Get Clients A House When There Is No Inventory

On today’s episode, how to get your clients to house they want where they want to live when it seems like there are no houses on the market to show them. I’ve got a proven three-step process that I’ll walk you through. Welcome to this episode of Confessions of a Top Producing Real Estate Agent. I’m your host, Jennifer Myers. Listen in, as I share exactly what I did to go from not being able to sell a house for years to becoming one of the top 1% of agents in the US even opening my own brokerage full of agents to help me serve all the clients that were coming my way. I taught those agents the same strategies I used to become top-producing agents. Now through this podcast and Agent GradSchool.com, I’m sharing those same modern marketing and business strategies with you. Most of which I learned from looking outside the real estate industry, no fluff, no theory, no outdated sales techniques or paying for leads. Just the exact steps to get you the real estate business you’ve always wanted. And the life outside your business, you’ve always wanted to let’s make it happen and dive into today’s episode. One thing I’m hearing a lot from the agents I talked to is some sort of version of the market’s so hot. I’ve got all these buyers who want to buy, but there are no houses to show them everything selling so quickly. All my buyer clients are getting outbid. I just need some houses to sell. I just need some inventory. So I don’t know if those thoughts have been crossing your mind lately, but that is what I keep hearing from people. And you know, I’ve definitely been there before. We’ve all been there before, at least once in our real estate career. And when you’re in the middle of this kind of feeling like there’s nothing to show your clients, it can feel like a really big problem, and also a problem that you can’t do anything to solve. But here’s the good news. If this is the problem that you currently have in your real estate business, it is a great problem to have. It means that you have clients that have chosen you to be their real estate agent. And frankly, that’s half the battle to being a successful agent. So good job for you. You got the clients, that’s the hard part. The other good news is that this pro problem of not having any inventory, not having any houses to show your clients, this problem is easily solvable. And in today’s episode, I’m going to walk you through a proven three-step process to help you solve this problem in your business. And there are some extra benefits along the way, too, which I’ll explain as we go through the three steps. So whenever you have thoughts, like there are no houses on the market. There’s no inventory. I just need houses to sell to my buyers. Anything along those lines, I want you to first think to yourself, this is a great problem to have I get to solve this great problem of having clients who want houses in my business. And then I want you to think you have two options to choose from when it comes to solving this problem. Option one is you could do what most real estate agents do and kind of throw up their hands and say, there’s nothing I can do about it. There are no houses to show. Hopefully, something will come on the market soon. I’ll just kind of sit back and wait for houses to come on the market and tell. And then, you know, you kind of tell clients things like something will come on the market soon. Don’t worry. This isn’t the right time. That kind of thing. That’s option one. And that’s what a lot of agents choose to do. Or you could choose the second option, which is that you take matters into your own hands and you do something to get clients, the exact house they want and the exact location they want, where the exact price they want. Now, I don’t know about you, but I would much prefer option two, which is way better than having to drive buyers all around town, showing them houses that, you know, aren’t right for them or that, you know, they’re not going to buy simply because there’s nothing else to show them. And you feel like you should be showing them houses and they feel like they should be seeing houses. No, thanks. Huge waste of time for everybody. That’s not a business that is just driving people around for no reason, aimlessly. So that’s not what we want. We want to take matters into our own hands. And we want, I want to really be doing that Things that are out of the box and creative to get our clients what they need at the time that they need it. So I’m going to outline the three simple steps that I have used to solve this problem in my own business. I’m going to walk you through it. And I’m going to tell you that every single time that I use this process, it works really, really well. And I’m sure it will work for you as well. So I’m going to outline the three steps, and then I’m going to give you a few examples of the results that I’ve personally experienced with clients. So I’ll give you a personal example and kind of how the process went and kind of what happened. And when I’m outlining these three steps, you’re probably gonna think, wait, that’s way too simple, or this will never work, or I’ve heard this before and it’s too like basic or something and you’re right. It is basic. It is simple, but there are some specific details that I’m going to highlight as we go that makes this particular way of doing this process, which I’m sure you’ve heard somewhere along the lines before. There are certain things about this part of the process that worked so well, that makes the PR make this work so well. And so Definitely pay. So the details and don’t skip over those. And the last thing I’ll say before I start explaining the three steps is this many of the strategies I teach to grow your real estate business and attract your ideal clients and, and give those clients the best buying or selling experience they could imagine truly are very basic and very simple. And they are simple proven strategies that not only I have used, but people outside the real estate industries have used an industry to have used to grow their business. And many agents that I have taught have used this as well. But the piece though is that you actually have to do them and you have to do them consistently. So don’t skip over things like this strategy that might seem simple or easy, especially when you have somebody telling you how well they worked in their own business, truly the devil and the art is sometimes in the details and in the delivery. So don’t skip anything in these three steps. I’m about to explain they all work together and they kind of build on top of each other to make the strategy work. Okay. So I’m going to give you what the three steps are and then I’ll go into detail for each step. So step one is get clarity. Step two is communicate the need and step three, decide what makes sense to do next and do it. So here’s how step one looks get clarity. This is actually the most crucial Step two, getting this three-step process to work for you and your freer clients. And there’s an added benefit to this piece because even if this is, let’s just say, you only get through step one, it’s worth the exercise. It’s worth that. Even just this one step in the process, because it’s a great way to get your clients to get really clear about what they’re looking for in a home, which truly is the first step or really the last step to getting them the home that they want. They’ve got to know where certainty and clarity what they’re looking for, and you have to help them gain that clarity and tell them what’s possible, or the tiny things that they would have to adjust to get as close to what they want in a home. You are the expert. And so you’ve got to be the one to know with absolute clarity, if what your client wants is to buy. So first, this strategy that I’m explaining as a strategy that you should be Using with clients that you’ve worked with for a little while. So this is not something that you should be working, you know, talking about or worrying about during the first couple outings. This is like, there’s sometimes those clients, or sometimes those people, you know, those showings that’s 10. And you’re like, Oh my gosh, I can’t believe they haven’t bought a house. Yeah. This is a strategy you should be Using on those types of clients. Clients who’ve really seen a lot, maybe need help knowing what they want, but, or they know what they want with absolute clarity. You’ve shown them a ton of houses. They have a sense of what their money can buy and get them. And you both know at this point, what that, what they want is actually possible and where it’s possible. And it is possible in the location they want to live in. And it’s very clear what the price point is, and it’s within their price point. That’s when you use this strategy. So if you’re not there yet, refer back to the episode we did about the three buckets strategy on, you can find it on. I’ll put it in the show notes for this episode. soGood@agentgradschool.com, go to the podcast, go to this episode and then scroll down to the bottom. And I’ll link to the three buckets strategy where we talk about how to get clarity, like is what they want, where they want in the budget. I show you all how to do that. So I’m not going to go into that today. So you’re the expert. Maybe you, once you, this clarity, sometimes what starts to happen is like, I know exactly what you want. I know at least in my experience, I know exactly what you’re looking for. I know exactly what you want, but there hasn’t been anything in that particular neighborhood or in a particular building. If you sell condos that you know, would work for them. And so, so then that’s when you would show them, what’s possible if they haven’t seen it already. So for example, you could, you know, perfect example is I have my cell, a lot of condo buildings. And so my clients will describe something and I’m like this, I know exactly what you’re looking for. Let me show you a link to this particular building that doesn’t have anything on the market since we looked, but take a look at all the recent, like maybe they sales in the past year. And tell me if that’s kind of along the lines of what you’re thinking, because I think it would be a good fit. So then I would send them that link and then they’re like, okay, awesome. Yes, I definitely can’t wait to see something in that building when something comes available. So it’s that level of clarity that you want to get to and they identified, yes. I want, I’m just giving an example, a one bedroom in that building, or I want, you know, a two bedroom under X price kind of in this school district. And you know, that their price expectations are in line. Meaning like if a house comes up that fits that criteria, it’s going to be in their price point or close to it. Then you talk to them about, about having you send a letter to that group of people, whether it’s the building or the neighborhood on their behalf, which then leads me to step two in the process, which is send the letter, communicate the need. And before I dive into step two, though, I want you to know that this is such a great opportunity for you and your client to get that level of clarity that’s necessary for their search. And sometimes just having that conversation kind of fixes any issues that might be happening. So you may not even have to get to step two but nine times out of 10. And that conversation about clarity, which again, you can find out more about how to do that in the three buckets strategy that alone gets you and them on the same page about what they’re looking for and sets expectations kind of in line with reality. It also shows that you’re an expert and, you know, neighborhoods and buildings haven’t come on the market yet. And it just shows that you kind of know what you’re doing, and it really creates this trust with them and with you. And you’re able to introduce them to neighborhoods or buildings that would work for them. Another way that you could do this is oftentimes I’ll reach out to clients who maybe live in that particular neighborhood or that particular building and say, Hey, do you mind talking to this client? Or do you mind if we take a tour of the building or take a look at your unit, sometimes I’ll even pull up things for rent, just to make sure that we have that level of clarity that, yes, this is exactly what I want. If there was something available, sometimes I even will reach out to agents who have property under contract in a particular building and not, not all the time will they allow us and just, you know, which makes sense. But if they do it just doesn’t hurt to ask and then I’ll have tore and under contract property. And I’ll say something like, Hey, this is the kind of thing you can get. And it went and X amount of days for this price, you know, is this something that along the lines of what we’re looking for? So this works really well, especially for clients who’ve been outbid in a particular neighborhood or a particular building because when they have that disappointment where you’re, unfortunately, I have to make that call and tell them they didn’t get the property. You can follow up right away with here’s. I know you love this building. I know you love this neighborhood. We know there are no homes right now that fit your criteria. Let’s go find you one that we don’t have to keep compete with. Here’s how I’m going to do that. So, yeah, You’ve gotten your clarity and then you move on to step two, which is communicate the need. So here’s how this step two works. You’re going to send a very particularly written, lead her with details about your clients. So oftentimes what I see with this kind of strategy is a letter that feels very businessy, real estate agency, real estate agent, be like really salesy kind of, and like doesn’t make a connection. And so I’m giving you in the download free download for this episode. I am giving you the exact same letter that I have written in the past. I’m just showing you one example that I’ve used. And lo and behold, we got responses on it. And we, you know, I was able to show her my client an off-market property, but the key is writing a letter that actually has the sellers like visualizing your client and their needs. So go to agent grad school.com go to this episode and under podcasts and download that, that letter because that particular letter is one reason that it works so good. So, well, I should say it’s not a general letter. It doesn’t say things like I have a client. It says, for example, my client Christie has lived in this neighborhood as a renter for five years, and she’s wanting to make, you know, X neighborhood, her long-term home, she’s looking to buy a house. She just got out bed. And now she, you know, is looking for somebody who’s interested in selling. And then I go on in this letter to explain the benefits of why this type of situation would actually be a good move for the seller. I explained that it saves them time and money because the house doesn’t have to be in show shape. They save on the listing side commission because I represent the buyer and I really create a picture that creates a win, win situation for both my client who is a real person, right. I make it sound like because they are a real person. And then I prove the benefits of why this is a good idea for the seller. And then I usually mentioned that, you know, this isn’t an investor that they’re willing to pay the same price as, as others that have recently sold. You know, this, isn’t kind of like a, we want to low ball you kind of thing. Then at the end of the letter, I explain how they can get in touch and what would happen next? I just said, you know, if you’re interested, you know, there’s no obligation. All you would have to do is reach out to me. And we could find a time when my buyer can take a look at the property and we’ll go from there. You know, that kind of thing. So I’m not exaggerating one tiny bit. When I say every single time that I’ve sent out this letter, this particular letter, I get responses. I get at least one showing out of it. And so sometimes my buyer ends up buying that place that, that has called, that has happened a few times. And other times they don’t. And it’s funny because they end up buying something else instead. But here’s why that doesn’t necessarily matter because the goal is not necessarily for them to buy that particular place. I mean, if that works out great, right? But the goal is essentially I’m showing them that I’m actually willing to do something out of the box. Creative, take an extra step, pay to send out these letter, spend the time to put something together rather than just passively waiting for a house to come on the market. Like every other real estate agent might or how they might view real estate agents as being right. So it, it really kind of changes the dynamic and it shows why they should choose you, why they should refer you. Why somebody, their friends, their family, them a second time should use you and work with you again. So this makes you look like an agent who doesn’t just wait around for things to happen, but actually is a true go getter and will do anything to get their client what they want. It really is an opportunity to set you apart from other real estate agents and answer question, why should somebody choose you? Which is what we’re always trying to do. Because answering that question is not like a slogan. It’s not like something you just put on your website and forget about it. It’s how you are in your business every day. It’s, it’s how you be in your business every day. It’s the things that you do every day that then leads to people, seeing the answer for themselves. Okay. And the other thing is that it eliminates, like you can spend an hour, maybe two hours putting this letter out and it eliminates you needing to run around all weekend, showing them houses that don’t, that you know, that aren’t going to work, but like both you and them are doing this kind of weird dance. Like I’m looking for a house. So I should be looking for a house, even though both of you know, that that’s not what they’re looking for. So instead you can say, Hey, let’s be proactive in a different way, and let’s wait for exactly what you want. And let’s do something to help make that happen sooner by sending this letter. So again, if you want a copy of just, I’m going to give you one of the exact letters that I sent out that has my client’s name and everything, then you know how to find it, go to agent grad, school.com, go to the podcast, find this episode, and then just download it and use it, change it in your business and start using it. Now, just one quick note on this little logistics of sending out this letter, cause I want to, I don’t want to leave you hanging on like logistics piece is before I move on to step three, is who you are sending this letter to. That’s one question that I get a lot is kind of what are the semantics of that? So here’s how you’re going to use the MLS. And I’m just going to use a condo building because it’s a lot easier to kind of explain. But when I send it out in a condo building, I look for example, if my client wants a two bedroom than I only searched two bedroom owners in that building, which you can easily do. And the MLS under tax records, I’m sorry, mine’s called the MLS. Yours might be called something else, but I think, you know, multiple listing service. So, so you, you pool less, you put up, you put in the address of the building, let’s say, or you, you put a map of the neighborhood that you’re looking in. And then you narrow that list down to like the type of property that your client wants. And then you make sure maybe you eliminate, cause you don’t want to overspend on this. Maybe you eliminate people who’ve bought their house in the last year and then make sure that you pull the mailing address, not the house address, because there might be a rental property. And you want the letter to go to the owner, not the tenants who might live there. So you could call your, if you don’t know how to do this, call your MLS, explain what you’re trying to do. And they can show you exactly how to do it. And at least in ours, you can even print labels. Like don’t they tell you what type of labels so that all you have to do is print them out and then put them on the envelope. So generally you want to try to send it to like a hundred people or less because that’s how specific you want your client to be about exactly where they want to live. And you know, you kind of weed through the properties and you say like, Oh, this property is too big. It’s going to be too expensive. Oh, this person just bought last year, they come off the list, right? So you’re not doing 10 neighborhoods at a time. You’re not doing, you’re just, you’re, you’re putting a very, you’re not casting a wide net. You’re casting a very narrow net. And you’re making sure that your list is very good. So you’re not wasting money or time sending out letters to people who it’s not gonna matter to. And then I would highly recommend that you personally sign the letter and include your business card so they can keep it. Okay. So those are the logistics to get that letter out. Because as always, like, we always talk about hair on agent grad school. It’s not just what you’re saying, which is important, but it’s also who you’re sending it, who you’re saying it to those two things have to be in alignment. So just make sure that you’re not doing this thing where you’re sending out to too many people that don’t really fit the criteria of what your client is looking for. And then all of a sudden, like you’ve got one bedroom people, when you want a two bedroom, then you just wasted a ton of money and a ton of everyone’s time. Okay. Hope that makes sense. So I’m going to move on to step three. Do what makes sense next. Now this one’s pretty obvious, but really only two things are gonna happen from sending out this letter either you’re going to get responses or you won’t. So just to set the expectation for both you and your client is sometimes it takes a week, two, sometimes even three weeks to get a response from people. So if you’re getting responses great, then tread lightly because people who work directly with realtors are kind of a little scared of us. They think we’re going to like, you know, sell their house out from under that. I don’t know why, but that’s just, sometimes people are kind of get spooked. So tread lightly and be like, great. You know, I hope that I hope that it will be something that they’re interested in. We won’t know until we see it. Let’s schedule a time that works for you. And so you’d get that scheduled. However, if by small T by the small chance that you don’t get any responses, then you talk to your client about sending it to maybe another building or another part of the neighborhood, or you keep looking and you said, you know what? No, one’s interested right now. Why don’t we send it in a month or two, if we’re still looking and you can, you can, you can do that. And then you’ll mention that in the, in the letter that, you know, my client’s still looking. Here’s what we’re looking for. You might remember receiving a letter from me. We’re still interested because people change their mind all the time. Now, along the way, every step of the way you’re communicating with your client about what’s happening. You’re not doing this in a vacuum. When big mistake, I see real estate agents making all the time is they’re working so hard for their clients and they don’t communicate to their clients what they’re doing. So you’ve already had a communication point with them when you’re talking about that, getting that clarity and, and looking at, you know, past units in the, in the building or past houses for sale in the neighborhood. And you’ve had some communication to get clarity, then you need to communicate, send them a copy of the letter that you wrote up. Tell them when the day that it went out and then obviously set expectations, Hey, it’ll be a week or two or even three. So let’s see. Let’s give people enough time to respond and then set a date for your calendar to follow up with them and tell them, Hey, I didn’t get any responses. I mean, obviously we’ll reach out to them if you do get responses, but don’t just let it die. Put up like three week point in your calendar and make sure if you don’t have any responses that you address it with your clients and close the loop about next Steps. So yeah, No matter what happens, this process is really helpful for your clients and for you, frankly, to get that clarity and it shows them that you are creative out of the box and willing to do what it takes to get them the right home. These are the types of things that you do for clients that has them referring people to you. Without you having to ask, remember, if you have to ask for business, you’re, you’re not doing it, right? So these are the kinds of things that when you do them and you communicate correctly along the way, you’re going to create this bond and trust and they will refer you without you having to ask for it. It also has them wanting to work with you again a second time, when it comes time to move again, without you having to drive all over town, dropping off gifts or doing all this, calling them every, you know, six months or whatever it is that you’re hearing elsewhere. You don’t have to do it when you run a smart business and you communicate with your clients while they’re working with you. So they’ll just come back to you again and again. And they’re going to refer you because you get the job done in a way that feels really good and different to them. You are doing what it takes, you’re being smart and you have their best interest in mind and it shows. And that’s how you get clients coming to you on autopilot. That is how you get referrals without having to ask that is how you grow your business. One client at a time. And then all of a sudden, like, I always talk about that little like snowball, right? It just kind of picks up and picks up and suddenly it can roll itself down the Hill so that you aren’t constantly, you know, I I’ve know so many agents, 10, 20 years in the business who are still kind of starting from scratch all the time, this kind of stuff is how you avoid that. So in closing, let’s just do a quick recap, step one, you’re going to get clarity on exactly what your clients want. You’re going to know exactly both of you, what they want, where they want it. And you’re gonna have that conversation that is their budget in, in line with reality. And if it is okay, Then next you’re going to offer to send them a letter, send a letter on their behalf to the area and the homes that they’ve identified. And you’re going to get a copy of that letter by going to agent ground school.com and podcasts, and then going to this episode, and then you’re going to change mine to reflect what your clients kind of story is. And you’re going to give the sellers, you’re sending this to, or the owners, I should say enough information. So what feels like a real person on the other end? And then obviously you want to ask permission from your client of how much you can share. You’re not going to give things out like their last name or things that like you shouldn’t be sharing. Then the step after that, you’re going to send it to the right people. You’ll do a little homework on the MLS to make sure that you are sending to the right group of homeowners, that they own the type of home. They haven’t just bought that home. And you’ll avoid sending it to people who just bought within the year. That kind of thing. You’re not going to send it to the man, to the house, that dress you’re going to send it to the mailing address in case there’s any rentals. You want it to go to the owner, not the tenants. Okay? Last but not least. You’re going to wait for the responses and you’re going to do whatever makes sense. Next, if you get responses from owners like you, I can’t promise Anything, but 99% success rate, you will hear something from somebody. If, if it’s the right house, you schedule a time to see it. Maybe you go, if you’re not quite sure, and you don’t waste your client’s time, you’re communicating with your client every step of the way about when you’re sending your letter out, what responses that you’ve gotten. If by chance you don’t get any responses, all the more reason to say, Hey, nobody’s interested in selling their house in this neighborhood right now. What do you want to do about it? You want to go look over here instead, you want to change your criteria in any way. Nobody’s interested right now, what do we want to do about it? And you see your, your client as a partner, the two of you look at each other, like, what are we going to do about it? And you talk about next steps there. And so that’s it guys. The simple it’s, it’s simple. It’s easy. It takes yeah, a little extra effort to send this out, to stop what you’re doing. Kind of get off the light, let’s see houses, rollercoaster. It takes a little bit of creativity to add your client’s information to the letter, a little effort to go through the MLS and send it to the right list of owners. A little extra effort to communicate with your client along the way, but it is so worth it. And hopefully your ends up with the exact house they want when there was nothing on the market. And you’re like their hero at the same time, you’re answering the question. Why should they choose you? And yeah, they’ve already chosen you as their client, as their agent, but they could choose you. They could choose somebody else at any point in time. But more importantly, it says, why should they choose you again? Why should they refer you? And it has, the benefit is like they win. But also you win because you have more clients come coming to you without you really having to chase it or kinda, you know, do the kind of normal things that we all here calling your sphere, sending the postcards, knocking on doors. You don’t have to do all that. You can just really work with clients in a way that is out of the box. And then that brings on new clients. So that does it for this week’s episode. If you liked this episode, please, please leave a review on iTunes. We would love to have other agents hear about those podcasts. So in order for them to, for you to spread the word, all you have to do is submit a review on iTunes. It would really mean a lot to me. And if you try this strategy in your business, let me know what happens. You can email me@jenniferatagentgradschool.com. I read all the emails that come through personally, and I cannot wait to hear from you. All right. I will see you next week. On another episode of confessions of a top producing real estate agent, the agent grad school podcast. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Remember change happens when you take action. So apply what you learned today to your own real estate business. If this episode has helped you subscribe, leave a review and share it with all your real estate agent friends, and as always, if you want even more great resources to create the real estate business you’ve always wanted and have the life you want outside your business to head over to agent grad school.com and sign up for the free weekly trainings, you’ll get free classes, discounts, and other goodies that only go out to real estate agents on that email list. See you next week, right here on confessions of a top producing real estate agent, the agent grad school podcast.