Best Closing Gifts for Buyers and Sellers
Gift for Real Estate Agent Etiquette
Choosing a closing gift for a buyer or seller can be difficult in real estate. There is no real etiquette set out and it can be a challenge to determine if it should be a personalized gift or a systematized approach. Although it can take some time, selecting the right gift can be extremely important and can strengthen the bond between you and your client. Not to mention, it just feels good to give a nice closing gift to a client!
In this real estate agent training podcast, you will learn tips for choosing the best closing gifts for buyers and sellers, while avoiding some common mistakes.
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Rev Real Estate School. The podcast with quick tips and actionable advice to help you sell more real estate in today's world. And now your host Michael Montgomery.
[00:00:10] Hello and welcome back to Rev Real Estate School. I'm your host Michael Montgomery. Today we are talking about gifts we're talking about closing gifts for clients. These can be such a challenge as real estate agents we want to get them something that's personalized something that's useful something that doesn't cost an absolute ton of money and also something that could potentially keep us top of mind as they move through their year in their new home.
[00:00:39] So how do we go about putting all of these things together and getting them something? One of the challenging things is also getting closing gifts for sellers buyers we find to be a little bit more straightforward because we can get useful things for them for their house. But sellers especially ones that leave town, what do we get them? In this episode we are going to discuss closing gifts we're going to talk about closing gifts for sellers for buyers and then some costly mistakes to avoid.
[00:01:08] First off when you are going about picking out closing gifts there are two real options here and it really depends on how many transactions you're doing and how busy you are. You can go the personalized route so getting items that are very personalized for the individual or you can go the systematized route. This is maybe a little bit less personal but is almost required if you're doing a number of transactions trying to keep up with very personalized closing closing gifts can be a little bit more of a challenge. That's not to say you can't systematized things that are also personalized somewhat but you do have to strike that balance. So today we're going to talk about both. We're going to talk about a personalized approach and we're also going to talk about a systematized approach and what are some tips that we can use.
[00:02:00] First off let's talk about personalized things that we can do for sellers. This is the tricky thing right off the bat and especially if a seller is leaving town I've struggled with this in my career because they're leaving town there's not really a good time to get them a gift because they're busy running around upon closing and that sort of thing and you want to make sure that everything closes before you have that final conversation. Then once it's closed they're gone and they've left town. So here are a couple of great tips that you can do and great closing gifts that you can use for sellers.
[00:02:34] The first thing is a custom portrait of their home. You may have the photos you probably have some professional photos done of the outside of their home. You can send these off and have a custom portrait done of their home. Now this can be very very nice for sellers especially if they have great memories in the home. If they're leaving town and their kids grew up in the home or it was their first home or something like that this can be a great great gift and they can love this then in tandem with that. It can be nice to send them the portrait of the home. And then also just some flowers. I think we can tend to get a little bit over complicated when it comes to sellers and we're really trying to find the absolute best thing that they need for wherever they've moved to even if they've moved to our city and they may move to another rental or something like that regardless of the situation we tend to overcomplicated. I think being simple with sellers and giving them something that reminds them of their home now that's provided. It's a move and it's a home that they have good memories in of course. It may be if it's a divorce or something like that it's probably less appropriate to do a portrait but it's a great strategy for sellers that are moving away that have had great memories in their home. And then pair that with some flowers and you can even send the flowers to a new home or be their place of work place of work is awesome because it gets them talking to other people at the office.
[00:03:59] Now if you're dealing with a buyer now these things can also be used for a seller for that matter but for a buyer there are a couple of great personalized tips that we have here. First off if you're dealing with a techie buyer there are so many great things that you can do in order for their home to become a little bit more of a smart home. So we're talking about a Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Ring Doorbell or even Nest Thermostat. Now these are great cool cool gifts and they will stay in their homes so it will remind them of you when they use them. Another idea is the Roomba something that I could definitely use around my place. But these are just techie gifts that a lot of people will like even if they're not super techie people they're just such cool things. And there are these items that we don't typically buy for ourselves. I know they are becoming a lot more mainstream now but some of these things are just kind of nice things and they sit in their home. It's one of those things that keeps you top of mind.
[00:04:59] Another option is a consult with an interior decorator so if it's a buyer getting a consult with an interior decorators they can help set up their furniture. Now the one thing that I would say about this is make sure that they're not somebody who's already very passionate about their interior design. Or maybe they are but just be cautious with that right, because it can be misinterpreted as "Oh you didn't think I have nice style," now the chances of that I mean it depends on the client of course. You have to pick and choose but I think it's a great gift and it's something that's really really cool and out of the ordinary something a little bit different.
[00:05:33] Another idea is if that's somebody that's new to town and they're buying a place then get them a local experience. A local event or a local night out that's something that is very well known in your town. This can be great because you know what they're a transplant. They're new to town and they want to really get a feel for what your city is like. So those can be great great closing gifts for buyers that are new to town. So those are more on the personalized side of things.
[00:06:02] Now if you're trying to think a little bit more in the systematized side of things I still recommend having some personal touches to this. But if you're doing a number of transactions and you're getting behind on your closing gifts it's best to start to think about systematized the closing gifts. And again you can still put a personal touch on them. I'd recommend doing gift baskets and you can do them yourself or you can have somebody do them but make sure that they have a local flair to them kind of an artistic designed to them and then have two different options. I recommend having an option that has something that's related to alcohol whether it be wine glass says bottle of wine that sort of thing. And then one that is alcohol free is over somebody who potentially is not as interested in alcohol and you can make that a little bit more focused on coffee and tea and these sort of things. There's a number of different ideas that are out there as far as gift baskets go. Try to make them a little bit more standardized and something that has some local flair to it. So we're talking potentially some local coffee or even a local bottle of wine or something along those lines. Now to personalize it you should still try and personalize these baskets. What I'd recommend what we do is we have these little letter boards that we put within the baskets so we systematized it to make our life a little bit easier but we have these little letter boards where you can write little notes and you can put them directly in the basket. What you can do is you can put a little personalized message to them right. So it can be welcome home and their last name or maybe you have a little inside joke that you guys had throughout the process and you can put that directly on the letter board. Really fun really personalized but also systematized at the same time.
[00:07:41] Now let's also talk about a few things to avoid. Here are some tips to avoid avoid too much branding so too much of you within the closing gift because the closing gift is about them right. Even at the end of the day we do want them to remember us and we do want to gift. That does remind them of us. But at the same time we're thanking them and when thanking them it shouldn't be about us. So if you do have something branded in there we just basically have branded key chains that we put their key on and then other than that a lot of it is not branded because we do want it to be all about them. Next is if you don't know what to get them get on social media. That can be your best friend. And just see what they're up to on social media. Look at their Instagram their Facebook see what interests them especially if you're trying to make this more personalized. And finally when you are giving the closing gift instead of doing it when you're handing off the keys try to do it a few days later and make it more of a housewarming gift versus a closing gift. Reason being is people are busy, and as they're starting to move into their home they're getting all set up and then you give them a few days in order to get into their home. And then oftentimes they want to show it off so you can show up give them the closing gift and then oftentimes they'll show off their home and that sort of thing. And it just creates a good conversation. So it's a great use of time and you can ask them a few more questions about how everything went and it's usually quite exciting.
[00:09:08] So there you go. Those are the tips for closing gifts for sellers and buyers both personalized and systematized.
[00:09:16] Thank you very much for listening to this episode. Remember you can ask a top producer anything. All you need to do is write and review the show. Go to our Web site and just let us know where you did that. And a top producer gives you a call. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you in the next lesson.
[00:09:30] This episode of Rev Real Estate School has come to a close. Thank you for tuning in. We will see you back here for the next lesson.