A Guide to Sending I Have a Buyer for Your Home Letters

    Sending out an “I Have a Buyer for Your Home” letter/postcard is an excellent way to generate real estate listings. However, several rules need to be followed or it could backfire on you and have the opposite effect.

    Furthermore, this technique works best in low-inventory markets and typically requires you to find a real estate “farm” for best results. Let’s go over what an “I Have a Buyer for Your Home” postcard is, and how you can use it to generate listings and make sales.

     

    What is an “I Have a Buyer for Your Home” Letter?

    An “I Have a Buyer for Your Home” letter or postcard is a marketing tool aimed at low-inventory real estate “farms.” The intent is to generate listings that will facilitate quick sales.

    As with most other marketing materials of this nature, these letters are typically written by professional copywriters who are versed in all of the psychological techniques necessary to create a high-conversion piece of copy.

     

    In most cases the letter communicates three key points:

    • There is a client looking to buy homes in your area
    • Homes in your area sell quickly due to its low-inventory nature
    • Brief information on the client (name, area, family status, etc.)

    The letter then wraps it all up with a strong call to action typically asking the recipient to call the real estate agent directly or to send an email. It is important to remember that setting up this meeting is the letter’s goal, not to outright convince the recipient to sell their home. This being the case, an “I Have a Buyer for Your Home” letter should not be overly “salesy” and should instead use the three key points above to encourage the recipient to contact the real estate agent.

     

    Be Sure to Have a Buyer First

    One of the most important rules for using this technique is to make sure that you have a buyer for your area before sending out these letters. This is because having an interested buyer and the promise of a quick sale are the most critical factors for convincing people to let you list their home. If it turns out there is no buyer, many recipients will likely feel betrayed and may decide not to list their homes. Alternately, they may simply drop you and find a new real estate agent to work with.

    Finding a buyer oftentimes isn’t hard when it comes to low-inventory areas, however, you do need to ask them for permission before sending out the “I Have a Buyer for Your Home” letters.

    This is true even if you decide to target your “farm” using an ad network like Facebook instead of traditional means such as email and snail-mail. Furthermore, having real info about the buyer in the letter helps boost conversions.

    This is because this information works as a form of “social proof” and reassures the recipient that they’re dealing with real people who are looking to purchase a home in their area.

    The more confident the recipient is that the letter is genuine, the more likely they will be to contact the real estate agent and have their home listed.

     

    Figuring Out Which Area to Send Letters To

    The concept of a real estate “farm” is a low-inventory area where property sells very quickly. These areas are extremely valuable for their sales potential and are excellent for real estate farming.

    Finding a good real estate farm is the first step in this whole process. Yes, “I Have a Buyer for Your Home” postcards can be used in less optimal areas, but they work best where listings sell very quickly.

    This is because the promise of a quick sale helps to convince recipients to list their homes, and in doing so, increases conversions. In other words, you’ll be getting a greater ROI on your marketing efforts which means more profit.

     

    Finding Your Farm

    Generally speaking, a real estate farm will originate from your cold database rather than from your sphere of influence. Because of the competitive nature of the real estate industry, geo farming is a method of focusing your marketing efforts on a specific neighborhood.

    Make an informed decision for your Geo farm. In general, a familiar area is preferable. This is because you can tailor your marketing campaigns based on your subject knowledge.

    However, finding your perfect farm does take some careful thought and planning, not just random selection.

    The first factor you’ll be looking at is the turnover rate which you can usually get from your local MLS.

    Looking at two years and averaging the turnover rate, you can get an idea of which areas would make a good farm. Generally speaking, 7-8% are good rates and anything higher than that is even better, though somewhat rare.

     

    Avoiding Excessive Competition

    One of the key aspects of finding a good farm is avoiding competition. If other real estate agents are already farming an area, then you might want to look elsewhere.

    This means that if you find an area with a very high turnover rate, say 12% or so, you want to be wary and take a moment to check the saturation rate. The saturation rate of a real estate farm is the average number of agents that participated in selling homes in the area over a set amount of time.

    For example, if you’re looking at the past two years of a farm and 40 homes were sold with 20 agents involved, that’s a saturation rate of 2. On the other hand, if 40 homes were sold with 40 agents involved, that would be a 1.

    While a 1 is typically an unrealistic goal to shoot for, you do want the saturation rate to be as low as possible so that you can avoid competition.

     

    Closing the Deal

    Once you send out your “I Have a Buyer for Your Home” letters to the best real estate farm you can find, you have to be prepared to close the deal when recipients begin contacting you.

    The main thing to focus on is understanding their wants/needs and explaining what’s in it for them. The good news is that anyone who contacts you is probably pretty serious about having their home listed.

    Also, if the client you mentioned in the letter is no longer interested but you’re still getting calls/emails, don’t turn these people away. Instead, simply apologize that the client is no longer interested but also bring up the fact that property sells very quickly in their area.

    If they are truly interested in selling their home, you should still be able to get them to list with you if you have a good enough pitch.

     

    Conclusion

    In the end an “I Have a Buyer for Your Home” letter or postcard is an extremely valuable marketing tool. However, there is a lot of thought and planning that goes into this strategy and you have to be prepared to close the deal once the recipient contacts you.

    If you can do that, and find a suitable real estate farm to target, then this can be one of the best ways to get new listings.

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