An Excellent Idea
Okay, so as much as Broker School is a pain in my patootie, the instructor had what I thought was an excellent idea the other day. Not at all related to the class material, but useful none-the-less.
Those of us in escrow states – you know that awkward moment after the signing when the escrow officer leaves the room for like 10 minutes to go make copies and you sit there and make lame small talk with your Buyers? (In my state, they don’t get their keys until several days after signing, so it’s kind of an anti-climactic moment.)
Take the Time to…
What if you took that time to give them some sort of pre-closing package? Sort of a what-to-expect-next folder that would actually be useful. You could include all kinds of things, like:
- a list of service and repair people that you recommend
- a pamphlet about getting rid of PMI faster, or an illustration of how an extra payment a year effects the loan balance
- an explanation of how to interpret their property tax bill
- relevant websites – the HOA site, the assessor site, the zoning site, etcetera
- a suggested schedule of regular home maintenance
Or how about:
- instructions to call me first if they anticipate having problems paying their mortgage so we can find possible solutions before the situation gets worse.
- pointing out if they want to cash-out re-fi in order to buy their next home, that they better do that before they put the house on the market. And to call me first about that so we can explore options.
Or even:
- when to expect to hear from me and in what manner, to reinforce that I’m going to be around to take care of you on a regular basis.
- an offer to help them track home values in their new subdivision by emailing them as homes come on the market around them.
Other ideas
You get the idea. You might even throw in a few cards, ask that if they’ve had a good experience, that they tell their friends, if that’s your style. Might be a good time to give them a short service survey too, with an envelope to mail it back to you.
If you wanted to get fancy, you could have big plastic envelopes made with your branding, give them fresh copies of the contract and inspection reports, all their purchase documents, cram those in the folder with those copies from escrow, and then they’ll have their entire transaction in one place, and easy to store.
There must be a million good things to include in a packet like that – things you’ll know they’ll be needing in the term of their home-ownership. What else can you think of to include?
