How I Find and Create Quality Listings

When you work in commercial real estate as a broker or agent, it pays to have a planned approach to finding high-quality listings.  In other words, your plan is not some random focus on a territory or property type. Today I will share how I do things with that.

These ideas will help you with your growth of the real estate business providing you take action. Start with this ‘base plan’ approach. Go deeper into your area, location, and preferred client base to create your progress plan.

Personal Progress in Brokerage

Progress in the growth of market share only comes from agent organisation and action. Get to know your location and your real estate priorities. They both come together in your real estate day and activities for the week.

You can always go deeper into your allocated territory, and when you do that, you will find things to work on and the right people to work with.  That is how quality listings come about.  That is also how you see the better clients. So, clarity in brokerage is a good thing.

My Complete Listing Growth Plan

Here are some ideas to help you get this process firmly established in your real estate day and your plans:

1. Split up Your Regions

This split type review will help you know exactly where you want to get new business and listings. You will also know what that will look like. 

You will have precincts to consider in every location, where some of those precincts are better than others. 

2. Current Local Activity to Watch

When you investigate a precinct, consider the current levels of real estate activity and the streets where things can or are happening. 

A review like that will help you make choices about how you will work your real estate territory.

3. Property, Precinct and Building Focus

Some agents are specialised, and therefore the property types are more of a priority for them.  That could, for example, be Warehouses, Shopping Centres, or Office buildings. 

Choosing one or just a few preferred property type will help you with your prospecting activities in your town or city. 

4. Constantly Research Activity

It can take a long time to find the property owner’s name or contact details.  That is where the agent requires a system and some organisation.  How do you start with that?

In most cases, you will not get the name of a property owner at the first approach or on the first investigation.  You will usually have an address, some file notes about the property tenancy mix, and a couple of photos.

5. Review and Update Market Trends

Review and Update – It is good to have a review system where you gather more property details and advance the facts over time.  The best way to do that is to have a ‘card system’ or similar, where you write things down for fuller property investigation over time.

An excellent ‘online’ program to use for that is ‘Google Keep’ where you can take photos and notes of any property using your mobile phone.  You tag the property for information and start building on that information over time.

6. Choose Your Client Types

Some clients by type are better than others for you and your real estate business.  Consider the differences between investors, landlords, business owners, developers, landowners, and franchise groups. 

How will you work with those people, and what would they want from you as a real estate specialist? They all have property needs and challenges, and that is what you can help with. 

7. Split up Your Database Lists

Knowing the people is a matter of splitting up your database or client lists into groups.  From that point on, you can make prospecting calls into the lists and keep your discussions ‘honed’ to the requirements of each group. 

The question to think about is where you may find the most amount of new business or client activity and what that could be for you.  You match your services into that and create a prospecting dialogue to suit.

8. Features and Facts About Your Location

Understanding where things are and what is happening in your area will always benefit you.

For example, since most of your conversations are with local people, you can talk about local roads, transport, zonings, and new developments.  Add to that the rents and prices of property in your region. 

The features and facts about property in your area will always help you engage with the right people who could be your clients in the future.

9. Think Local Activity and Be Local

Build your focus around local activity – The local area is always good for you as a base for starting your real estate business. 

Street by street, building by building, you segment places, properties, and people into priorities or groups of ‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘C’. 

At that point, you can set some consistency to record and track the progress of your meetings, conversations, appraisals, and listing activity.

Agent Organisation

From all these things, it is easy to see that a reasonable degree of local organisation is a preferred approach to real estate today.

So, stay on task and repeat your contact processes every 90 days. When you do that, you can list more of the quality property that you are looking for.