Article

Value of Networking in Real Estate

By Sanya Gurnani on October, 7 2019

Three Takeaways

  1. Undertaking any form of networking puts you ahead of a substantial portion of your competition. 
  2. Face to face meetings create and solidify business relationships, which can positively affect sales growth.
  3. Networking has a quantifiable positive benefit to the size of your deals as well as the percentage of sales you will eventually close.

Networking is the lifeblood of the real estate industry.  The highest performing agents, brokers, and investors in a given market almost certainly engage in some form of networking activity, whether they go to marketing meetings, investor conferences, or other forms of social contact to grow their business. 

 

The Relationship Between Networking and Real Estate Success

A recent Hubspot survey found that one in four sales agents do not network at all. This number is staggeringly high when you consider that interpersonal communication is integral for creating meaningful customer touch points. The same study found that close to 100 percent of customers and salespeople believe that face to face meetings are critical for long-term business relationships. In addition, they found that social selling tactics can increase your deal size by 5 percent and your win rate by 35 percent. 

Now that you understand how the inherent value of your social relationships in relation to real estate, let’s examine a few ways that you can grow your network as well as properly utilize your existing social resources.

 

How to Leverage Your Existing Network

Take a Soft Approach

The hard sell might work for some situations, but aggressive tactics are not appropriate or effective when mining your social network for new deals. Since you already have an established relationship with people in your network, a soft approach is optimal. You can share potential sales or purchases in a low-pressure way since you are not worried about the lead immediately choosing a competitor. 

 

How to Grow Your Social Network to Generate Real Estate Leads

Demonstrate Expertise

You want to be the first call someone makes when they have a question about real estate. While there are a plethora of real estate information resources on the internet, often these sources fall short- especially when local markets are involved. You can position yourself as an expert in your local market, a specific property type, or in acquiring financing, etc.  

Even if a prospect is still in the infancy stages of the buying process, you may be able to help them by sharing some of your knowledge.  When people come to you with real estate questions you can set the groundwork for working together in the future. Many people will also refer you to their friends, co-workers, and neighbors- this is another potential channel for deals. 

Attend Events

There are regular real estate networking events in cities and towns across the United States. These events are usually set-up by Realtor Groups, Professional Associations, and Real Estate Investing Clubs. Everyone from brokers to title officers, to individual investors show up. These are great avenues to prospect for deals and to build your professional contacts as well. Title officers, in particular, have access to a wealth of client data and information that you can turn into gold. 

 

The Breakdown

Your personal and professional networks should be a significant driver of growth. If you are not seeing regular deals from your social circles try and implement the strategies we went over in this piece and never give up- your next social network deal is just around the corner. 

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