I love buyers! Many individuals who have been in real estate for years and years tell me that sellers are much less hassle than buyers, but I disagree with that on two fronts:

1) I've not had a buyer try to beat me up on my commission, and I work with buyers all year long. Some buyers are starting to ask for a reduction in fees because they do a lot of the work - find properties online, drive by, and e-mail me to tell me which properties they want to buy.

2) First-time buyers need my expertise, and haven't been through the process before, so there is an excellent opportunity for me to teach them about the process, and help them have the best possible experience through one of the most stressful purchases they will ever make.

I have recently begun running a $12 classified ad to attract more first-time buyers:

FIRST TIME BUYERS

Why rent when you can own?

Free list of homes with no money down, under $1300 per month

Call 1-888-888-8888 ID#8888

RE/MAX Blue Springs

This ad is running Friday's in two newspapers, and the response to it is just incredible. I am getting an average of 13 calls a day in a market of 27,000 people. Some of the callers live out-of-market, and work here, and want to buy here. Some want to buy out-of-market (can you say referral?), but the majority of all callers want to buy here. And 90% of the callers say what they are looking to buy when they leave their message - price range, area, bedrooms, etc.

Success to date (at three insertions of the ad - 22 days) - two properties sold, seven more buyers under contract, and three buyer interviews set-up for this week. Guess what... out of all the people I've spoken to from this ad, less than half of them are wanting to buy with no money down! An even bigger benefit... half of them want to buy in the $200,000 to $250,000 range.

And, last night, another killer benefit occurred to me... Most of these people are renting a house (only a couple are in apartments). The market is at a very high price-point right now, so, once I've found the right house for these people, I'm going to go after the owners of the property they've been renting, and see if I can either get that listed, or offer to rent it out for them.

How do I follow-up? Well, the first two weeks, I sent them the catalogue print-out (complete with address, so they can drive-by) of the properties that fall into the advertised criteria (or the criteria they requested in their message), then waited a week to call and ask if any of the properties were of interest, then arranged to meet, etc. We sent lists to all the local buyers, but only called the immediate buyers. A good success level, but I think it will be better this week...

I'm calling the people (only the immediate buyers; the rest wait a couple of days) back the same evening that they've called in, and just verifying their criteria, and confirming if they have any other special requirements - bedrooms, school districts, etc. This is the best experience for me - these people have called me, and are asking for my help. They know it is an agent going to call them back, because it says so in the ad. Now, another fascinating thing to me is that these people are looking to buy a house NOW, but they aren't calling agents; they're just skimming the paper and not doing much more than that - a few have called a listing agent or two, but are put off by the pushy approach of those agents. Yet, they are happy to talk to me.

All of the people we send the listings to are also sent a mortgage application for the lender I use for zero-down, and told in the cover-letter that they will have to get pre-approved before we can look at houses. No complaints yet.

Does the ad attract lower-quality calls? Yes, but in my experience, that is less than 20% with the particular ad I'm running. Also, those lower-quality ones can often be turned into excellent quality in a couple of ways:

Published: October 3, 2000

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