The first days of autumn bring a new schedule for real estate agents. But, unlike most people are quick to suggest, autumn is anything but a slow season for the real estate industry. In fact, many local markets are gearing up towards a much greater activity than they have seen during the summertime. This means agents need to tweak their real estate autumn marketing strategy.
For buyer agents, one of the most common issues would be dealing with a buyers’ hesitation, most of whom labor under the illusion that it’s impossible to find a great property during the autumn months so why bother going through the hassle.
As an agent, you have enough expertise to debunk this myth. Here are the best arguments you can put forward.
Real estate autumn marketing: getting your buyers to take action
1) There’s still lots of inventory
Homes are sold throughout the year, not just in spring and summer. In many cases, there’s as much inventory as there has been during the summer. You have homes listed in autumn plus homes that weren’t sold in summer. The latter doesn’t necessarily mean these might be unappealing or in any other way not qualify for a good property. For example, sellers might have switched agents (or started as FSBOs) or the price was too high.
This gives buyers a lot of choices and they might actually secure a much better deal in autumn that they could hope for in summer.
2) Both buyers and sellers are more open to negotiate
Another great thing about a real estate autumn marketing strategy is that both parties have a powerful common goal: they want to sell/buy before the holidays and before it gets really cold. Thanksgiving and school winter holidays are important dates on the timeline for both parties so they’re very motivated to take action and compromise.
It’s a perfect situation for buyers who can take advantage of a strong negotiating position and successfully lower the price.
3) Less competition for buyers
Because of the common myth that autumn is off-season in real estate, lots of people prefer to wait until the next spring or summer. But, like we were saying above, in many cases there’s just as much inventory in autumn as in the summer. The fact there’s less competition puts buyers in a very strong position to negotiate and close the best deal that they couldn’t otherwise hope for.
4) Seller’s fatigue
If the property has been sitting on the market for an entire summer, sellers have little choice but to lower the price, especially if they were unrealistic about it in the first place. Again, this puts buyers in a perfect negotiating position. They can offer sellers a good solid price or leave them waiting for another half a year when none knows what might happen to the market during this time.
5) More flexible options for buyers to sort out financing
Given a whole lot of reasons just outlined above, sellers are much less likely to step down at the last moment. And since they’re serious about the deal, they might be more flexible and eager to adjust to a buyers’ particular situation. For example, they can wait a bit longer until a buyer finalizes their mortgage or makes a down payment. Working with less stubborn sellers means there’s a big chance to close a great mutually beneficent deal.
6) More affordable home improvements with end-of-year sales
Settling in a new home and changing things according to your liking can eat up a large part of the budget. Another argument to use with your buyers is that they can save big with the end-of-year sales when the holiday season kicks in. Here’s a great report detailing the best months to buy different products which you can show to your buyers to prove your point.
So not only can they close a better deal in autumn, they can also save big on many things they need to buy for their new home.
7) During autumn months, buyers get additional services faster
Because the summer hype is over, businesses are again facing less customer activity. So if your buyers need a mover to help them with relocation or a mortgage broker, chances are great they will be served super fast. This reduces the waiting time and costs and the buyers can get it down with the home-buying hassle in a much shorter time than they’d typically have to in summer.
What’s next?
These are all very strong arguments you can use in your outreach to showcase the benefits of taking action in autumn. Update your real estate marketing strategy, educate your buyers and you’ll see your pipeline full towards the end of the year.
