Marketing New Construction Real Estate

We are very excited to announce the release of Agent Shield’s social media tools.  Real Estate professionals can utilize these FREE tools to instantly market new construction properties on social media places such as their Facebook profiles, their Wordpress/Blogger blogs along with many other sites/services.

Click here to learn more.

Held once every 18 months, the NAR Resort Symposium is a networking and educational event for Realtors specializing in selling resort and second homes. Realtors in attendance either already have their Resort and Second-Home Property Specialist (RSPS) certification or are attending to earn their RSPS certification. The symposium will consist of educational events, seminars, tours and social events.

When & Where: March 29-31 in Naples, FL
Hosted By: NAR and NABOR (Naples Association Board of Realtors).
Attendance: 200 – 400 Realtors with RSPS certification or in the process of acquiring

Agent Shield will be exibiting this year at the 2009 NAR Resort Symposium.  If you are attending the event, please visit us at Booth #6.

We had an opportunity to meet and talk with Ginny Lee, Broker/Owner of America’s Best Real Estate.  She’s an amazing and super energetic lady.  Thank you for the great review and article about Agent Shield.  A reprint of the article is below.  Here’s a link to view the article on AgentDirectNews.com. 

Why Sell New Construction by Ginny Lee & Jason Dolle

I had the great pleasure of meeting the creators of www.agentshield.com who have created the best way to showcase new homes on your personal Realtor website and to make it easier for Realtors to sell new homes. They created a website that brings all the leads to the Realtor that signs up for Agent Shield and that agent retains all the leads so they can sell them the new home that the buyers are interested in. No more loosing the buyers if they walk in the new home sales center without you. You get the lead from your Agent Shield website, call the buyer and then register them with the new home sales office the buyer is interested in. You can even make money selling new homes that are not in your home town sometimes not even in the USA. Best of All it is FREE to all Realtors who sign up. Agent Shield™ can help you increase sales by quickly integrating a new development project that you may not have had the ability to effectively market in the past. Currently, as a real estate professional, you may be hesitant to link to any other outside websites, including any new construction sites for fear of losing valuable leads. With Agent Shield™, you can safely link to any site in the Agent Shield™ Network with confidence. When a user clicks on a link from your site to a development site, all the contact information on that site now becomes yours!  These are just a few of the benefits:

• Link to new developments’ websites without fear of losing leads.
• Increase sales by quickly adding rich new products to your site.
• Never have outdated data about a development, thus increasing your credibility and customer satisfaction.
• Maintain full control of your leads.
• Stay on the edge of your market with automatic notices of any new developments or changes to existing ones.
• Maximize your website’s effectiveness.

Below are some of the benefits of selling new homes:

• Higher commissions – On average the typical split on an existing home sale leaves the agent with 3% commission on that sale. Typically, 3% is the minimum commission these days for a new construction sale. There are all sorts of financial incentives these days for selling new construction. Some developers are offering 3% when the contract is written with an additional 2% when the property closes. Others are offering a $25,000 bonus when the contract is firm. Still others offer vacations and even new cars for selling their product. These incentives are designed to grab your attention as realtors and to entice you to learn more about their development in hopes that it will be in the forefront of your mind when dealing with a potential buyer.
• Stats on Realtors being in involved in new construction sales – Did you know that REALTORS account for over half all new construction sales nationally?  In many areas in Florida, that number can grow from 70%-90% of sale. Real estate agents as by far the biggest sales force a developer can pull from. Developers know this which is why they offer such great incentives since that money is only paid when results are produced.
• Easier sales process – Another great aspect to selling new construction is that once a prospect makes the decision to buy, the in house sales team takes over and handles the whole process. The legal and contractual responsibility falls on the developer shoulders who then takes  your buyer through the buying process.
• Newer product (warranties etc) – The definition of new construction is that it is new. Just like any other product people purchase, people love the idea of owning something new.  A never before lived in home falls into that same category and is a definite plus in buyer decision process. Also, in most cases, the builder provides a warranty on the home so, just like a car, if anything were to go wrong or isn’t up to par, the builder will fix for do charge. This again is a huge benefit and something a buyer of a resale just doesn’t receive.
• Great deals for buyers (closing incentives) – Currently, there are some great perks that developers are offering buyers. Here are a few I have seen recently:  credits to upgrade home, free golf memberships, no community dues for a year.
• Relationship building – Building relationships and networking are major parts of real estate. This is a great time to introduce yourself to developers locally and let them know you are interested learning more about that they have to offer. Not only is it good to know what products are available, but often times great realtor events that can be great to socializing and meeting others in the industry.
• International and out of state sales (referral fees) – You don’t always have to look locally for developments to market. Agents sometimes fail understand that they may be living in an area that is a feeder market for another. A current buzz word example is the “half-backers”.  South Florida has become a huge feeder market for people deciding to buy property in the mountains of Georgia, Tennessee as well as North and South Carolina.

I personally love selling new homes because it is so easy and I know that my buyer gets all the benefits above plus a new home that no one has ever lived in before. I would say that at least half of my income comes from New Home Sales and this year as never before there are some great deals for buyers and incredible commissions and benefits for Realtors! Go to www.agentshield.com now to set up your own personal FREE New Home Website.

To gain an edge in today’s overly competitive market, we have to think beyond the usual marketing avenues of the past. As Web 2.0 develops and evolve, it has created some new technologies and marketing principles that could be applied to the real estate market.

Crowdsourcing is leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web2.0 technologies to achieve business goals. Applying the principles of crowdsourcing can be a very powerful tool to accelerate the sales of new construction properties.

To illustrate. The best marketing tool of any new development project on the internet is it’s website. Developers spend a large investment time and money to create an amazing website/marketing tool. Currently, the website can only be used by a handful of people (usually the in-house sales team) as a marketing and sales tool.

Realtors will not send their clientele to the new development website. With the in-house sales team’s contact information on the website, there’s a huge potential for the Realtor to get cut out of the transaction. With only a few people using it, the website’s market penetration is very limited and thus the development’s exposure to buyers is limited.

Imagine what would happen if that new development’s website was provided to the 2 million+ Realtors in the US and the millions more around the world to use as a marketing and sales tool? It would exponentially accelerate the development’s exposure, reach and velocity of sales. Real estate agents are the crowd!

With the invention of Agent Shield’s Web 2.0 technology, the crowdsourcing principle can be applied to accelerate the sales of new construction properties.

In today’s soft real estate market, developers are spending more time, money and resources to woo Realtors.  And rightfully so.  On a national average, according to NAR, Realtors account for 51% of new construction sales.  In some areas like South West Florida, realtors account for over 80% of the sales of new construction properties.  Developers want Realtors to expose their clientele to their new developments in search of a sale. 

Developers go through great lengths to woo Realtors with lavish parties, gifts and incentives.  I’ve seen multiple developers throwing excessive parties and events.  Others have given out  $150k+ private golf memberships.  The Realtors are wooed … now what?  How do Realtors promote these developments to their clientele?  Do they mail flyers about the developments to their prospects with their own contact information as the contact person?   Probably not.  Mailing are expensive and the Realtor may be cut out of the transaction.  Do Realtors send out a mass email to their database promoting the development?  Again,  probably not because they can be cut out of the transaction. 

Engaging the Realtor is the first step.  Providing them with an action item; something that they can tangibly do to promote the development while ensuring that they will be compensated for their efforts is needed to achieve a successful level of Realtor participation.  This action item needs to have two main components:

1. It has to be easy, requiring minimal time and effort. 
2. It has to ensure (provide a level of protection) that the Realtor will be compensated for their efforts.

Without a tangible action item to help the Realtor promote and sell,  the only thing that the developer is doing is throwing parties and giving away gifts. 

A developer once shared with me “We just spent $40k on this wine and cheese party.  At the end of the day, I don’t know which Realtors are interested in selling my development and which ones are here for the wine and cheese.”

A question for Realtors & developers. What action items, marketing tools and/or sales aids have developers provided to Realtors? Were they useful/successul?