Late last week, I was fortunate to participate in a round table discussion of experienced and new agents. The topic was getting business in this market!
We heard tips on social media, pop-bys, cold calling, and even door-knocking, with one brave soul signing up to go door-knocking next Saturday morning with me!
The one thing that stood out was that successful agents have a plan and consistently act on it!
In other words, you need a plan to get business. And you have to work… hard! There is no room for half-steps these days. What worked last year probably isn’t good enough this year.
I ran some numbers before the meeting, comparing the first six months of 2022 with the first six months of 2023. This was done in Contra Costa County, California. The number may track with your County, but the idea behind the actions and steps to be taken are universal.
They were sobering.
In the first six months of 2022, there were 12,250 closed sales. In that same time frame, in 2023, there were 8,352 closed sales! That’s a 35% drop!
The sales volume dropped from $14.8B to $8.7B! That’s a 44% drop!
But maybe the harshest number for this time frame was the GCI which went from $367M to $217M … a 41% drop. That’s money to agents and brokerages that didn’t happen.
The takeaway is this: THERE ARE STILL people buying and selling real estate. You have to go and find them before another agent does.
It’s that simple. It’s not going to be easy. You will put in more time and effort than ever before, but if you plan to survive this market so that you are here for the next fast market, you will have to grind it out.
There is an alternative, however. You may not have the bandwidth to do what is required. In that case, consider going into your broker’s referral network. See your Manager or Broker for details, but in a nutshell, your license stays with the company, you get to stop all fees, and you get to stop paying Board and MLS dues! You can’t advertise, and you can’t take listings or represent buyers. But, YOU CAN place referrals and get paid referral fees while doing something else to earn a living.
Here is the bottom line, extraordinary times require extraordinary strategies, tactics, techniques, and hard work.
What action are you going to take?
