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Permalink Reply by Liz Harris, MBA on December 22, 2011 at 8:04am

The best is the referrals of past clients who you have successfully completed short sales for...

In the meantime, have you tried knocking on doors?  I actually took a job with Census 2010 to get really good at it and it worked!  The only problem is that it takes time. I try to make the time for it, but when working many files, I don't get to do it as often as I would like. 

I wish that all parties (homewoners, servicers, investors and the like) would realize that the majority of agents are genuinely trying to attempt to wade through this inventory of distressed homes. 

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Payne on December 23, 2011 at 3:55am

ALL of our short sales come thru referral by agents but most of all past clients.  We get multiple referrals from past clients each year.  I have not done any marketing for short sales but if I did, I would work market to CPAs, attorneys, loan orginators, title companies and other agents to get seller referrals.

Door knocking works if you have the time.  You can find lists of sellers who are in default, search the county records and find sellers who are in default and directly market to them.

My best bang for the buck is past clients who have done short sales with me, I already know them, they are (hopefully) happy with me and most of all, they know others who need my services.  Easy as pick up the phone and call them or stop and visit.

One other thing is that you could hold a short sale workshop in your community each month.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Hall on May 24, 2012 at 5:07am

Hi Ludora, I manage the Gary Kent Team in San Diego.  Like you, we are looking to ramp up our marketing to San Diego Short Sales.  We've just launched a website based on the Short or Stay Calculator.  Our plan is to use their strategy of various satelite blogs to build SEO to point to our main site using the Short or Stay Calculator to get them to take action.  It is taking a bit of work and focus.  So far, we've created an Active Rain account & blog - http://activerain.com/blogs/garykent along with our YouTube Channel http://www.youtube.com/garykentteam  and our existing blog http://www.san-diego-real-estate-blog.com

We are also doing some postcards, launching about 500 this week.  Our direct mail has not been great... but I think we can't avoid.  The trick is getting them to take action.  Typically, most short sale clients are confused to the point of paralysis about what to do next.  As Jeff Payne suggested, we've also done seminars - http://www.garykentteam.com/seminars.htm  Gary does about two hours of good info, but it is hard to get folks to them.  I think there may still be some stigma that creates reluctance.

If you would like to contact me directly, I'd like to find about a dozen agents around the country (outside of San Diego) to create a circle of friends to cross post on blogs to increase SEO.

 

Also, how about an update on this post?  I'd be curious to hear about your post card program.

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