Marketing / Research Idea

[beer234]

I had this idea the other day, it may be dumb or commonly used but I thought i'd toss it out there in case anyone finds it useful. Say you get a new listing in a neighborhood. Your trying to set a price and also you may want to find some new clients to list with you. Find similar properties in the neighborhood who've been listed but cancelled or expired. Contact those owners explaining that your about to list a neighbors house and inquire about their experience at various price levels. This might tell you if they got showings but no offers or worse no showings at all. Hopefully that will help set a competetive price. Finally maybe you hit it off with that neighbor and they reconsider their price and list with you as a second chance etc. If you've done similar i'd be curious to see how it worked out for you.

[Codythebest]

Never did that but looks like a good idea...
I'll put it to work and see what happens...

You may go the extra mile asking everybody in the neighborhood if they're ready to sell, explaining that with 2-3-4-5 listing in the neighborhood, you'll do a massive advertising, etc...

[thedeallocator]

Sounds like a good idea. However most sellers will not accept the fact that they were asking too much for their house. It's always the agents fault. So I don't think they will be very receptive to you.

[Raine]

Makes sense. I do something similar to tie into my CMAs. I let the owners of the [sold] comps I'm using know that I'm selling a house in their neighborhood, and ask them if I can take a quick look around to make sure I'm getting a fair comparison.

[gjtrafl]

Great idea! Also I don't think its really about the price as much as it is creating dialogue between you and a potential seller. The big picture is that you may learn something and you may pick up a future listing. Sounds like a good call to make!

[RobM]

In our market...price is currently key. Although many home owners are under the impression that their home is still worth 100k over market value, but sellers are starting to get more resonable

[jwscpa5]

I think it sounds like a good idea.

[DBQ]

Cross-promotion is always effective but you don't want to step on anyones toes.

[CGjerdetu]

I think this would be good especially if you combined this with some sort of marketing to expired/withdrawn listings. However, I agree that the reason most of the homes did not sell was because of price and not sure that many of the sellers really understand it. I would focus on analyzing the homes that have recently sold and in most markets making sure that you are priced lower than those homes and are the most attractive listing in whatever category the home is listed in.

[4mysales]

I think it's a great approach. It demonstrates to both your current listing and the expired that you are active in your due dilligence. This may be an approach that I start recommending to my expired listing clients
\-4MySales

[carlam]

Hello MN! I'm a native MN myself, miss it, but hear it is pretty cold now!

Anyway, back to biz... It is exactly what you should be doing. Get out there and talk about your new listing in the neighborhood. Ask them questions about their experience - people love to talk and they have no problem complaining about what their realtor didn't do for them. Don't be a hard sell; just listen. Once they are done talking ask them if you can stop by time to time to give them an update on your listing.

You may end up with more listings!