There are many different niches you can focus on, and selling high end homes is one of my favorites. And my reason is the most obvious one. Expensive houses earn you huge commissions. And the simple math really makes sense too. If your goal is to sell $5 million worth of real estate a year, you could do that by selling one single $5 million house, or five houses for one million each. To do the same thing selling $100,000 houses you would have to sell fifty houses, or have roughly one new closing every single week.
Most people end up listing whatever comes their way and don’t really know how to target the higher end properties. If they did, I’m pretty sure every Realtor I’ve ever met would start listing really high end houses.
Here is a marketing plan to get you some high end listings.
It starts with your branding.
You need to create an image that shows others that you are extremely competent. Most people that own very expensive homes got to that point because they mark smart business decisions. They want to work with a real estate agent that has similar values to theirs, and that they feel confident will do a good job.
Your brand needs to be a complete package and well-thought-out. Your marketing material should be extremely high end. Don’t print it yourself, get it printed professionally. Get it designed professionally also. And don’t be afraid to do a little more than you normally would. I recently designed a 16 page book, printed in full color, to use for marketing to high end clients. Every person that sees the book says something about how nice it is. These are the kinds of first impressions you want to create.
Make sure that all of your marketing is uniform. Your cards should match your brochures, and even your listing presentation packet should have the same look and feel.
How to get listing appointments with owners of high end luxury properties.
Now that you have put together an amazing marketing package, it is time to put it to use. Lets discuss a few ways to get yourself in front of the right types of sellers.
Expired listings. These are probably the easiest sellers to find because you already know that they want to sell their house. These are sellers that you will really need to impress because they aren’t going to list with you unless they think you can do something better than their last Realtor did. I strongly suggest going to these houses in person, and bring a really high end marketing packet to leave with them. It needs to be impressive and should include your action plan for selling their home for them.
Networking. I always wondered why the agents that sell $100,000 don’t sell many homes in the higher price ranges. I know agents that have 40 or 50 listings and not more than a handful are priced much higher than that. I started asking around and made an interesting discovery. Most Realtors get most of their leads from people that they know. The Realtors that have a lot of friends that live in $100,000 houses tend to sell mostly homes in that price range. The Realtors that associate with people that have more expensive homes tend to list more expensive homes on average. So you simply need to start hanging out with people that have more money. Start looking for events in your area where you can meet the type of people that you should be networking with. It will quickly open up a lot of opportunities for you, and you will also make some new friends along the way.
Marketing. To market to owners of high end homes, you will first want to target a specific area to market to. Then you can build a marketing campaign aimed at that neighborhood. Direct mailings actually work well. One of my favorites is to send out “just sold” postcards to those neighborhoods. Even if it is not your listing, you just need to indicate who the selling broker was. These types of postcards are interesting to the people that live there. They are curious to know how much other people’s homes in the area have sold for. The cards will also make you look very knowledgeable about real estate in their area.
You can also launch online marketing campaigns that target these neighborhoods. Blogs are statistical information about the area are a good place to start. If you purchase a domain name with the city or area’s name in it, you can often times get it to show up on the front page of Google very quickly when people search for those keywords.
In conclusion…
Remember that you don’t need to sell too many of these types of properties to make a good income. A $500,000 sale will make you $15,000 (assuming you earn 3% for your side of the transaction).
Also think about that when spending money on marketing. Imagine you spend $3,000 to get one sale. That is a TON of money to spend to get one listing. But even if you did, if the house sold for $500,000 you would still walk away with $12,000 after you pay the marketing costs. That’s not bad at all.
Selling luxury homes is a rewarding niche to be in and can be one of the fastest ways to earn six figures as a real estate agent.
