Hello  {first_name}, 

                There is no denying that the Real Estate and Mortgage industry are experiencing major changes every day at a much faster pace than ever before. To be successful and continue to grow you’re your business, it is crucial to understand what changes are occurring and how to better prepare yourself so you don’t find yourself falling behind to your competition.

                Technology is sweeping its way into every industry you can think of across the globe not just in our industry. Competition is fierce, margins are getting lowers, and customers have so much information on line, they all think after reading a few articles, that they can do our job better than we can. Below are a few crucial items you should consider for 2018.
 
  1. Technology- Having the right real estate CRM is crucial to be successful in this market. In the past everything was being handled with assistants and staff but with competition at an all-time high, it’s it extremely important to be organized and to keep track of past and current prospects. Automated emails and text messages coming from you keeps you top of mind with prospects and closed clients and increases the percentage of closing that prospect or getting referred from a past client.
  2. Social Media- let’s face it, our industry isn’t easy to understand and those of us who are successful at it have been doing this for over 15-20+ years. That might put us the age bracket of 40-60 years old. We are no millennials and for a lot of us, understanding how social media works is like trying to read and understand another language. Invest in learning Facebook, and other larger social media platforms, there is no denying that it is the future and here to stay.
  3. The Right Lender- its obvious realtors don’t have your typical 9-5 job. You work long hours, weekends, and holidays. Many times you even sacrifice family occasions to show that client a home at 7 pm on a Saturday or Sunday. Your lender should always be available to answer questions or issue out pre approvals. With our market being a sellers’ market, 1 hour delay is the difference of someone else’s offer getting excepted over yours. Finding a lender that’s willing to sacrifice their personal time like you are will make you look like good in front of your clients and increase your chances of closing that client.
  4. Co-marketing- There’s never been a more important time to co-market with the right lender and have your marketing costs and prospecting efforts split. As platforms like Zillow and Trulia continue to be the first places where borrowers look for homes, new agents hungry for business are signing up with these platforms and are instantly accessing new potential buyers and getting buyers that typically you would have had. Looking at new avenues to create new prospects are crucial if you plan to stay in this business in the future. Referrals alone from family, friends and past client’s will soon no longer cut it.
 
Many agents volume are finding their volume dropping over the past few years. Currently we are down 15.2% from 2017 units sold. Below is the charts for total closed real estate volume for in Livingston, Oakland, Wayne and Macomb counties for 2016, 2017 and 2018 first quarter from January 1st to March 31. If you find your numbers have been decreasing over the past few years, it’s time to consider making some changes to your business model because there are agents out there making changes every day to stay on top.
 
 
Year List # List Vol Buy # Buy Vol Total Unit Total Volume Units Percent Change from previous year
2016 6918 1,163,296,154 55894 935,607,747 12,218 2,098,903,901 0%
2017 6416 1,152,246,692 5080 1,016,854,540 11,496 2,169,101,232 -5.9%
2018 5474 1,110,601,959 4273 888,034,030 9,747 1,998,635,989 -15.21%
 
Below are some links for some useful information
 
Possible CRM Options
  1. https://www.bigpurpledot.com/
  2. http://www.realgeeks.com/
  3. https://www.propertybase.com
  4. https://wiseagent.com/
Industry Articles- Mortgage Layoffs
  1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-07/capital-one-exits-mortgage-origination-business-cuts-1-100-jobs
  2. https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/citi-plans-to-lay-off-2200-in-mortgage-unit
 
Past Articles
  1. https://www.priority1lending.com/blog/the-difference-between-banks-mortgage-lenders-and-mortgage-brokers/


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