Tips for your best spring selling season yet
Historically spring is the busiest time for selling real estate in Australia. With auction clearance rates reaching record highs and eager house hunters emerging from their winter hibernations to attend sunny weekend inspections, you can’t afford to not put your best foot forward.
Here are the things you can do to prepare for the peak selling season and ensure this spring is your best yet.
Work your database
The tail end of winter is when you need to check in with all the long-term prospects in your database. For vendors thinking about putting their home on the market in spring remind them that now is the best time to get any maintenance or repairs completed to maximise the value of their property. If your follow ups are left to the last minute in September, vendors won’t have enough time to make any renovations or fixes to take advantage of this spring selling season. Also have a list of advantages of selling in spring ready to email potential clients after your follow up calls.
It’s a good idea to have the contact details for local trustworthy trades (i.e. painters, landscapers, carpet cleaners and handymen) at the ready to pass on to potential sellers to help them prepare their home in time for a spring campaign. They’ll appreciate your local knowledge and remember you when they need an appraisal.
Joint prospecting
With the rise in popularity of rentvesting, you may be surprised by how many clients have been sitting right under your nose in your property management (PM) database. Join forces with the PM department to see if any landlords are thinking of selling or buying another investment property. If they’re looking for another property and you sell them one of your listings, then they come back to your PM team to manage their new property, it’s a win-win-win for all parties.
Also have the property managers alert you to any renters that are considering becoming a rentvestor or if any are looking to buy their first home after not renewing their lease (with the new stamp duty concessions in certain states this will become more prevalent). Return the favour by referring any vendors looking for short-term rental accommodation after selling their home to your PM team.
Ramp up your advertising efforts
In the lead-up to spring you need to be across a variety of different advertising platforms to raise your profile. Advertise your current listings in local newspapers and online, letterbox drop and door knock around your service suburbs, and you may even want to explore local outdoor advertising options.
Upgrade your agent profile and current listings to have prominent positioning across the real estate portals you use. That way when potential clients search for an agent or look at what’s currently listed in their area, your face, name and company logo will keep coming up. Remind vendors that in spring the competition for comparable properties is extra fierce so they need to spend that little bit extra on marketing so their home stands out on the crowded listing results page.
Preparation is key
You can’t afford to get complacent or burnt out during your busiest and most profitable time of year. If you do, this will have a flow-on effect to the amount of referral and repeat business you get over the next few months. Set goals for returning calls and emails, and for the amount of appointments and new properties you want to list. Reaching your goals, fulfilling promises and exceeding client expectations will snowball into referrals and return business. There are only so many hours in a day, so you need to be wise with how you use them.
So, before the busiest time of year hits, plan out how you’re going to spend every hour of your working day and what actions you’ll take now so you can field a greater volume of enquiries and client requests later. You need to get into a stellar weekly routine to ensure you use your time as efficiently as possible so you and your business are all set to thrive this spring.
For more ways to succeed next season check out our guide to preparing vendors for a spring sale.