Are you doing all you can do to serve buyers with timely and detailed help in identifying bargains in your market? I don't mean just those buyers who have asked that you let them know if you see a good deal. I don't mean the buyers who set up to get the common new listing emails from your MLS system.
What I'm talking about is a pro-active system that alerts any and all potential buyers about a home or land listing that has come on the market at a true value price, or that has had a price reduction that makes it a bargain.
If you're not blogging, or if you can't quickly and easily add new information to your website, you might just have to implement this strategy with your email list. However, if you are blogging, you can bring this service to buyers you haven't even met yet.
Most of us get MLS hotsheet reports of new listings, status changes, and price reductions. I do a quick scan of the new listings and price reductions every morning. If something catches my eye as a possible bargain, I look at the detail report. If I then believe that it really is or could be a special value, I want to alert all potential buyers to the opportunity.
I do what I call a "Value Alert" blog post. As I don't want a hassle from the listing broker about advertising their listing (yes, some would actually not like this!), I give basic details enough to get the buyers' interest, and then give them a link to email me for details. Actually, I do an auto-responder that sends the full MLS detail report automatically, and it copies me so that I can follow up.
If you're blogging on WordPress, you can do even more. Use a unique category for these posts, and you'll have a RSS feed just for this category. Then you can allow buyers to subscribe to that feed in their news readers or via email and get the alerts as soon as you post them. If you're not using WordPress, you can still set up a free blog on one of many sites and use it just for these alerts. Why sit and wait for buyers to get off the fence, when you can pull them off with a true bargain!
I even go another step. Setting up with open.4info.net, I have a subscription form that lets a buyer get a text message on their cell of every new value alert I publish. By making the first line of the alert short and sweet, like "Downtown condo reduced 20% to $xxx,xxx" I get that out as the first thing in their text message. You can do this with a free blog as well, using the instructions at the link.
Take your buyer services to a new level, and you'll probably see new business from it very quickly. In markets where buyers are waiting to see if prices are going to drop, you can entice them into the market with true values you locate in your MLS.
