I see realtors spend money to buy seller leads all the time.
Why spend money on leads when you can get them for almost nothing?
I've seen agents run ads on Facebook and Google and other places and spend $10 to 30 per seller lead that comes in. That's crazy when you can get hundreds (if not thousands) of leads for almost nothing.
Facebook is great for buyer leads or normal seller leads. But you need to be utilizing the source of unlimited leads just for a monthly fee.
Here's how I do that.
I dig a little bit deeper and find the people that are interested in selling their house.
You can get hundreds of great seller leads from the Redx - for almost nothing.
I pull thousands of old expireds from the MLS and Redx does ALL the work to research them for me.
First, they check to make sure the properties haven’t been re-listed or sold. And then they research ALL the owner’s contact info - including cell phone numbers.
Expired and FSBO leads are the most important cold leads you can prospect.
The best agents depend on a steady flow of expired leads. Paying for Facebook ads or ads in other places works, but by no means is it the most cost-effective leads.
Sign up for Redx. All you have to pay is a monthly fee and it has the different types of leads already laid out for you.
You can go back three to six months into your MLS and pull up houses that expired then, upload that data into the REDX and then they will do all the research.
Redx checks to see if the house has been relisted. It checks to see if the house has been sold and if a house sale pending.
Then once they've checked all the data to make sure it's good, it will research all the phone numbers for you, including cell phone numbers. It’s basically everything you need.
It's big to have people's cell phone numbers, so when you call they answer and you can get the listing.
Here's what else is great. You can go back three month, six months, even 12 months back in your MLS, download the data yourself as a CSV or as an ASCI file and upload that information into the REDX and they do all the work to research it for you.
I've gotten a lot of listings from old expireds like this. You can also go back a year, two years, three years, even as much as four years back into your MLS and pull up expireds from four years ago. It makes sure they haven't sold and they're not active.
You will have little competition for these listings.
You know how on new expireds they get barraged with hundreds of phone calls as soon as their house expires? With these old leads, they're not getting barraged.
In fact, you're often the only agent contacting them about listing their house. So find all the old expireds. Hack the REDX to get the listing. Once you get those leads, you can use the smart agent system to convert those leads into listings.
What if you are in a red hot market?
Let's imagine, you're in a market that's so hot, so absolutely hot that there are no expireds.
But take into account what I just told you. There are actually thousands (potentially tens of thousands) of expireds hidden right below the surface.
Here's an example of how you can list old expireds and how you can make a lot of money off of them as a result.
I remember when I first started listing houses. I was 20 years old - selling real estate in Gainesville, Florida.
I had worked as a buyer’s agent for about a year and decided I wanted to get into listings. There were some new expireds.
I worked those leads. But I also started working what the old expireds. I found one that had expired about a year previously and contacted the sellers.
I put their house on the market for $229,900. It sold for $296,000 in ten days. I made an 8,800 dollar commission in 45 days.
Everything went so smoothly.I had some major disadvantages:
- I was only 20 years old.
- I was extremely green at listings.
- I didn't have a great listing presentation.
- I wasn't tremendously confident.
- I didn't have superstar sales skills.
Despite all that, I got that listing because I was the only Realtor knocking on their door.
I had no competition because all the other Realtors were focused on the new expireds.
So, if you're in a red hot market, start with the homes that expired three to six months ago. Then, works the listings that expired six to twelve months.
Once you're done with them, you can start working the older leads. Even the Expireds that are 3-4 years old are good leads.
Do you remember the last time the housing market crashed?
The market crash really affected our business. Florida crashed, and it crashed hard.
You could say crashed and burned.
Wouldn't you like to avoid the pain the next time it potentially happens?
Get really good at working the expireds.
If you're good with the expireds, they can become your “bread and butter.”
You can make a ton of money by working the expireds and cherry picking only the sellers that are motivated.
I know here in Jacksonville, the market crashed hard during the bust of 2009 and 2010.
However, if you look at the numbers, right now we have about 10,500 resales every six months here in the Jacksonville Area.
When the market crashed, that number dropped quite dramatically. It dropped to around 3,500 sales every six months. That’s a drop of more than half.
But, notice it didn’t drop to zero. (Even though it felt like it.) Here’s something else that interesting.
When the market slows down, the number of realtors also drops, as well. Tons and tons of people drop out of the business. They go and get a job.
They become demoralized and just quit. You can grow your market share.
A good, hard working, aggressive realtor will actually grow during a market slowdown.
Expireds are the key.
So, if you're concerned about a market slowdown in the future, focus on the expireds.
Become excellent at working the expireds and your business will thrive and prosper during the coming market slowdown.
We just released a book that shows you everything we know about listing Expireds. Now is your chance to get it for free.
These tips have enabled our team to list over 600 expireds. So, you know they work. Go here to get a copy of the book:
Joe Nickelson is a real estate professional dedicated to helping home buyers and sellers achieve their dreams of owning property, and helping real estate agents stop using the sometimes-vicious tactics that weigh on their consciences. He believes that the Smart Agents books will, quite literally, change people’s lives for the better. Check out his full bio here!
