3 Strategies for Boosting Your Digital Presence as a Real Estate Agent

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How does a real estate business stand out online from the competition online? In a competitive industry like real estate, a strong digital presence is a must. There are all sorts of steps you can take to increase your online discoverability. With this, continue reading and discover a few strategies for boosting your digital presence.

Optimize your website

Your website speaks volumes about your business. People will make assumptions about you when they stumble on your website online. Your website should be a place where a prospective buyer can learn about you as an agent. It is astonishing how many real estate agents do not even have a website in 2019. If you haven’t already, now is the time to optimize your website by using SEO best practices. It is imperative that it loads quickly and that it is mobile-friendly.

Be active on social media

A strong social media presence will help you grow your real estate business. Social channels are excellent platforms for promoting your content. Be sure that you are posting visual elements such as pictures and videos to catch people’s attention when they are scrolling through their newsfeeds. In addition to posting content online, social media will allow you to connect with prospective clients and spread awareness about your business.

Use email marketing

Email marketing continues to be an excellent way to create brand awareness online. A strong email marketing campaign will help you gain new clients. It is beneficial to segment your subscriber lists, so you are sending the right information to the right people.

HUD Foreclosures

HUD foreclosures and VA Foreclosures are some of the best homes to buy when price is part of the equation. As with most Americans, price is always a concern. If not buying the same house for less, why not buy more house for the same dollar invested? When looking for a good deal it is hard to do better than the VA or HUD foreclosures market. The simple truth is that there are just more VA and HUD homes on the market, as they represent such a large number of mortgages that are generated each year. This translates into more foreclosures just by the magnitude of difference between all others comparing to the two largest.

The two largest also being government owned and operated means that they have less time to wait to make money back on the home. The FHA is especially known for selling HUD homes for less than the average sales price in a given area. FHA foreclosures represent a fraction of HUD but they are still a significant number of homes and both should be considered.

VA (Veterans Administration) and HUD (Housing and Urban Development) have different and unique opportunities for the buyer. Both are often forgiven for the local taxes normally associated with the purchase of a home (this is on a county by county basis). Be sure to ask the local title company or escrow company to look into it for you before closing as this is often missed due to their are not used to dealing with the 2 to 3 percent of the market that VA and HUD foreclosures represent.

Foreclosure Listings Increasing

As the market settled after the mortgage meltdown foreclosure listings also settled and fewer homes were on the market with a placard reading “Bank Foreclosure” in big red lettering. This was a good thing for the entire real estate market. Having an abundance of foreclosures brings the entire market down and it makes it harder for home owners, who would like to move, to get the appropriate price for their home as a similar home down the same street was sold for substantially less and the appraiser is using the foreclosure as a comparable sale.

This is just one of the problems when there are too many foreclosure listings in any area. Another issue is the television set that sits in everyone’s living room harping about the price of homes based on the number of foreclosures and this constant barrage of negative information makes most people sit on the sidelines waiting for the market to either implode completely or to correct itself. Meanwhile while they wait, others are buying foreclosure listings and making great investments.

Whatever the reason, a market can only handle so many foreclosure listings at any given time. The more foreclosures, the lower the market gets and this is a lesson the banks that were foreclosing and selling off realized too late. The market and their investments would have been better off if there had not been a rush to divest themselves of the toxic assets made more toxic by their own actions.