you're going to get business from and you don't know the answer, I'd highly recommend investigating a team. On our team, we love new agents because we can teach them. Old agents tend to come with old habits. New agents who have been in the business for less than a couple of years do great on our team and they sell tons of houses, and we love them.

Newer agents are able to sell a ton of houses with us because we have a book of business for them. They walk in and they instantly have leads–which are the hardest thing in this business to get.

If you have any questions about developing business and getting leads, give me a call. I'd love to talk with you and help you advance your career.

Prepare Your Roanoke Home for Listing Photos

There are a few steps sellers should take to get their homes ready for listing photos.

First of all, organize and clean the home so it looks spacious and inviting to buyers. You don’t want the home to look sparse, but you do need to declutter. Get everything off the countertops. You can maybe leave a decorative, colorful cannister out, but put the coffeepot and the toaster away.

Now, you don’t necessarily need to have everything hidden away for home showings, but it does have to be like that for the photos. No one likes a photo of themselves, even though it’s a picture of the same person you saw in the mirror this morning. Photos are still, which gives you a chance to examine every detail you don’t like. The same holds true for photos of your home on the MLS.

So, get everything off the top of the fridge, make a nice arrangement on the table, and make sure everything is in its place. If you have to move a bunch of stuff into a separate room to take the photos, go ahead. You can just move everything back later.

Make sure your home looks nice and spacious in the photos.

Finally, make sure you take photos when the sun is on the front of your house and there are no shadows. Shadows can make a home look sad and dismal. You should also make sure that the front yard looks nice; put down fresh mulch and seal the driveway. Then, your listing photos will be in great shape.

If you have any questions, just give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!

How Does a Home Seller Conquer Clutter in Roanoke?

Looking to improve your real estate career? I'm here to help you make a smart decision when it comes to growing your business, improving your bottom line, and choosing a place to work in real estate sales. If you'd like to learn more about working with Damon Gettier and Associates, contact me at (540) 314-1199 or Damon@DamonGettier.com.

How do we get a seller to conquer clutter?

What we did recently is had our photographer and one of our assistants go into a $300,000 house, photograph it as is, declutter it, and then re-photograph it the same day. We did that because I don’t like before/after photos - the lighting is different, the house is different, the camera’s different, even the location is different. Our true before and after photos could amply demonstrate that.

We tell sellers all the time that the first thing people do when they decide to sell a car is detail it. The logic is no different with selling a house. If your house is filled to the brim (and most are), then the next potential buyer is going to be discouraged from buying it. That’s why you need to make the house look spacious. It has to feel warm, inviting, and show people there is plenty of room in there to live in and be happy. If it’s cluttered, you’re never going to get that feeling.

“

Box up all the things you don’t
need and store them elsewhere.

”

Therefore, box up everything that you don’t need and ship it out. If it’s spring or summer, get rid of all your winter clothes. If the kids have toys they don’t play with anymore, they go too. If you can’t afford to rent a storage unit or a pod to store it all, that’s fine. Just use your garage or basement. If it has to be the basement, stack your boxes very neatly from floor-to-ceiling so that it takes up the least amount of footprint possible. If you do that, you’re house will appear much more spacious and inviting, and sell faster and for more money.

If you have any questions about staging, decluttering, or joining Roanoke’s #1 team, please reach out to us. We’d be happy to talk to you.

Gifts Show Your Clients How Much You Value Them

Giving gifts is a great way to show clients how much you value them. I wanted to share some of my favorite ideas with you today. Clients appreciate anything of value that you give as a gift with heartfelt sincerity.

We always send a handwritten card to every single client. It’s been a game-changer for us. We also send a handwritten card to every agent we deal with now, and we’ve also started giving a gift card to every agent. The way we see it, we worked a deal with them, and our goal in life is to work a deal with every agent and have everybody come out of it happy. We give every client a gift card as well.

“

We want to give clients a gift that
provides value and stays with them.

”

The other thing we do for our clients is give them a Cutco knife. We made an investment of about $20,000 into Cutco last year, and we give one to each client because we value the relationship, and we want to give them something in return that provides value, and stays with them. Some give a gift basket, for example, but that just doesn’t stay with you.

Likewise, a gift card to a restaurant doesn’t last. Right now, if someone buys or sells a house with us, we’re giving them a cruise. They're spending a lot of money, and it gives them a chance at a vacation after the big transaction. Some can afford vacations and some can’t so we like to give that opportunity to everyone.

If you’re looking for more ideas for gifts, please feel free to give me a call. I’d love to help.

The Effect of Tech on the Roanoke Market

Did you know that tech trends have an influence on real estate? Some of them may surprise you.

Virtual reality headsets play a part in real estate now with 3D videos that can be used for home tours. You can use the headset to virtually walk through a house! I’ve got friends across the country who are testing this now with clients. It looks like it might be a game changer for showings.

Drone technology has also taken over the world in the last couple years. Now you have to have a pilot license for drones, but there are companies around Roanoke that use drone videos. This will change the way you see a property.

One of the most intriguing trends we’re seeing is smart homes. Personally I have the Nest thermostat, and I can control my house and my office temperatures from my phone. Video cameras have become much more popular in homes as well, which give you a real-time view of what’s happening during a showing or open house. You can also hear what you’re saying, so we need to be careful about what we do and say in a house.

If you want to learn more about how technology is changing real estate or have any real estate questions, don’t hesitate to call or email us today!

How Our Clients Become Clients for Life

How do we help clients find a home for life?

The biggest thing we stress on our team is that when we’re selling, the only thing we are selling is our team. We sell houses, but we don’t sell people on houses. We don’t try to convince our clients to buy or not to buy, the selling we do is completely within our team.

That’s why our clients want to do business with us. They see the value and benefits we offer them, and how we can do more for them as a team than any other agent can. That’s what we’re selling.

We want our buyers to be buyers for life, so we listen to their needs, assess them, and look for corresponding homes that match. When we show them a house and they try to convince themselves to buy it even though it’s not what they want, we remind them of what they told us they wanted. We want them to be sure they are buying the house that they want.

Another way we help our buyers is by offering a love it or leave it listing guarantee. If they don’t love the home they bought, we will sell it for free for them within the next year. We never want our buyers to feel trapped.

If you have any other questions for us, or want to sit down and talk about your career and how Damon Gettier & Associates can help you, give us a call or send us an email. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )