63% of Homes Sold With a Seller Concession. Steal This Play

Hey, it's Jeff Zimpfer. I am back in front of the microphone today, Thursday, July 9th. Hope you're doing well. Thanks for tuning in. What is on deck for this episode? Well, I'm just gonna come at you with a couple of rapid-fire ideas that have come across my desk in the last several days. Before I get into that, These are going to be hot takes, by the way, you can apply to your business immediately. I did just get back from Cabo, where my family and I were enjoying the 26th wedding anniversary for my wife and I. We were enjoying two, our two boys, both having successfully graduated college, one with a bachelor's in marketing, and I should say... bachelor's in contemporary music production with a minor in marketing and then the other son who graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering so now it's about launching them and getting them out into the real world right getting them gainfully employed so that's what i'm focused on and of course the other reason why i went to cabo or other reason we had to celebrate what was me being in remission from this throat cancer i think my pet scan was a few weeks ago, about a week or two before we went to Cabo. So anyway, it had been 20 years since I had been to Cabo. It's my fourth time there. And some things are different. Some things are quite the same. So I'm sure many of you listening have been to Cabo, but it's definitely a cool place to go. So enough said about that. You can hear that I'm still working through some challenges with the voice. And I actually have an upcoming, what's called a, I think it's called a You are at all curious. And I know some of you are because you've sent me messages and I appreciate you guys inquiring about me and my health and my status and my recovery. So swallowing is still a challenge. Sometimes quite a challenge. Food options are somewhat limited. I have to drink a lot of water with every food. I mean, the reality is I don't have any saliva glands currently and the road to recovery for that is a six to 12 month timeline roughly. And the other aspect of that is the truth is I will only have saliva glands on one side, the side where that did not get as much radiation exposure because on the side where the tumor was, that got the max dose of radiation, what they saw is they call 60 grays of radiation. My radiation oncologist said it's unlikely that I will regain saliva glands on that left side. And on the other side, where it only received 20 grays of radiation exposure, the expectation or the hope is that I get back to 80% of saliva gland functionality. on the right side. So let's hope that's true because I'm blessed to be here. It's a gift and I'm grateful. And at the same time, it's a new normal every single week that I'm adjusting to. So progress is measured in weeks, not days. And as you can hear, I have this constant like bubbling up of liquid in the the throat area. So back to the barium liquid test, what that is, is you stand in front of an x-ray machine and you take various doses of this barium liquid, which allows them to see how your swallow mechanisms are actually performing. And so you start, it grades along different levels of alcohol. viscosity, if you will, or thickness. You go from thin to thick, right? So it really determines what's your capability of swallowing, what's your functionality there. They get to see what's working well, what's not. And what I know for sure based on my ENT endoscopity that I had a couple of weeks ago is that my epiglottis, I love to say that word, is swollen. And that's constricting my airway a bit, and it's obviously affecting my voice as well. So just another day in the life on the journey, right? So yeah. But I'm confident that I will be healing and getting better with each progressing week and hopefully get back to somewhat of normalcy, both with a voice in terms of what it sounds like, I apologize, and functionality in terms of swallowing, eating, and even breathing for that matter. So that said, let's get into some of the content that's top of mind for me that I wanted to share with you. Just a couple ideas that when I come across these ideas, I'm like, wow, that's a really cool idea. I would be executing it in the field if I was still originating. So the first idea I got from my man, Jared Larkin, with a Chicago title, mile high title guy in Colorado, if you want to look him up. It's J-E-R-A-D-L-A-R-K-I-N. I will put a link to his YouTube channel in the show notes. He puts out great content on Instagram. But this one idea he just put out, which... I'm definitely going to swipe and I encourage you to as well, is you have either access to the MLS or you know somebody who does. So either your title rep can help get you data from the MLS or a realtor that you work with can help get data for you from the MLS or maybe you have it yourself. However, what Jared posted recently was the idea. So he's a title rep. He wants to provide valuable resources to realtors so they continue to send him business, right? Right. And by the way, side note, one of the things that's really cool about Jared is he's a big believer in agent classes, as am I. I'm sure you know that by now. As a way to scale your reach, you can get in front of more realtors that scale, build trust, get referrals. Jared last year did 100 plus classes, 100 plus. So he's a great resource. If you're looking to follow somebody for class ideas, I would definitely follow him. And you can swipe some ideas there and do your own. If you're looking for somebody to help you create classes, well, that's what we do. And you can always DM me on Instagram, LinkedIn. or wherever you can reach out to me and look me up because we definitely have a platform that's turnkey and ready to go. So what Jared posted was that he turned the Denver Metro home sales, he created some content that realtors can swipe and deploy themselves. So he turned 12,029 home sales into a carousel that Realtors Composed has to do around. So think about this. This is the idea. In your market, do you have a lot of seller concessions? I know markets vary, but by and large, across most of the country, there's a lot of seller concessions going on. Maybe in some parts of the Northeast, that's not happening because they didn't overbuild But if you're in a market that does have a lot of seller concessions, here's the idea. Get access to the data for Q2 or Q3, whenever you're listening to this, and have them pull how many properties had a seller concession on it in the last quarter. So in Jared's example, it was Q2 of this year, seller concession numbers, and they're one of the easiest conversation starters that realtors can have with buyers or sellers right now. So pulling Jared's data for Q2 for Denver Metro, 62, almost 63% of homes that sold included a seller concession last quarter. The typical seller concession dollar amount, $10,000. That's pretty significant money, right? I mean, that's something that can be given back to buyers. That's something that can be used for as leverage for buyers. That's something that can be used towards certain costs, obviously with buying a home, right? And so Jared, what he did was put together, not only did he put together a script, a sample video, but a carousel that agents can use and the full report from the Q2 seller concession data as well. And it's all white labeled so that realtors can just swipe and deploy, drop it in their own feed, and they can be the agent in the market that shows up with data instead of opinions. I personally think this is a really smart idea. because it's valuable. Even though agents have access to this data, they're not putting it in the useful context that you and I know it should be in. And that is creating content around the seller concessions in your market that will allow the realtor to position themselves. Even you, by the way, you could be posting this same content for yourself and You'll be getting potential inquiries for yourself and your realtors. And so what Jared does is post this and say, hey, want the full breakdown for your specific city, city, zip code, and price point, right? He's doing a comment to get strategy, which is comment the word data, right? And they'll send it to you. We're going to go into more on Instagram. comment to get strategies on an upcoming episode. But as I go through the carousels here, what I can see is that he's broken it down even by property type. Townhomes see the most concessions, condos the least. So 63% of single families had a concession's average amount, 11,000. Townhomes, 66%, average 10K. Condos, 57%, average 7K, right? Because there's probably less margin in there to go. So think about how you could use this idea And I'm gonna share the link in the show notes to the carousel so you can see what this looks like and have it be a swipe file for you. At a minimum, what if you just shared this with real estate agents? What if you just talked about this idea? So I was on the phone the other day with a loan officer. We were going through this idea and I asked him, do you know somebody who has access to the MLS? He said, yeah, I have a title rep, I have a real estate agent, cool. And so he is going to put this idea into action, right? And then it's broken down by county as well. To me, this is really powerful. because it shows you where buyers land the most concessions. And now there was a realtor video that I saw that went along with this and she created this reel that was talking about the leverage that buyers have in the current market because when you look at, what was it, 60, let me go back here on my screen, 62%, almost 63, of Denver homes sold included a seller concession. That is 12,000 homes, okay? Now, I don't know, do the math on how many total homes that sold, but 63% is a large percentage. And so what do we do in the market, right? How do we adjust? How do we pivot? It's the market of the moment. It's not the market, it's your marketing. And this is a smart strategy, both for sellers and buyers. So the strategy for sellers is, hey, help your realtor talk to a seller. Use this data to demonstrate to them that a concession is something you should plan on. And in Jared's Market of Denver, two of three sellers are paying a concession around 10 grand. So what's the takeaway for the realtor when they're talking to the seller? Price and prep, right? With that in mind. For the buyers, concessions are common, especially in a certain price range. So when you look at the concession data that you'll be able to pull from your title rep or realtor, look at the price range as well and then talk through some options. So guys, this is just a great content creating strategy for you that I think about. And then you attach some type of a call to action to that. so that you can have a meeting with a realtor to talk further, talk through, give them a consultation, help them take the sample carousels that you've got through the show notes link here and help them to create their own version of the content for this. Now you're helping solve problems. Now you're providing solutions instead of sales and products. Be a partner, not a vendor. By the way, when Jared posted this on his Facebook feed, I'm not even looking at his Instagram, but on his Facebook feed, he had 21, roughly, realtors comment and say, thank you, thank you, awesome, send me the copy, thank you, thank you. Okay guys, you want to drive conversations with real estate agents? Well, you need a better offer, okay? And your offer to grab coffee on Tuesday ain't working, right? Something that's going to truly be impactful and valuable. Check it out. Links in the show notes to go look at the post that Jared put on Facebook and go ahead and grab your version of that. All right. Next idea comes from one of our more seasoned members of my community of loan officers who go into the local market and they teach agent classes to scale their reach, multiply conversations and get more referrals without chasing or cold calling. How's that for an off the cuff commercial? All right. Well, that's what we do in my agent classes. Like I said, if you want to learn more about that, we're going to be opening up enrollment into my accelerator coming up in August. Right now the doors are closed, but you can get in on that in the early bird list. Right now, the only way I have to communicate with me, and if you're interested in learning more about that, is you got a DM, whether it's on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. If you got my email, right, send me a Smoke signal, pigeon, whatever you got. All right. So the idea was I was talking to my buddy, Anthony. What's up, Anthony? Shout out. You're in Florida. Anthony had this brilliant idea. So when you have a closing, right? And the real estate agent is on that closing. And by the way, you have two agents, right? You got a buyer's agent. You got a listing agent. Well, I know for sure on the buy side, this is simple and makes sense is in the closing emails and the communication you get is what Anthony does is sends an email, closing email to the agent, the buyer's agent that he worked with, right? And obviously the listing agent, you can do that as well. But he CCs the broker on that closing email. It went smoothly. It was professional. I loved the interaction between us. Hey, Bill or Sally, you were always on it. It was a joy working with you, a pleasure, right? Those kinds of things and edify them in terms of like your clients are well taken care of and basically, hey, use, so write a draft for what that would look like and then take that draft and put it into your AI of choice to clean it up a little bit, okay? The good news is you wrote the email, you started with the email, you can have AI clean it up a little bit. Just make sure it doesn't sound like a robot after it does that, you know what I'm talking about. And so then what happens is he sends this email and pretty regularly the broker responds to Anthony sending the email saying, wow, thank you, Anthony. It's a third party endorsement for that agent. The agent looks good in the broker's eyes. The broker reaches out to the agent, says, hey, great job on that. I got the email from your lender. Right? And of course, you've CC'd the agent on it. Now they're happy that you made them look good in front of their broker. But more importantly, what happens is Anthony gets conversations with the broker. Yeah, because the broker responds. And then what does Anthony do? He responds back. He follows up. Now, in Anthony's case, he's got a tool chest of valuable things that he can offer to the broker to move that conversation forward. One of those tools, of course, as I just mentioned, is offering classes to the brokerage. And Anthony would ask a question. Hey, I'm curious. How important is it for your agents to show up in Google search, in AI search? How important is it for your agents to ensure they have their Google profile optimized properly? that they've got the reviews, that they're not at risk for being suspended on Google. Hey, how familiar are your agents with this new AEO, Ask Engine Optimization, that consumers are using to find real estate agents? And so then Anthony has a dialogue with that broker gets a conversation, and then has a discussion about hosting a class in that broker's office. That's the power of multiplication. That's the power of turning one transaction into many, turning that transaction into relationships. And it's available for you too. Now, if you don't happen to teach aging classes, well, I suggest you do, or otherwise find some other means by which you can... add value to that broker. What does that broker want to do? He wants his agents to be productive, relevant. He wants to grow his brokerage in most cases, which by the way, another bonus to the conversation with classes and the broker, it's a recruiting angle. So the conversation with the broker is when you start talking about potentially hosting a workshop for his office, you ask him or her hey, how important is recruiting for you? And for most brokers, it's going to be important, right? They're always looking to add new blood. And so the broker's going to say, yeah, I'm definitely focused on recruiting. And so what Anthony does is he says, well, if you're open to hosting this workshop together, why don't we turn this also into a potential recruiting opportunity for you and start to invite agents outside of your brokerage to come attend this class? And the lights go on. Epiphany. The broker's like, wow, that's a pretty cool idea. I didn't think of that. Of course you didn't because it's my job as a lender to outvalue any other lender in town. So what do you have now? From that one email post-closing, you got an agent, your buyer's agent who loves you. You got the broker who now knows you, likes you, trust is building, and you've given him an opportunity to help improve his agent's skill set by your own class. And lastly, giving him a platform to reach out to people he's been attempting to recruit for some time. and now have something unique and tangible and different to invite them to. Can you imagine you're hosting your class and the broker is doing your intro? So there's agents from his brokerage, there's agents from outside other brokerages, and now you're being edified. You're getting the implied trust and credibility because the broker's standing up there introducing you. Wow, very simple. See, these are simple but powerful strategies. By the way, speaking of concessions, another one of the classes we have in our library at in our platform in MyAgent classes is the seller concessions class. And that's just another example. If there are the fair amount of seller concessions in your market, you might want to teach that class. You as a lender should know enough now, I think, where you'd be able to cobble together your own seller concessions class. Now, I will tell you the number one secret to getting people to show up for your class. What do you think it is? A lot of people say, oh, CE credits, food. et cetera. The number one secret to getting agents to show up for your workshop, class, lunch and learn, call it whatever you want, is the title. The title is everything. So do you judge a book by its title? Of course you do, right? People spend thousands of dollars just coming up with the title of the book because they know the title is the first thing someone's going to see and the title is what people are going to judge it by. So here's the test. Imagine you have two invitations of two different workshops for you to attend. One of them is called Authentic Marketing. The other one is called You Are The Brand. Just based on those two headlines alone, not even giving you the subtitle, Authentic Marketing and You Are The Brand, which one are you more inclined to attend? Number one or two. 80% of the time when I give this quiz, number two comes up as the choice. Because it's clear, it's relevant, it's authentic marketing is too vague. Don't know what it means. So what's my point in sharing this with you? My point is if you're going to do a class that's mortgage related and it's on seller concessions, for example, make sure you create a title that is relevant and impactful for rentals. Real estate agents, not you. No, but if it's a buyer facing class, well, that's different, right? It's gonna be relevant for the buyer. In my case here, I'm talking about a class like leveraging seller concessions. The solution to buyer agent compensation and home buyer affordability. Leveraging seller concessions, right? So today in this market, you wanna come up with something relevant to your market. Leveraging seller concessions. The solution to, right, making your listings more attractive and overcoming buyer affordability. Something like that. Completely off the cuff, I just invented it. So your title matters a lot. Hope that's helpful. All right, well, those are just two quick ideas I wanted to share with you, two or three. I can't remember how many that was, but I hope you found them valuable. And if you're gonna implement one of them, please let me know what it is. Reach out to me, follow me on Instagram. My name, Jeff Zimfer, G-E-O-F-F. LinkedIn, same thing. Those are the two ways to primarily reach me right now. And I will just tell you that. A few weeks back, when I first got back on the podcast, I had been absent for six weeks because I literally couldn't talk for, I think, two months. I talked about a changeup in this podcast, and it's coming soon. I've just got to get a few more things together to actually make the full transition over. I've got something I'm going to be releasing that'll be a useful tool related to this podcast, which I've been doing for 10 years and over 400 episodes. But if you like the kinds of ideas I just shared with you here today, and obviously I just spent a few minutes on them, Like I don't have any resources for you prepared other than the link in the show notes to go check out Jared Larkin's post with his carousel. But if you like those type of swipable ideas that you can take and implement in your business, stay tuned. There's more of that to come as I roll out and announce the change in the direction, focus and premise of this podcast show. So I just wanted to get on here and riff. It is Thursday, July 9th. Tomorrow, actually tonight, I'm heading out to a dinner because a number of my members over at MyGen classes are here in Vegas. Myself and others are attending the Forward event that happens every year in Vegas. It's my fifth or sixth time. It's in my backyard, so it makes total sense for me to go. Plus, it's a great event. And so that's what I'm doing. And then why am I sharing this with you? I just wanted to share a little bit more personal things with you, I guess, right? Both what's going on with me and my health, but also this is a day in my life right now, going to dinner tonight, buying about eight people dinner. And then we're going to the event Friday and Saturday. So I hope you are well. I'm definitely open to hearing from you. Reach out to me and I appreciate you tuning in and we'll see you on the next one. Bye for now.