Are the Holidays Slow in Real Estate?
As a Southern Californian, I’m blessed with pretty good weather. It’s generally sunny, never too cold, and most days are great days for showing property. However, I often wonder whether agents in areas with less temperate climates experience slower periods in their real estate careers when the weather is less pleasurable.
Thanks to the Internet and the way that we conduct business now, there are tons of things that you can do to boost your business – even when it’s stormy outside and nobody feels like looking at properties.
Like days with bad weather, the holidays are also generally considered a slower time in the real estate business, and this year appears to be no different.
4 Ways to Stay Busy During the Holiday Season
While potential buyers and sellers will begin to reappear shortly, here are a few ways for real estate agents to see continued success and closings during the holiday season and in the beginning of the New Year:
- The holidays are a great time to develop and improve upon existing systems. Devise prospecting and marketing plans. Take courses to learn new technologies and new methods to be more productive in doing your job.
- Break bread. Everyone loves to eat and drink over the holidays. You still have some time to contact your A-list clients and invite them to enjoy a meal. Host a gathering. Not only will you have fun, but you will also maintain top-of-mind awareness at the same time.
- Review marketing materials. Have you ever gone online and seen a professional profile that you know is not accurate? That’s because people forget to update their online profiles as they change jobs, take new courses, receive awards, or even change hair color. Now is a perfect time to buckle down and make sure that your online persona actually matches your real one!
- Agents often complain that January closings are a little thin. Moving forward, be very aggressive in September, October, and early November and try to put as many transactions into escrow as possible. Often times escrows don’t close in just 30 days, so this hard work will assure more closings near the holidays or in January of the following one.
One thing is for sure: Any client or prospect that you obtain near or during the holiday season is like to convert to a real closing sometime soon. Most folks do not want to be uprooted during the holidays. So, if you get a call on a holiday or if you received one from a lead on Christmas Eve, that’s your clue that you have a motivated buyer or seller in your midst.
Best wishes to you and yours for a very Happy New Year.
