Homes for sale in the Manhattan and Brooklyn areas sometimes don’t sell in the time period allotted under the contract between seller and agent. This means they become expired listings. If you are a realtor looking to capitalize on this niche in real estate, it can be a lucrative way to expand your business. While the sellers may be frustrated, you can also be sure they want to sell as they’ve already tried once with no success. There are several ways to reach out to these expired listings and drum up interest and curiosity about you and your abilities. One such way is to use an expired listings letter. Here are 3 steps to take when creating your expired listings letter.
1. Draft a General Letter
You’ll want to start by drafting a general letter that can be used as a template moving forward. Introduce yourself and your strong points. What can you bring to the table across the board and with any seller that will aid you in selling a property? Put those facts in there. Perhaps include information on past sales and even testimonial quotes to showcase your track record. Great! Now you’ll have this letter on hand and ready to be tweaked whenever an expired listing pops and you want to reach out to the seller.
2. Tweak the Letter for Each Seller
Rather than sending a stock letter that is impersonal and frankly stale, personalize the template you’ve already created. Keep the basic facts in there and your record but include personal details about each seller’s home and what unique ideas you have to sell their property. Perhaps you see from the old listing that the photos didn’t seem to capture the home at the right angles or that there was a great feature not highlighted. Point out that you noticed that and how you would propose to fix those issues. This goes a long way in demonstrating your care and commitment to getting the job done and will linger with the expired listings once they’ve read it.
3. Describe the Value of Your Company
Another way to make your letter stand out to the expired listings in Manhattan and Brooklyn is to spend a few lines detailing why the company you work for can really maximize their effort to sell. Perhaps there are marketing tools available to you because of the company you work for that weren’t an option for their previous agent. Perhaps the company gets more exposure. Talk about those aspects.
Putting together a professional and personal expired listings letter for each seller you reach out to will go a long way in gaining you the listing. Follow these steps as a start to putting together your own letter.
*ExpLiMO provides high quality leads on a daily basis and offers a unique opportunity for Manhattan and Brooklyn real estate agents to prospect for expired listing leads and grow their business exponentially.