10 Real Estate Farming Mistakes (And How To Fix Them)
How To Start Farming in Real Estate
Farming in real estate is one of the best ways to build your business. If you look to high producers in your city, it's likely these real estate agents are all farming an area. There are some common mistakes that real estate agents can make when they start farming. In this real estate agent training podcast, you will learn 10 mistakes that REALTORS are making and how to fix these issues.
Not sticking with it for 12 months
Choosing the right farm
Postcards too infrequent
Not advertising in the community publication
Not previewing every home and having a “specialist” business card
Not holding buyer and seller seminars
Not becoming a regular at the local businesses
Not having a community profile video
Not focusing on Google AdWords campaigns for the area
Not having a Facebook community page
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School podcast with quick tips and actionable advice to help you sell more real estate in today's world. And now your host Michael Montgomery.
[00:00:11] Hello and welcome back to Rev Real Estate School. I'm your host Michael Montgomery. Today we are talking about 10 reasons why your farm is not producing for you. Ten of the most common reasons why there is nothing coming from your farm or there is very little coming from your farm. So let's jump right in.
[00:00:30] Number one the biggest issue that I see with a farm is a lack of consistency and time your farm will take time. If you send out one set of postcards it's very unlikely you will get anything. You have to be prepared for 12 months. We always say you need 12 months of time and you need resources saved up in order to farm. And in order to see a result. Now some of the resources can be in money but it can also be in time so you can spend the money in order to send out postcards or you can spend the time doorknocking the neighborhood. We will get into that.
[00:01:04] Number two is you have to pick the right farm. Oftentimes when a farm is not working after one year it's because you may have chosen the wrong farm. Or your farm may be too small. So the size we typically recommend if you're starting started a minimum of two hundred fifty doors you want to go up from there. Ideally you're starting around 500 doors. If you're comfortable with that size and then from there you scale up as you start to do more deals in the neighborhood. Now how do you go about picking the right farm. So if you have your five hundred homes where they located no one is you want to be an area that you like. You want to enjoy that neighborhood you want to enjoy the properties that are in that neighborhood. If you don't then it's very likely you will drop off before the 12 months. And I've seen this before somebody chooses a neighborhood really far from where they live. They think they're going to farm it. They're really excited for two months and then they drop off. So make sure you like the neighborhood also see who else is farming it. So just because there's somebody else farming it doesn't mean you can't also work in that same geographical area. It just means that you will have to differentiate yourself but be cautious here because if the area is heavily farmed then it's just going to be more difficult and more costly to break into it. If you have one maybe two people that are sending out the odd postcard in the neighborhood you can compete with that. No problem. The other thing you can look for is if somebody is farming a neighborhood and it looks like they're getting towards the end of their career then this can be a great neighborhood to target as well.
[00:02:33] Number three you're not sending out enough postcards so farming is built around frequency of interaction and people seeing you frequently. Now a lot of times people get started and they think they're going to send out one piece a month now that's fine. That's a starting place. However if you really want to see the results within 12 months you have to be sending out two pieces every single month. Now we set off the start. If you do have the funds saved up then you can easily just send them out by mail. If not then you're going to have to go out and hand deliver them. You can hand deliver them or you can doorknock. You may want to go back and forth. You may want to hand deliver them one time and then you may want to send out a mailing the next time around or if your hand delivering them all the time maybe you're dropping them off. The first time and then the second time that month you're actually knocking on the door and you're introducing yourself. So you want to be able to send out two pieces a month regardless of how many homes that you're hitting. So if you're starting out and you don't have the funds to hit a thousand homes then start with 250 to 500. But make sure you hit those homes twice a month.
[00:03:37] Next number four make sure that you are advertising in any community newsletter that is going out so you can reach out to the community association. You can see what newsletters are going out typically most communities will have some publication that goes out monthly or every couple of months. Make sure that your face and your information is in there.
[00:03:55] Number five preview every property that comes on the market. This one is so important. People need to see your business card on their table. They need to see your name. They need to see your postcards that are coming on twice a month and they also need to see your business card on their table. So make sure that you're previewing these properties. Ideally you know within a week or so of when they come on another tip on this front is you can also start to preview them if they've been on the market for a longer period of time. Chances are they could be getting towards their expiry date so you may want to preview at that time too. Now in leaving your business card it is very beneficial to have a business card that says you're the community specialist. The community name and you're the community specialist. This is powerful. This is part of marketing previewing knowing the inventory and knowing what's out there but then also you're marketing yourself as you're going through and previewing properties.
[00:04:45] Next hold buyer and seller seminars once a quarter. So new buyers that want to get into the community or people that want to sell once a quarter you're holding those seminars you're ideally renting out the community association space or it can be done at your office whatever that might be you're promoting this with in your mail outs you can also be promoting it online but this is important. It's showing that you are the knowledge broker for the neighborhood. So once a quarter, you're doing buyer and or seller seminars.
[00:05:13] Next and I see this one quite often, is make sure that you are a regular at the businesses the restaurants the coffee shops make sure that you are in the community. Now this seems to go without saying but oftentimes people just send out that one postcard once a month and they expect to get a result. They also need to see your face in the community get to know the locals get to know the business owners and make sure that you have a spot that you are a local at the establishments within your community. This is super important and this can be a quick way to get a deal done quicker than those 12 months because you're actually creating a connection with locals in your community.
[00:05:52] Number eight is make sure that you have a community profile video and you're continuing to promote it. So you want to spend a little bit of money on a community profile video on the property types that are within your community and then you can spend some money promoting it whether it be on Facebook on YouTube whatever that might be and promoting the fact that you are in this community. Now they do have to see your mail outs. They do have to see you in person but they also have to see you online. So make sure that you have a community profile video for your neighborhood.
[00:06:23] Next is make sure that you have an AdWords campaign going on Google on being for your neighborhood as you the neighborhood specialist. This is important. Again we need to be everywhere. So we need to be when people are searching the community and what are home prices buying into the community. Your name has to come up. So if you don't have that SEO juice as of yet then make sure that you're using AdWords to make sure at the very top of Google when somebody's searching for that community specifically and homes for sale or selling my home in X community. Super important.
[00:06:58] Finally make sure that you have a Facebook page dedicated to that community. So these can already exist and if it does no worries just make sure that you're active on the page but if there's no pages dedicated to that community then make sure you start one right away. These are great. Oftentimes you'll get some really good conversations happening. People were talking about what's happening in the community construction that sort of thing. It can be great. And of course you are the real estate agent so if you have a listing you can post your new listing on there and again people are seeing your face you're coming up again and again and again.
[00:07:30] So those are 10 things that you need to be doing. If your farm is not working for you the two most important things that you can always come back to is that you need 12 months of farming. If you've only been farming for three months then don't expect a result. The other thing is make sure that people are seeing you from all angles so they're seeing you with postcards they're seeing you online and they're seeing you in person. Those are the three things. So becoming a regular being at events also making sure that you're buying Adwords and that you're online and then make sure the postcards are going out twice per month. This one's huge. Most people just go for that one time per month. You know what. After a couple of years maybe you can scale it back to once a month but off the start you want to be making sure that you're sending those out twice a month.
[00:08:19] Thank you very much for listing this episode if you want to learn more you can always go to Rev Real Estate School dot com and I'm on Instagram @the.michael.montgomery. Thanks again. We'll see you in the next lesson.
[00:08:29] This episode of Rev Real Estate School has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you back here for the next lesson.