New Real Estate Agent Website Launches

New for North Shore real estate searches

Today, BetsyBullock.com launched a new real estate website for the North Shore of Massachusetts. This Cape Ann agent specializes in Manchester real estate, Beverly real estate, Beverly Farms real estate, Prides Crossing real estate, Gloucester real estate, Rockport real estate, Essex real estate and more (phew! I am out of breath.) Her new site offers mapped searches with Zillow info, Yelp info and Education.com info about school systems. She also has community profiles for many of the North Shore communities. You can create your own customized searches with up-to-the-minute from MLSpin.

Congratulations to Betsy and thank you to the folks at Boston Logic who produce great real estate websites.

How experienced real estate agents can generate leads quickly

I have been working with several established real estate agents in the Boston area. We are working together to improve their business and generate leads. Some of them are just starting to do some regular “passive” marketing for the first time in a long time. Many of them are doing “active” marketing for the first time in their careers! That is right: they have not been calling people. An experienced agent can build on their existing book of business — that should be their largest source of revenue and it yields the highest return on investment in their marketing. By reaching out, those agents are bound to create activity. Let me give you an example:

Agent 1: She has been in the business for over twenty years. She committed to making 10 calls to former clients in her first two weeks with me. She got two appointments and she is confident those will become listings in the next three to six months. That is a 20% return.

Learn why sellers and buyers perceive value differently how you can bridge the gap

The Endowment Effect is a term coined by economist Richard Thaler in 1980 to describe the gap between a person’s Willingness to Pay (WTP) and Willingness to Accept (WTA). In simpler terms, the owner of an item perceives its value to be higher than a potential buyer does. It is similar to the “my baby is the most beautiful” syndrome.

I read two different theories about this. The one that truly spoke to me was written by Per Bylund and published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute in December of 2011. The article explores how economists have battled with this effect, due to modern economics’ placing higher value on mathematical explanations than psychological ones. However, the psychology behind the Endowment Effect does make a lot of sense.

How the Endowment Effect works

When purchasing something, a buyer needs to believe he/she is getting a deal. Otherwise, there is no gain and, therefore, no motivation to make the trade. For instance,

10 Common mistakes made by real estate agents

You clicked on the link to read this post. But you were afraid that you might see your own behavior on this list… right? It’s okay. We all make mistakes — every single one of us (I mean, just look at the photo for this post if you want to feel better). But, the leaders in any industry try to find those mistakes, learn how they made them, and stop making them in the future.

After a decade of working with real estate agents, I think I have seen it all. But several behaviors have stopped many agents from gaining new clients, keeping old clients, and improving their businesses. Here are some very common mistakes:

1. Speaking before listening – Many agents are very proud of their accomplishments and have a scripted presentation. They begin presenting from the first moment they are meeting potential clients. “This is what I have done.” But, this agent is missing a critical piece.

BettencourtRealEstate.com is new and live!

The world of real estate websites has changed dramatically from the days when you just had to post your own listings and have a webpage with your agent’s names and photos. As consumers, we all expect much more.

Broker/Owner of Bettencourt Real Estate, Marco Bettencourt, recently decided he needed to improve his site to help his clients get more out of it. He opted to use the Sequoia platform from Boston Logic, which features mapped searches with integrated Yelp and Education.com information, on-site Zillow stats, and luxury building pages.

The site only launched this morning — but, let me share a couple of numbers with you:

• On the HubSpot marketing grader, the old BettencourtRealEstate.com earned a grade of 22.
• As of one hour after launch, the new BettencourtRealEstate.com site improved it to 63. That was just the change to the website (in other words, using a better platform and features) – no added social media accounts or backlinking or blogging, all of which will improve the score in the coming weeks.

Stay tuned for updates. I think this is going to be a fun story.