It doesn't change much from year to year, but here are the things that actual buyers told NAR they wanted from real estate agents in the 2007 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. They are in order from the most desired down:
- Help find the right home to purchase
- Help buyer to negotiate terms of sale
- Help with the price negotiations
- Help with paperwork
- Determine what comparable homes were selling for
Everything else was 5% or less, including helping them to determine what they could afford and finding/arranging financing. With this knowledge, what might we do differently in our marketing?
- First, stress our ability to locate more than just MLS listings for them.
- Tell them that we can make sure they see the best candidates in the home sale universe.
- Talk about contingencies and terms, including our skill in negotiating these items.
- Push our price negotiation abilities.
- All of the previous are the potatoes, the rest is just gravy.
Are some of your most prominent marketing pieces about financing and helping them with a mortgage? If so, you're missing the hot button for almost half of all buyers. If your web site features mortgage calculators instead of contingency negotiation help, then you're missing another boat.
If you are selling the best blue widgets on the planet, but everyone wants red widgets....well, you know. Do what the big corporations do. Learn everything about your customers. Meet their needs and they'll meet yours.
I'm just hitting some high points out of 100 pages of critical information. The smartest $50 you'll ever spend - get the 2007 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.
