How to Reach Your Target Audience with Text Messaging as a Real Estate Marketing Tool

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The real estate market has evolved in the way agents communicate with home buyers and sellers. With the emergence of mobile access and new online resources, agents have seemingly endless resources for reaching out to clients in 2019. Because Americans are dependent on their mobile devices, text messaging is now recognized as one of the most effective communication tools in the real estate industry. Continue reading and discover how you can craft a successful text message marketing strategy for your business this year.

Reach out to former clients

Reaching out to former clients, even after closing on a property, can help you in many ways. This simple step will show customers that you appreciate them and their feedback. Placing a high value on customer service will increase the likelihood of former clients referring you to family and friends. For example, sending a brief text message to ask how a move-in day went will leave a positive lasting impression on your client. You may be surprised about how a short text can make a significant impact on former clients.

Auto-respond to online leads

Responding to each lead that you receive throughout the day and night can be challenging. Instead, use auto-respond text messaging to respond to online leads instantly. With this, buyers receive instant gratification from not having to wait for an email response. Some buyers will not want to wait and will move on to the next person if they do not get a hold of an agent immediately.

Send reminders to current clients

There are many steps in the homebuying process. As such, it can be challenging for clients to keep up. This is especially the case for first-time homebuyers who are unfamiliar with necessary next steps. By using text messaging, you can send reminders to ensure that both you are on the same page. Texting is also one of the best ways to provide your clients with an instant call to action.

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.