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Just
a few years ago, Jackie Simon left a career as a housing authority employee and
turned to real estate. Now a
realtor with Avery-Hess, Realtors of Rockville, MD, she averages $10-17 million
in sales each year by specializing in the first time homebuyer market. What’s
even more amazing is that her average home price is $69,000. Simple math will tell you that Jackie is closing lots of
sales. Hugh
Rowden, now an Assistant Vice President at First Union Mortgage Corporation in
Atlanta, also specializes in first-time homebuyers, as a loan officer.
Hugh is a member of the President’s Club and last year was 10th in the
company for the number of units closed. How do
they do it? For starters, they make
a point of knowing and reaching their audiences, and are both active in trying
to connect with homebuyers early in the process. Both Jackie and Hugh
participate in homebuyer seminars led by local housing and credit counseling
agencies, down-payment assistance programs and churches.
Both stay in contact with other professionals who are likely to refer
potential clients, such as housing authorities and builders who are building for
the first time homebuyer market. Jackie
and Hugh both donate volunteer time to help these agencies, and are rewarded
with personal referrals, as both have built great levels of trust among the
staff and clients. “Remember
when you’re volunteering with these agencies you have to really give.
You can’t always be pushing your business or your product, people see
through that in a minute,” advises Jackie.
Jackie has also worked with large employers in the Maryland area to
convince them that providing a downpayment assistance or closing costs as an
employee benefit will help them with employee retention.
Hugh recommends that you determine where your target audience lives,
works and relaxes, and that you saturate those areas with your message,
“Think like a first time homebuyer, where would you go for information
on how to purchase a home?” “Product
knowledge is key,” says Hugh “There’s
more to life than FHA, VA and Conventional, you have to seek out the other
outside programs that can combine with different loan products.” “I’ve had agents tell me proudly that they’ve never
done a FHA or VA loan, they don’t know what a big part of the market they’re
missing,” says Jackie, “and they don’t bother to learn about down-payment
assistance programs, closing cost programs, or employer sponsored Homebuying
programs. You want to have lots of
tools in your kit and then be able to use the right one for the situation,
otherwise you’re using a hammer in place of a wrench.” Helping
the first time homebuyer avoid costly mistakes is another area that both excel
at. Jackie insists that her clients
have the home inspected by a professional inspector, whether or not the loan
requires it. She also strongly
recommends home warranties. “I’ve
never had a seller object to providing one for the first year of ownership, and
I advise the client to purchase it each year after the first.” That way, her clients will only have to come up with $100 in
the event of major repairs. One
client wound up having a virtually “new” home during the ten-year period
they owned the home, for the cost of $3500 in warranty expenses and $100 per
system. They wound
up having the plumbing, wiring, furnace, hot water heater and several items
re-done, all for less than just one or two repairs would have cost them.
When you save people that kind of money they remember you!” Both now
receive almost all of their business by referral.
Neither did it by design but as their reputation spread, both began
receiving referrals from past clients. “Usually
when someone you’re working with is in the process of buying a home, they have
friends at the office and family members who are watching them go through the
process and thinking about doing it themselves,” says Hugh.
“When you do a great job, they’re going to give your name and number
to their friends when they ask how they did it.” Jackie
concurs, “When you help someone achieve a goal that is important to them, they
are fiercely loyal, it’s good for you and good for your business.” |
