Summary

3 Best Opportunities In the Changing Market

1. Relationships. (a.k.a. your sphere of influence) Build a personal circle of relationships with people who trust you. This involves training them to keep you top-of-mind, so when they know of anybody looking to buy or sell real estate, they will refer you. This is your WOMMT (Word Of Mouth Marketing Team)
2. Distressed Sellers. (e.g. They can’t make the mortgage payment & have a notice of default filed on their house, or an Expired). They’re motivated to sell & need your help but might resist at first. The key here is to master how to break through their resistance. This is what I train on in my FREE live masterclass. Get details HERE
3. Downsizers. These are baby boomers looking to move into a smaller sized home. With the shifts in the market, this is the time that they’re considering selling because the value of their house has gone up and they have equity. And because they’re used to being homeowners, you as the agent can double-dip and be their buyer’s agent. 

Shift your mindset, from focusing on just getting the money to becoming the master problem solver for your clients.

Because people will resist you when they feel that you’re just in it for the money. But when they know that you genuinely care about them and that you are there to help guide them through whatever transition they’re going through…they will trust and depend on you.

If you want to get more winning strategies for adding 2-3 more deals every month (no matter what storm comes your way), I’d like to invite you to join me for a FREE live webclass called, More Leads, More Listings, More Life. Get more details HERE. 

Full Transcript

Hi there. It’s Kevin Ward, the founder of YesMasters Real Estate Success Training, and we are right now dealing with and looking at the middle of a major shift in the economy and in the real estate market. And I just shot a video, it went up last week, on how to survive in this changing market. I’ll put a link in the description so that you can go back and watch that video. 

In this video, we’re going to talk about where are the three best opportunities that are going to be present for real estate agents in the changing market. And these three opportunities are going to be there, regardless of whether we just have a minor correction or adjustment in the housing market, or if we go into a major downturn or even, God forbid, a crash. 

So whatever happens here, these three opportunities are going to be present for agents that are ready to go and prepared for it, ready to adapt and adjust.

3 Best Opportunities In the Changing Market

So, number one, where is the opportunity that is coming? 

1.Number one, the best opportunity for agents who are going to be crushing it in the coming weeks, months, years is relationships, is simply having a personal circle of relationships with people. You call it your sphere of influence, whatever you want to call it, of people who trust you, who are hearing from you, who are thinking about you, we call that top of mind awareness, and who are willing to, not only use you, but willing to refer you. 

Now, I call it having a word of mouth marketing team, which means, if you’ve got a hundred great relationships for past clients, people in your personal circle, people that you’ve known, that you built credibility with, that they’re thinking about you and you’re staying in touch with them, we call that your personal circle vortex in the Real Estate Vortex in my training is, if you have that, then what happens is, because they know more people than you.

So if you know a hundred people, but each of those hundred people know another hundred people that you don’t know, and they’re thinking about you, and they know that you are great at helping buyers and sellers who need to make a move in the coming market, and they hear about their neighbor or their friend or somebody at work or somebody at their church, that is looking at buying or selling or needing to sell or whatever it is, and they know what to do, and they go like, “Hey, hi, Darrell. Kevin here. Listen, I was talking to somebody at work and they’re needing to sell their house. I told them that I would have you give them a call. 

Now, this is not automatic, my friends. Relationships, just because you have friends and they know you’re in real estate does not mean they know what to do when they hear a real estate conversation. So you have to actually train them, that number one, you can help people. Number two, you want to help people and you want their help in finding people that you can help.

So you actually have to train them to do this. We train this in what we call the personal circle vortex, so that you actually train the people that like you, the people that know you, the people that trust you, to be your word of mouth marketing team. There is going to be the greatest opportunities. And the reason the best opportunities are going to be there is because, when people are hurting, if the economy gets bad, if the housing market shifts, you’re going to have a lot people who are selling, because they have to. And when that happens, if they’ve lost a job or their 401k has dwindled down and now they just don’t have the cash flow and they’re like, “We got to downsize. We got to get rid of this house,” and they’re scared, they don’t want to talk to anybody about it. Because they’re embarrassed. They’re ashamed. They feel bad and they just hate it.

It’s almost like going through grief, and they get into this phase of like, “I don’t want to talk to anybody about it,” and just like the five stages of grief, the first thing they do is they go into denial. It’s just like, “We’re going to be fine. I just don’t want to talk about it.” So if you’re the agent that shows up at their door, you’re sending them stuff by direct mail, and they don’t really know you. They don’t really trust you. They’re like, “I don’t know who to talk to,” they probably don’t want to talk to some realtor who just happens to show up in their world or on their radar. Because they don’t trust you, and they don’t feel safe and they don’t want to talk about it. 

Who do they talk about it to? They talk about it to their trusted friend who happens to know you, who happens to know you’re the best agent. So those relationships, real estate is going to become and continue to become more and more a relationship game.

2. All right. Number two. The second best opportunity coming for real estate agents is distressed sellers. Now, distressed sellers can be people who are truly in distress, like they can’t make the mortgage payment, and so, they’ve had a notice of default filed on their house. Okay. They’re potentially losing their house. 

Or, it can be a distressed seller, maybe just an expired listing, an expired or canceled listing who had their home list with another realtor. Didn’t sell. And now, they may not be truly in distress, but they’re frustrated. But they need to sell. So when you have a motivated seller, who’s tried it or has to sell and they’re in distress, they need somebody who can come in and help them, and you’ve got to be that agent.

So, if you’re out reaching out to distressed sellers, to expired sellers, to those who are notice of default, and you know what to do and how to do it, there’s going to be tremendous opportunity. 

And if you don’t know what to do, if you don’t know how to do it, if you don’t know how to handle their objections, if you don’t know how to get through their resistance, you’re going to get stumped over and over. It’s like, “Well, that’s too hard. It’s not going to work.” 

This is what I do is I help real estate agents who want to master, how do you break through resistance with people who do need to sell, who are motivated to sell, they just don’t want to talk to you yet. So you can go to yesmasters.com to find out more about that. I’ve got free training that I do every other week. You can find out more about that, and you can register for that free masterclass, and you can come join me on that.

Now the good news about distressed sellers, right now in this market, as things shift, is unlike 2007, ’08, 2009, ’10, is most of your distress sellers are not going to be short sales. Back in 2008, 2009, 2010, it became a huge part of the market was short sales, and they’re a nightmare. Short sales are a nightmare. So, I don’t recommend you going like, “Well, I’m going to specialize in short sales.” It’s kind of like saying, “I’m going to specialize in pain,” because they’re so tough. 

But the good news is, because number one, most people that have been buying houses over the last 10 years have had to actually qualify for it. So, they’ve had to put money down. They’ve had to come in with credit, so they’re not upside down in the property. And, because they had to put money down, they tend to already go in with equity, plus we have been in a 10 year cycle of appreciating prices. So if they bought the house two years ago or five years ago, they’ve got equity. On top of what they put as downpayment, they’ve got additional equity.

So even if prices start dropping and prices drop even significantly. And in most cases, even if prices drop 10%, they may be frustrated. They may be in distress, but they’re not going to be upside down where they’re having to do a short sale. Okay? If you’re a newer agent going like, “What in the world is a short sale?”, because you haven’t been around a long time, don’t worry about a short sale right now. Okay? You don’t want them. Okay. There may come a day when that shifts, but right now, you don’t need short sales.

3. Okay. Number three, the third best opportunity for finding real estate deals going forward is downsizers. Okay? To me, this is the sleeper. It is the biggest opportunity, and it will be the biggest opportunity in the real estate industry for 10 years. Downsizers are all the baby boomers, people that were born from 1946 to 1964. They’re in their late fifties, their sixties, in their seventies, and the ones that live in big houses that they raise their family in. They have four or five, six bedrooms. They have 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 square feet, from big lots. They have big yards to mow. They’ve got four or five or six bathrooms. They’ve got three-car garages. And now the kids are grown. The kids are gone. And it’s just a husband and wife, and they’re still living in this massive 4,500 square foot house. And they’ve got five bedrooms and they just don’t need them all. And they’ve got stairs and they don’t want to go up and down the stairs because their knees aren’t as good or their hips aren’t as good as they used to be.

And they’re like, “You know what? Maybe it’s time to sell,” because they’ve been thinking about it for the last five years. But, what’s been going on? Price has been going up, going up, so the value of their house has been going up. So they’ve been gaining equity, and they’re like, “Yeah, we need to sell someday. But right now, man, our house is worth a hundred thousand more than it was this time last year, so let’s just kind of hang on for a while.” 

And now, all of a sudden with the shifting market, they look and go like, “Okay, when we bought this house back in 2004, we bought it for $800,000. Today it’s worth 2.1. What if things start shifting going down? I think now’s the time to cash out on our house. We’ve been thinking about downsizing. We can get closer to the kids. We can move into that 1,900 square foot house or 2,400 square foot house. Get rid of this big 4,500 square foot monstrosity that we’re having to pay utilities for every month, and those utility bills are going up.”

“We’re having to mow the lawn every month and we’re just tired of mowing grass. And, we got a four-car garage or a three-car garage and we don’t really need that anymore. So let’s just downsize.” 

And now is the time. And that’s going to be happening over the next five years, especially as the market turns. Everybody that is in their fifties, sixties, seventies, and their kids are grown and gone, they’re going to be downsizing. And there’s going to be tremendous opportunity for the agent that knows how to connect with them and what to do to build that relationship and to help them.

 And the beauty of it is, they all have equity. They have great credit. Because they have equity, they’re going to have money to pay a down payment on the next house. And they’re used to being homeowners, so they’re going to sell that house and then downgrade and buy another house. So you’re going to double dip. When you find that client who’s selling, you’re going to help them sell and you’re going to help them buy. It’s not their first rodeo and they understand the process, and they’re the best clients to work with because of all of that.

Be a Problem Solver, Not a Commission Stalker

So, my friends, here’s the key. 

As the market shifts, there is going to be panic. From 2008 to 2010, nearly half a million realtors washed out of the business, nearly half a million. That will happen again as the market turns. While the masses panic, the masters are the ones who will be looking and going like, “Ah, there’s opportunity. There’s opportunity. I can help this person. I can help with this person. I can help this person.” 

Now here’s the most important thing to understand, in your approach, whether it’s in your relationships or it’s distressed sellers or it’s downsizers, here’s the most important thing that’s going to be critically valuable as a skill in a shifting market for user real estate agents helping buyers and sellers. 

And that is, you have to shift your mindset, from thinking just getting about the money. And you want to become the master problem solver for your clients, not the commission stalker looking for a paycheck problem solver, not the commission stalker.

The commission stalker, people are going to resist you. They’re going to run from you. But when you’re a problem solver, and you care about them and what they need and their interests and their concerns and their pain, and you are there to help guide them through the rocky road or whatever of this transition that they’re having to go through, when you’re the problem solver that they can trust, people will depend on you. They will trust you. They will refer you. They will use you. And you, my friend, will just succeed mightily through all the opportunities that are going to happen in a changing market.

Now, if you like this video, make sure you give it a thumbs up. If you’re new here, make sure you’ve subscribed to the channel because I got new videos coming out that are going to help you be prepared for how to win in the real estate market today, tomorrow, and in the future. We’ll see you on the trail.