For all real estate agents, getting new listing agreements is a crucial task. Now more than ever, due to COVID-19 crisis, getting new listings is key as sellers didn’t want to list their homes in the past weeks, due to coronavirus preoccupations.
This consequence was observed in almost all real estate markets throughout the world. As an example, in the U.S. Zillow.com showed that new listings are down 39% year-over-year overall. Worse, “new listings of the most-expensive homes are down 46%, while the least-expensive homes are down only 32%”.
So if you’re a real estate agent, how can you get new listings right now? How do you convince sellers to sell with you now, considering that the lockdowns are being lifted in most countries?
Zillow: New listings for expensive homes plunge 46% year over year
HousingWire, 13 May 2020
1. Tell Them Why They Should Sell With You, And Nobody Else
I currently live in Paris in Le Marais, 4th Arrondissement, which is the 3rd most expensive neighborhood in Paris after the 6th and 7th Arrondissements (FBW). As such, I often receive flyers from real estate agents in my mailbox, eager to secure new listings in a very competitive area.
Having analyzed these flyers for more than a year, I’m now convinced that one model (used by BARNES International Realty) is way more powerful than others. I’ve pasted this model below, which I will translate into English as it’s originally in French:
- Introduction to the real estate agency: 30% market shares on transactions above €1 million
- Emphasizing knowledge of the property market
- Giving precise figures of latest sales done by the agency in this precise neighborhood. In the three examples mentioned, they state for example: “Apartment of 43 square meters, rue Meslay, Paris 75003, for €620,000, which is €14,187/m2”
- We already have the buyers looking to acquire in your neighborhood, and our 180 real estate agents in Paris are here to help
- Contact us if you’d like to sell or even just to get a property valuation for free, which will remain strictly confidential
- Signature of the real estate agent
I find this model extremely powerful, because it conveys the right messages, in the right order. However the second question is: how do you convince them that now is the right time to sell?
2. Convincing Sellers That Now Is The Best Time To Sell
Now is the best time to sell because property prices may fall for several years. In other terms, selling now means selling for a better price, than if you wait 1 or 2 years to sell, moment at which prices may be lower!
Indeed, house prices respond to cycles. If we take Spanish property prices as an example, they:
- grew from 2000 to 2007
- decreased from 2008 until 2015
- grew from 2015 until 2020
Graphically, below, you can see that when real estate prices fall, they sometimes fall for 7 consecutive years (2008 to 2015). So, it does not matter if you are a property broker in the U.S., the UK, Europe or even Australia: we can not be certain that prices won’t start falling for the next 5 years to come.
So again, now is the best time to sell because if you take Spain as an example, the Great Recession caused house prices in 2020 to be equal to 2004. It was better to sell in 2009 or 2010 than to sell in 2015, once prices had hit rock-bottom. So if you want to sell, sell now, not later.
