WELCOME 

After weeks of rain, the sun has finally returned to Atlanta and everything is green and budding. When it was so gray and miserable for so long, it was hard to remember that the deluge was paving the way for all the May flowers.

Maybe that’s how the news cycle feels for everyone right now, too, especially with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversing the lower court decision to bar the Justice Department from reopening its NAR investigation.

So, that’s why we’re going to talk about how you can use current data to attract more buyers and sellers, because no matter what, we have to push forward. If we’re diligent about tending our gardens today, we’ll have more flowers tomorrow.

THE REALITY OF REAL ESTATE

In a Fight with the Grey Lady

Last week, the New York Times made a bold statement that the NAR settlement is going to reduce the prices of homes for sale.

glenndabaker

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Y’all. Y’ALL.

This reporter’s statements are naive at best, and incredibly damaging at worst. I asked my Instagram audience what they thought of the report and here’s what some of you had to say:

@bakersfieldbroker: Most buyers I’m working with cannot afford to pay me a commission while paying their down payment or closing costs… it just means that the sellers who opt not to compensate a buyers’ agent will have their homes sitting on the market longer. Prices are not going to go down here in California.

@yvonnearnold_:For every “horror” story a consumer has about a realtor, there a 100 other major success stories.

@themarkobrienteam: Good brokers understand 90% of real estate transactions require a professional broker, one to rep the seller’s interest and one to rep the buyer’s interest.

@majasly: I love how people who have zero experience in real estate think that sellers are going to miraculously give a discount to buyers. What would be the point in that for them? To the individuals that think it’s so easy to navigate a real estate transaction, the class is offered in all fifty states. Go get your license if you want to keep the commission because I can assure you the carrying cost of trying to figure this thing out will cost you more than 3%.

@m3realtor: The economy and prices of housing comes down to supply and demand. Not commission fees, moving fees, etc. Our job is… what we provide as knowledge-based professionals in the real estate market.

This comment from @sell_buy_atlanta may be my favorite: Well, you don’t have to use a dentist either but it will show.

It’s so dang frustrating, but we just have to stay the course and make sure we’re educating everyone on the true reality of real estate.

STORY TIME WITH GLENNDA

Use the Force Data

The 2024 Generational Trends Report has come out and this is always an interesting read. As agents, I think we trend more creative, but there’s a lot to discover if you care to get analytical and dig into the data.

For example, anyone who’s between 23-28 years old and is just getting into the business, there’s an assumption that no one their age is buying a house. But the data proves otherwise. According to the report, 17% of people in that demographic are buying homes. That means if you know 100 people your age, 17 of them are looking to buy; that is not insignificant. So if you’re new, study this report—it’s like getting the answer key to the test because it will tell you who your buyers are and it will get you in the habit of seeking out more data.

Knowing who your buyers are is crucial. The majority of movement is in my age, which is Generation X, ages 44 to 58, so this report is basically a roadmap of how to market. In every age group, married couples win because it means you typically have two incomes and you can buy twice as much. What I found most interesting about my demographic is how few Gen X males are buying homes on their own, especially when compared to single women of the same age. Think about it—a lot of these guys have gone through a divorce, where they either got wiped out, or they kept the marital home. (Depending on which lawyer they hired.) Let’s say they lost their $2M house and with everything they’re paying out to their ex, they can only afford a $500,000 home with a $3,000 mortgage. That demonstrates a real loss of status in their minds. In my area, these men are much more likely to rent a beautiful apartment at the Avalon so they can still project that look of success, rather than buying a home more commensurate with their current means.

What do you do with this data? Let’s talk this through—50% of marriages end in divorce and the most likely time for divorce is between 40 and 50, once the kids are out of the house. So think about your marketing tactics. If I was going to market to divorcing people, I would look at what neighborhood has the most married couples between 40-55, because 50% of those households are going to split. The likelihood that that’s a two transaction deal is very high, because you’re going to sell the martial residence and you’re going to sell one of them a house.

When you dig into any data, you can find valuable patterns. Currently I am using data to reverse engineer finding out everyone who bought new construction in Marietta. I’ve learned that 80% of all these buyers are either coming from Marietta or Brookhaven. Everybody who purchased except one outlier was between 38 and 52 years old. There were a few one-offs from Texas and Florida, but largely the people who bought in the $2M price range had originally bought their previous house for $800K.

So, I have been doing targeting mailers to everyone in Brookhaven and I’ll do three boosted Instagram posts on where those people spend most of their time. I discovered that the high school was the driver for people buying and I can actually geofence in the center of that and hit the high school, middle school, and grade school. I also found that the majority of people who purchased were in the medical field and I looked at the driving hospital areas, so I was able to drop a pin on these areas and target them.

Ultimately, I look for patterns I can infiltrate, like figuring out the cluster where all the pro baseball players live, which allows me to reverse engineer a buyer avatar. When as an agent you’re able to go to your sellers with the information on who’s going to buy their house, it makes a very compelling argument because most agents don’t do that. All the feedback I get from sellers is, “How did you know exactly who was going to be buy our house?” You just have to be patient and use the information that’s out there.

Be diligent and dig in to the data that’s available to you—it’s not sexy work, it’s not posing with a Maybach in front of a mansion, but being able to tell your seller who exactly your buyer is the difference between a novice and a true practitioner.

GLENNDA’S GURU

Let’s Meet Lee Mintz!

I am very excited to share my interview with Los Angeles luxury real estate agent Lee Mintz! She specializes in sports and entertainment clients and she’s spilling all the tea about getting into that market, so let’s dive right in!

Thank you, Lee! I loved talking with you!

GLENNDAISM

Make the Data Work for You

GO HOMES.COM WITH GLENNDA

I have a new listing to share with y’all from my area. Oh, my stars, do I love this property! This is a one-acre lakefront lot in a beautiful gated community on Lake Lanier with 133 feet of waterfront!

As someone in the throes of putting in a pool, I have to tell you how much easier my life would have been if I’d have just bought on a lake instead. Of course, there’s room for a pool here, too, but there’s plenty of space for you to take the kids swimming should your pool construction drag on. (Trust me on this.)