Marketing to sellers in a short sale situation

I wanted to get some ideas on what others are doing to get the word out there that they are short sale specialists. Here is what we are currently doing:

* Blogging We have a short sale blog (typepad blog), a regular area real estate blog (typepad blog), and blog on our main website.
* Website
* Stealth sites with forms (not blind, of course)
* SEO work
* PPC-having trouble finding the terms to drive sellers
* Facebook to let our networks know, through status updates, that we are focusing on helping sellers in need.
* Expired Campaign-we are in the process of testing an expired campaign, through a series of 8 regular mailings (over a month and a half) targeted to educate the seller, but the conversion numbers are very low so far so we're thinking about scrapping it.

Lately we have found it to be a lot harder to get the attention of sellers. I think this is largely because nearly every agent in the area has decided they are a short sale specialist...even if they know nothing about working short sales.

I wanted to see what others are doing that is working to get the short sale listings.

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Permalink Reply by Andrea Mills on August 25, 2009 at 2:10am
We have done a mailing campaign to short sale candidates (expired short sales and lis pendens filings) with very little success. We got two listings, both from realtors that realized the value in having a short sale professional. We decided it's not worth spending that much money in postage when the results aren't justifying it. We find it is harder to get listings these days than it was last year. We're now concentrating on blogging, SEO, website etc. instead.
Permalink Reply by Wendy Rulnick on August 25, 2009 at 2:53am
You are so right, mail is REALLY Expensive!!

Andrea Mills said:
We have done a mailing campaign to short sale candidates (expired short sales and lis pendens filings) with very little success. We got two listings, both from realtors that realized the value in having a short sale professional. We decided it's not worth spending that much money in postage when the results aren't justifying it. We find it is harder to get listings these days than it was last year. We're now concentrating on blogging, SEO, website etc. instead.
Permalink Reply by Sharon Senger on August 25, 2009 at 3:35am
Have you tried other Agents as just reading the comments on ActiveRain there are a lot of Agents who do not want to get involved with short sales. But I am sure they would not say no to a referral fee, as would the agents in your office.

Also you may want to do a key word search on the MLS for agents who have or have done short sales and put them on your mailing list. They may have more than they can handle or they did not enjoy the experience. Rather than pay for postage email them on a regular bases and let them know about your work with short sales.

Sharon
Permalink Reply by Andrea Mills on August 26, 2009 at 12:14pm
Sharon, I never thought of this! Wow! Just read it to Darrin and he jumped right in creating a list. I guess that leaves me with creating the letter. Super idea! Thanks Sharon!!!!!!!

Sharon Senger said:
Have you tried other Agents as just reading the comments on ActiveRain there are a lot of Agents who do not want to get involved with short sales. But I am sure they would not say no to a referral fee, as would the agents in your office.

Also you may want to do a key word search on the MLS for agents who have or have done short sales and put them on your mailing list. They may have more than they can handle or they did not enjoy the experience. Rather than pay for postage email them on a regular bases and let them know about your work with short sales.

Sharon
Permalink Reply by Sharon Senger on August 26, 2009 at 12:47pm
Andrea, glad to be of help :)

Sharon
Permalink Reply by Guy Lofts CRS on September 9, 2009 at 3:30pm
I have found it very easy to get good seo ranking on seo terms. Quite a few calls from that alone. Thanks for the other ideas,
Permalink Reply by Marcy Brennan, CDPE on October 30, 2009 at 4:31pm
Wow Stephanie! I looked at your blog and it's incredible! Do you personally write all those posts? It looks like it - makes me feel totally inadequate! I'm getting back into real estate after sitting it out the past two years (have 17+ years exp) and the whole biz has drastically changed.

I have a blog but get no visitors (wordpress - not hosted - free one). Where does one go to learn how to put together the types of internet sites you have and get their sites picked up on Google toward the top? I'm fairly computer literate but when I see the things you're doing, I feel waaay behind the power curve :-)

I'm in Port St Lucie, FL and our market here is mostly short sales, so I have lots of catching up to do. I did expireds for a good month to no avail - changing up the marketing pieces - still no takers. i've done mailings to the preforeclosure list - nada and lots of money down the drain on postage :-( So internet marketing has to be my next venture. I just don't want to waste a lot of money and get nothing in return.

BTW, the link for your preforeclosures site isn't working.

This site is a jewel and like a life-saver to me at this point because I've been about ready to throw in the towel - lots of money out - no money in :-(

Stephanie Lim said:
Wendy--a stealth site is where you make it about the topic, not you. I just did mine with "Coffee Cup" software and bought a cheap hosting plan with GoDaddy. Here are our short sale stealth sites:

http://www.shortsalesjacksonville.com (Just saw I need to fix the listings on the bottom. My IDX is not cooperative once the properties go into "Sold" status.)
http://www.jacksonvillepreforeclosure.com (Have gotten several listings and appointments from this one.)
http://www.distressedpropertiesjacksonville.com

I usually duplicate my posts on my typepad and main website. I wasn't sure if I would start getting into trouble with the search engines if I put them on Active Rain as well. Have you found that you can put your blog posts in multiple places and it's okay? I haven't been posting my short sale listings. I think I'll start.

With Facebook I've had a couple of "near misses" for listings lately...ie a friend told a family member about me the day after they listed. :-(


Wendy Rulnick said:
Hi Stephanie! I find #1 is my blog fo get short sale sellers. I post my new short sale listings on AR, AR outside blog, blogger internally on my company site, wordpress and sometimes others if I have time. I post some of my approvals, but may start posting ALL of them. I got a $500,000 listing yesterday because I posted a local short sale approval. I am on PPC but feel like I am floundering on there. I am on FB, but don't use it to its fullest. What is a stealth site???
Permalink Reply by Abraham Walker on August 31, 2010 at 5:32pm
My anti virus software stopped your site from loading because of a Trojan. You may want to check this out. I use Avast.

Robert Painter said:
Website and Referrals are where most of our leads come in. We run ads in Craigslist and door knock the sheriff's auction list also. I like the door knocking because you are face to face and people can get to know you. We leave a brochure with our contact and website info.

http://www.freeshortsalehelp.com - if you wanted to check out our site.
Permalink Reply by Abraham Walker on August 31, 2010 at 5:43pm
Have you ever thought about advertising a free rental list to home owners facing foreclosures on craigslist? Most home owners I encounter that are facing foreclosures are looking for other placing to stay. In New Orleans Craigslist is more popular than our MLS for rentals. I once posted an ad on Craigslist on a Friday (with a link to a landing page on my website) and had 50+ emails by Monday. Just a thought.

Stephanie Lim said:
Wendy--a stealth site is where you make it about the topic, not you. I just did mine with "Coffee Cup" software and bought a cheap hosting plan with GoDaddy. Here are our short sale stealth sites:

http://www.shortsalesjacksonville.com (Just saw I need to fix the listings on the bottom. My IDX is not cooperative once the properties go into "Sold" status.)
http://www.jacksonvillepreforeclosure.com (Have gotten several listings and appointments from this one.)
http://www.distressedpropertiesjacksonville.com

I usually duplicate my posts on my typepad and main website. I wasn't sure if I would start getting into trouble with the search engines if I put them on Active Rain as well. Have you found that you can put your blog posts in multiple places and it's okay? I haven't been posting my short sale listings. I think I'll start.

With Facebook I've had a couple of "near misses" for listings lately...ie a friend told a family member about me the day after they listed. :-(


Wendy Rulnick said:
Hi Stephanie! I find #1 is my blog fo get short sale sellers. I post my new short sale listings on AR, AR outside blog, blogger internally on my company site, wordpress and sometimes others if I have time. I post some of my approvals, but may start posting ALL of them. I got a $500,000 listing yesterday because I posted a local short sale approval. I am on PPC but feel like I am floundering on there. I am on FB, but don't use it to its fullest. What is a stealth site???
Permalink Reply by Abraham Walker on August 31, 2010 at 5:48pm
I notice an increase in my conversion rate for expired mailings letter when I hand address each envelope with no letter head or company logo (this takes longer but I believe I get more bank for my buck). I also use plain ole peel and stick stamps. This simple addition to a well written letter helped me land an interview for a 1.5 million dollar home. All from a letter.

P.S. If you relly want to increase your mailing percentages purchase a pack of cheap post cards w/ envelops from your local stein mart, t-j max, or marshall's and a little not expressing your remorse for their previous agents failed attempt. I use these post card to send thank you notes after open houses, phone calls, or someone saying hello.

Andrea Mills said:
We have done a mailing campaign to short sale candidates (expired short sales and lis pendens filings) with very little success. We got two listings, both from realtors that realized the value in having a short sale professional. We decided it's not worth spending that much money in postage when the results aren't justifying it. We find it is harder to get listings these days than it was last year. We're now concentrating on blogging, SEO, website etc. instead.
Permalink Reply by Kevin Hall on May 24, 2012 at 5:23am

Hi Stephanie,

Wow, it is fun reading your post, but in San Diego we are a couple of years behind you. We rode the REO wave for many years, but now it is short sales that are the main driver in San Diego.

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. 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.

I'd love to chat with you (or any other agents watching this post) to find our what did (and didn't work) and how we can cross-post in a "white hat" way to increase our rankings.

　

Kevin

[email protected]

858-535-7435

Permalink Reply by Rita Cox on July 24, 2012 at 10:14pm

Kevin,

I am in the Metro Atlanta area and would love to work with you and other agents around the country to compare our marketing efforts. 

Rita Cox

Keller Williams Realty

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