It’s 2024, and we’re in a tough real estate market.
Fewer and fewer homes to sell plus fewer and few buyers makes for a tough real estate market
Based on annualized predictions using the number of homes sold in the first half of this year, the number sold in 2024 will be 37% lower than the number sold in 2021, and about 17% lower than 2023.
As inflation began to rise in mid-2021 and interest rates nearly doubled in March of 2022, the number of home sales began to fall. That had to happen, since it became more and more difficult for many buyers to obtain a mortgage loan.
In addition, fewer and fewer homes were going on the market. That had to happen as well, for why would anyone sell a house on which they had a 3% mortgage interest rate, only to buy a different house at 6% or more?
- 2021: 6.12 million homes sold in the U.S.
- 2022: 5.03 million
- 2023: 4.7 million
- 2024: The annualized projection at mid-year suggests around 3.89 million homes will be sold by the end of the year.
I think it would be very interesting to see the statistics showing the price ranges of homes that have sold and will sell this year. I have a feeling that where sales have fallen/are falling is in the mid to low price ranges.
Homeowners and buyers who have cash will continue to do as they please – without worrying about mortgage interest rates.
If you serve those wealthier clients, your personal market is likely doing just fine.
But for everyone else…
The real estate market has slowed. What are you going to do about it?
- You could quit. You could go take a job doing something entirely different.
- You could decide to thrive anyway.
There are a lot of old adages you can use to motivate yourself. For instance:
- “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
- “When times are good you should advertise. When times are bad you must advertise.”
These old adages are both true and both important.
First, “When the going gets tough…”
If you want to survive – and thrive – you can’t afford to sit back now. You have plenty of competition for every listing, and if you don’t get going, someone else will.
I lost count of the number of agents I saw drop out because they didn’t get moving. When times were slow they played games on their computers, gossiped, and spent a lot of time complaining because they didn’t have any customers. Talk about a formula for failure!
This year you can’t count on your sphere or your past clients to send you enough referrals.
One of the reasons fewer homes are selling is that fewer homeowners want to sell. Unless there’s a compelling reason to sell, or unless they have the cash to replace their current home, more and more homeowners are staying put.
The solution: You either need to serve clients who are wealthy enough to pay cash when they buy their next house, or you need to appeal to those homeowners with a compelling reason to sell.
If you’re already serving the very wealthy, then you’re probably in good shape. If you aren’t, you aren’t likely to break into that market in a big way very soon. It takes time.
That means it’s time to go after those homeowners who need to sell:
- People who have already moved away
- People who are being transferred and will move soon
- Estate executors and heirs
- Divorcing couples
- Homeowners in financial difficulty
- Landlords who may be tired of dealing with tenants
- Landlords with vacant rentals
“When times are good you should advertise. When times are bad you must advertise.”
In a tough real estate market, you have more competitors going after fewer listings. That means you need to push even harder to stay in front.
I know, it’s scary to spend money on advertising when less money is coming in. But if you fail to advertise, those new customers you need will never even know you’re there.
And what a shame that is! Not only will you not earn a living – they will miss out on having the best representation in your market.
What can you do?
Polish your bio.
First, before you begin putting yourself out there, be sure your agent bio is in prime condition. It should show people
your knowledge, skill, areas of expertise, and enthusiasm for helping them achieve their goals. Your personality should shine through.
Potential clients DO read about pages, so in a tough real estate market, you can’t afford to have a generic, cloned, say-nothing real estate bio.
If your bio doesn’t accomplish that and if you don’t know how to fix it, get in touch. Writing bios that make agents shine is one of my specialties.
Memorize your elevator speech.
Be prepared to give a 30 second (or less) promo any time someone asks: “What do you do?” When you’ve memorized your words, you can smile, then state precisely what you do and for whom. For instance, “I help homeowners in (the area you serve) sell their homes quickly and for top dollar.”
If you help executors you could go further, saying that you help them deal with the demands of probate, find people to help get houses ready to sell, etc. Whatever your niche, if there’s something special and extra you do for your clients, mention that.
Your goal is to briefly convey the fact that working with you is a benefit to your clients.
Prospect.
Reach out to people. I recommend postal mail prospecting to a targeted list, because it is the most efficient way to
put your message directly in front of the people who need to see it.
Mail to each prospect at least 5 times – and more if you can. Repetition is part of what will sway them in your direction, so do not become tempted to mail just once to 100 people. You’d be better off choosing a good list and mailing 5 times to only 20 people. Once you begin getting results (and closings) you can expand your list.
How you find that list depends upon the niche or the area you’ve chosen. In some cases, such as probate, divorce, and default, you can do research at the County courthouse. You can find vacant houses by driving around your territory and find owners’ information with another trip to the courthouse. If you become acquainted with HR directors at nearby corporations, you may be able to find who is being transferred out – or in! At the very least, you may be able to convince them to give your personal brochure to employees who will need an agent.
Of course you can also purchase lists, but if you have more time than money, you can do the work yourself.
Be sure the message you send is “reader-centered” and NOT all about you and how wonderful you are.
If you don’t know what to say, choose from one of my 50+ real estate prospecting letter sets. Most of these sets cost no more than lunch for 2 at the local café, but if even that is too much to spend, work on all the things you can do without spending any money at all.
You can also set up a capture box on your website, offering a special report in exchange for contact information. Then you can put your letters into an auto responder and mail without the cost of postage. This is NOT as effective as postal mail, for several reasons, but when money is tight in a tough real estate market, it is better than nothing.
Yes, you CAN promote yourself without spending money.
In my e-book: 107 Ways to Build Your Real Estate Career on a Tiny Budget, you’ll find 92 ways to promote yourself without spending any money, along with 15 ways to do so with very little money.
Those 92 ways do require an expenditure of time. But if you’re short of clients, you have the time to spend.
