Stacey Alcorn

It's been a great run, but there are only 73 days left until the Home Buyer Tax Credit will expire. Please CLICK HERE for the NAR Call to Action to expand this vital economic stimulus package. As well please take precautions with your buyers and sellers to protect them and you from losing out. Here are six quick tips you can use today to ensure a smooth end of year.

1. Let your buyers know that financing a home may take 45-60 days so they need to settle upon a home by the end of this month in order to ensure closing on time.

2. Set your closing dates for the beginning or mid November. This will give you some extra time for any unforeseen delays.

3. Consider putting language in your contracts which will protect you and your firm if there is a closing delay for any reason which hinders the buyers ability to be eligible for the tax credit.

4. Don't put a distressed short sale property under agreement with a buyer who is depending on the tax credit. There is too high of a risk that you cannot close by the end of November.

5. Price Reductions! Contact all of your active listings TODAY and explain to those sellers why a price reduction in two weeks will be TOO LATE to attract those first time buyers who are out shopping for a home to use their tax credit. The time is NOW to price right and attract buyers that can close by the December 1st deadline.

6. Start prospecting TODAY for move up or move down buyers, investors, and others who are not depending on the tax credit. If the tax credit is not extended, you need to be prepared and ready to continue to conquer the market with the many other buyer pools that are out there and anxious to buy!

Keep up the great work in your business!

This just in… NAR Reports that in March 50% of home buyers were first timers! This is just what the housing stimulus package was supposed to do. As agents, what do we do to seek out all of those first time buyers in the marketplace? Here are 25 tips for finding FTBs and sharing the tax stimulus package info with them. 1. Contact all of the local accounting firms and tax preparation warehouses and ask if you can leave branded materials about the tax credit for clients to take. 2. Go to community centers and leave brochures about the tax credit. 3. Have a first time buyer class… or even a webinar. 4. On Mother’s Day go to the local breakfast joint and hand out carnations and branded info on the tax credit. 5. Update your website with this important information. 6. Use sign riders on your For Sale signs advertising the credit. 7. Write a press release for your local paper. 8. Call your entire database of friends, family, and past clients to ask them who they know that would benefit using the credit. 9. Hang up a poster at your gym advertising the credit. 10. Put a sign outside your office building that says “We’re Giving Away $8000- come find out more!” 11. Send the free David Knox tax credit video link to everyone you know to educate them. 12. Post facts about the tax credit on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. 13. Blog about it! 14. Take photos of happy homeowners that you have helped buy a home using the tax credit. Post the photo on your website, on social networking sites, and take out an ad in the local paper. The caption can read… THEY DID IT… SO CAN YOU! 15. Call local companies and offer to do a free half hour course at their company on how to use the tax credit to buy a home. 16. Convenience stores, restaurants, bars, museums, shops… leave your branded brochures about the housing stimulus package everywhere. 17. Hair Salons, Nail Shops, Mechanics… this is where people socialize and network with the vendors... make sure they have plenty of handouts branded by you about how to buy a first home. 18. Local colleges and high schools often have programs where citizens can teach evening classes for the public…why not teach a class on how to buy a home? 19. Most metropolitan areas have short term stay executive suites… find out where they are and if you can leave info about the tax credit for potential buyers. 20. Open Houses… the best place to find FTB’s is open houses. Make sure yours are stocked with good, solid, info about the tax credit that buyers can take with them. Good agents must get out and pound the pavement telling everyone about the stimulus package. WE MUST SCREAM IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS! This requires thinking inside and outside of the box. With 50% of the market being First Time Buyers… this is an opportunity none of us can afford to miss!

HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES?

Are you using Facebook to increase business and keep your friends, family, and referral partners abreast of what is happening in the real estate market. Many of our clients are listening to the news with their dire forecasts of the real estate market and sad news of desperation and foreclosure all across the country. Unfortunately, we may not have much influence over the media. We can write letters and be vocal about the one sided stories they preach about the market, but often times the bright spots in the real estate economy are spread to deaf ears. The media controls what they want people to hear. By the way... isn't it interesting that the ONE industry that has been hurt the WORST by the economy is the media industry, yet rarely is there a news report on that? Anyway, how do we overcome the media and their incessant negativity about the real estate market? EASY... FACEBOOK!! Facebook reached a subscriborship of 200 MILLION users last week. That means that we have access to 200 MILLION potential buyers and sellers right now with more joining every day!! We may not have the ability to influence millions on television, magazines, and newspapers... but we have one better, FACEBOOK.

Here are 10 Tricks for changing the real estate market using Facebook.

1. Make sure you use Facebook every day and invite everyone you know to use. Seek out friends, alumni, co-workers, acquaintances, and more and make sure you have as many people as possible on your Facebook Friends list.

2. Every time you are going out on a buyer or seller appointment, home inspection, cma, bpo, or closing, update your Facebook status to let people know!

3. Seek out good reports about the market and post them on your page. For example, in our area, days on market and active inventory is down in every town in Massachusetts for the past year as compared to the previous year. Post information like this on your FB page.

4. Post information about the tax credit and why it's a GREAT time to buy!

5. Pull up a list from MLS of all the properties that have gone under agreement for the week and post it on your Facebook page!

6. Write great blog articles about why it's a great time to buy or sell a home and post it to Facebook!

7. Whenever you have a closing take a photo of you with your clients in front of the house with the SOLD sign. Post it to FB and tag the photos. Make sure all clients are on your Friends list so that they can share the photos with their FB friends enabling you to form more relationship with their friends and families.

8. Find great videos on YouTube about why now is the time to buy. For example, David Knox has a great 10 minute video about the Tax Credit, post it on Facebook.

9. Start a Facebook fan page about your local real estate market where you can update your "FANS" about the marketplace and they can update it as well with what they are seeing on the street.

10. Every time the rates go down, post it to your Facebook status update.

We are the conduits for positive news about the real estate market. Right now the best place to spread the word is Facebook. Maybe it's an exageration to say NOBODY is listening to the media, but at least we can say that less people are. Facebook is growing and it is the media of the future. Embrace it!

can be found in your company's recruiting presentation! Think about it... the reasons you choose to affiliate with a real estate firm are parallel to the reason a seller chooses to list with you. When your current office was courting you to join the broker or manager likely showed you a recruiting presentation which included information about each of the following areas:

1. Leads - how leads are generated affect a seller. They want to know where buyers for their home will be coming from. A good lead program is important to them.

2. National Advertising - If your firm does a lot of national advertising that means that you will likely attract more business due to name recognition. If you have the ability to attract more buyers, that has a positive impact on your potential seller.

3. Market share - Maybe you joined your office because of top market share. Of course, sellers love when their agent works for a firm with top market share.

4. Training - Did you join your office because they offer some unbelievable training? Sellers don't even think about this but if you include this in your listing presentation and highlight how important training is to your career, it will become a very important factor for a seller when choosing an agent.

5. Web Presence - Does your real estate brand have a strong online presence. This is important to sellers because a great web presence means potentially more buyer leads. It also means that your seller's home has greater exposure to the 87% of buyers who are shopping for their home online.

6. Culture - Like training, this is something many sellers rarely consider, but office culture is a huge reason that agents join offices. When you ponder this, the culture within which you work is one of the most important factors in your ability to sell any property. If you are in a positive, upbeat, supportive culture, aren't you going to sell more homes? Let your seller know how important company culture is to the marketing of their home!

7. Technology - This is a no-brainer. If your firm has the latest and greatest in visual tour, video marketing, and text message marketing, of course this is important to any seller.

8. Great Agents - Many agents join firms because there are tons of great agents in that firm. If that's one of the reasons you joined your current firm then I'd definitely share this with your seller. Not only does that seller have YOU on their team, they have all the great agents that you work with.

Did your broker give you a great presentation featuring all these great aspects plus more? If so, ask him or her for a copy of the presentation... then do your own R&D, put your name and photo on it and you have a kick butt listing presentation.

Ten Tips for Celebrating St. Patty's Day in Your Real Estate Business....

1. Spend an hour making Irish soda bread and pop by and visit the homes of your ten top clients to wish them a Happy St. Patty's Day!

2. Make a list of all the pubs, restaurants, and locations offering St. Patty's Day festivities in your area and email the Irish Celebrations list to your entire database from you "The Local Real Estate Expert".

3. Hold a St. Patty's broker open house today and serve traditional corn beef and cabbage... even if you can't cook there are tons of restaurants that are offering this tasty delight in bulk today!

4. Have St. Patrick's Day coloring contest for children in the community. Use a picture of a shamrock, leprechaun, or pot of gold. Email the page out to your database and let clients know to distribute them to their children and the best one will be selected to win a book store gift certificate.

5. Wear green!!! Have some spirit... wear green... lots of it... and get out and show lots of green homes (ok... show any color home)

6. Update your blog with a blog post that has some holiday spirit. Try some of these topics: DON'T BE GREEN - PRICE RIGHT TO SELL QUICKLY or LEPRECHAUNS ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF TODAY'S BUYERS MARKET, ARE YOU or REAL ESTATE TAX CREDIT - YOUR POT OF GOLD

7. Call all your buyers and tell them about your St. Patty's Day GREEN HOMES SPECIAL where you're highlighting the best best 5 green houses to show them today. Of course, let them know you'd be happy to show them any color house but the 5 GREEN HOMES special gives you a reason to call all the buyers in your database!

8. Get belly to belly with lots of people today - the more people you meet the more likely you'll find someone who wants to buy or sell a home. Google a great Irish recipe and print it on some green paper. Put all your contact information. Print 50 copies. Then walk your entire neighborhood dropping off copies of your traditional Irish recipe and spreading news about our great real estate market!

9. Go to your local florist and purchase 3 dozen green carnations. Print out a page of FACTS ABOUT THE NEW HOME BUYER TAX CREDIT. Attach your business card to each one. Go to your local breakfast joint and hand out carnations, the tax credit info sheet and your card. Be memorable while spreading holiday cheer and good news about real estate!

10. Go to a local department store and try on a traditional Irish scally cap. Take a photo of yourself, update your social networking pages with your Irish photo and wish everyone in your newtwork a Happy St. Patty's Day!

Have fun spreading cheer and finding new business this St. Patrick's Day!