Get The Best Real Estate APIs To Keep Your Clients Informed (And Close) For Life
Home Junction offers some of the Best Real Estate APIs and if you want a steady strategy for keeping in touch with your clients, then consider our Hyper-local Data and MLS products.
A smart agent knows they need the right tools (and information) to become not just an agent for one transaction, but to become THE AGENT for a client for life. Their aim should be to also include every family member and friend of that client.
So you helped a client find a new home. They struck the deal. Nothing feels quite as good as knowing the job you did will give a family comfort and happiness in their new house for years to come.
Once all the papers are signed and the keys are handed over, what comes next?
Keeping up with your customers has never been easier now that agents have the technology to create and distribute newsletters, either by mail or email, to maintain a top-of-mind presence with clients.
But for newsletters you need appealing content. To provide the most interesting content to a homeowner, you need the Best Real Estate APIs (Application Programming Interface) feeding relevant housing data to your website. (You can include tidbits of that content and links back to your website in your newsletter).
In this article, we will discuss ways to keep in touch with past clients to keep them informed on the housing market in their area and maintain their business moving forward.
Anyone involved in business knows that retaining past clients is just as important, if not more important, than finding new clients.
Not only for the referrals you can build to extend your client base (word of mouth is the most effective form of publicity), but also for potential repeat opportunities.
A simple strategy is to use a newsletter with local real estate data.
However, the key to newsletters is to address the specific needs of your subscribers. A newsletter to existing clients who have purchased a home, should be different than a message sent to say first-time buyers who never owned a house.
The more you can tailor your content to your specific audience, the more success you will have with open rates and click-throughs to links in your email.
Deploy the Best Real Estate APIs to offer the best home related content
For example, with a Home Valuation API from Home Junction, you can include a personalized Home Value Report with each publication that gives a family an idea where their property stands in comparison with the neighborhoods around them. Or you can send them a link to the Home Value Widget on your website.
This can entice them into perhaps looking to selling again. Or the data can increase satisfaction that they made the right decision purchasing the home. Maybe it will inspire them to figure out ways to increase their home’s value.
Charts and figures will show where they excel in the market and where they can improve. With a Home Value API an agent can provide estimates on the value of that property and also the position that property currently sits in the marketplace.
Perhaps the home is in mid range for Price per Square Foot, but in the Top 20% for Total Square Footage.
All that information is very informative and important to homeowners. After all, this is probably the biggest investment they own.
Along with the value report, an agent could offer recommendations for moving forward, some tips to increase that home’s particular value, or the hottest new amenity to add to a home. Even when to sell, if that is an option they are considering in the near future.
One way to increase participation would be to involve some kind of question and answer forum in your newsletter. Encourage recipients to ask you questions about market conditions. Use a Property Data API to generate the data to answer those questions.
These newsletters can show customers how loyal and informed you are as their expert on local housing data.
Use a Property Data API for neighborhood housing trends
With a Property Data API, an agent will be able to display hyper-local real estate market data on any given neighborhood, not just zip code. That is powerful. And personal.
That data would include trends in Recent Sales and the direction of Home Prices. This is sure to catch the attention of any homeowner.
Offer comparisons of neighborhoods next door. Provide neighborhood demographic data so a home owner can see the makeup of their community. Include Cost of Living indices to show pricing trends for that area.
Any data and research you can include will reinforce in the minds of readers why they chose you as their Realtor.
A handshake and a smile is never enough. The follow through of a home purchase is the most important part of the sale.
Nurture your connection with your customers by facilitating further conversation after they move in.
With a newsletter, clients can stay informed on the events happening with their neighborhoods.
Updates can be included featuring housing values over time, new amenities, schools, stores and restaurants popping up and other developments in the market surrounding a house.
Try introducing the idea of a newsletter gradually to see how it works for your individual clients – start with a paper survey following up on them housing purchase experience. Ask them if they want to receive your newsletter by email. Try sending updates through snail mail.
Perhaps find someone with graphic design skills to add an extra special touch that makes reading the content even easier.
From a business perspective, it has become increasingly important to maintain past customers to encourage referrals to new clients.
When Next Door Jim asks a client why they know so much about local market conditions, or who they used to purchase their home, or sell their home, it will be very natural for them to offer your name.
Real market data, not fluff, fosters real trust
Building relationships is the most important aspect of sales. We all feel more comfortable putting a huge decision such as buying a house into the hands of someone we recognize, connect with, and trust.
And if we don’t know any Realtors personally, finding someone a friend trusts is the next best thing. Keeping in touch with former clients opens up the door and keeps your name in the running for future business deals.
Trust is not something that can be asked for, and it takes time to develop. Providing real market data, not just fluff or hype, will go a long way in convincing consumers you are the agent with true local knowledge.
Keep your name fresh in clients’ minds with informational charts and graphs detailing local housing market and home value.
As you know, people value long-term relationships. They want to know service providers they can trust and when they find them, they tend to hang on to them for decades.
You know people who talk about their hair stylists, their handyman or their dog groomer.
You want to be known as their real estate agent. For life.
Get the Best Real Estate APIs from companies such as Home Junction so you have access to trustworthy, informative data you can continually send them for top-of-mind awareness. (We also offer MLS APIs for integrating MLS data with real estate websites as well).
These APIs and the data that comes with them give you a better chance of continuing a relationship with your clients (and their friends and family) for a very, very long time.