Communication tips for real estate agents include maintaining good communications with every party in a transaction.

 

Communication Tips When Real Estate Agents Deal With Clients

 

Real estate marketing companies often offer tips to develop communications skills.

Since real estate sales is a people business, the following communication skills help.

Forbes interviewed successful real estate agents to discover essential sales tips when dealing with clients. A few of their top tips:

Don’t Sell

A real estate agent’s job is not to sell. Agents should coach and facilitate clients. Anyone who feels they were “sold” likely reacts by resenting the agent. Instead, educate, give advice, and get clients to focus on their goals as explained to you. Placing the needs of your clients ahead of your needs makes you a better salesperson.

Creating Value

When you focus on creating value for your clients, you create trust with them. Trust leads to more sales resulting from excellent client relationships.

Honesty and Hard Work Pays Off

Simple honesty and hard work is the key to success with real estate salespersons. Never pretend you know the answer to every question. If you don’t know the answer, admit it, and say you will find the answer and do it. Your professional reputation depends on honesty and hard work.

Offering Many Options

A trusted advisor offers many options to his or her clients. Guiding a client towards the best option rather than pushing something which helps you more is a key to gaining trust. Your honesty and offering several options might make you lose a sale. But, building trust with clients generates more long-term value and future referrals than one sale.

Know Your Local Community

Where you live and where your brokerage operates determines your local community. Learn about the interests and frustrations of your community. Failing to understand your market leads to your communications falling on deaf ears.

Become a Local Expert

Knowing your local community and becoming a local expert makes it easier for potential clients to trust you.

Write informative press releases to local newspapers who appreciate relevant quality content. Build on your exposure by speaking to local community groups or by sponsoring local events. Your high visibility in your local community makes you an instant expert and an authority.

Use Multiple Channels to Communicate

Relying on email, the same advertising portals, or your small network, guarantees a small percentage of your target audience seeing your messages.

Instead, use a mix of social media, emails, conferences, face-to-face meetings, and lots of PR. Using multiple channels to communicate with your audience reaps greater results.

Consistency in Communications

Building your brand identity, whether you operate from a boutique brokerage or a national franchise, depict your values and message.

Create templates portraying your brand identity in your advertisements, press releases, and client communications.

Always Be Available

When a crisis occurs to any of your clients, they must be able to contact you.  

Whether one of your listings burned down, or the seller is in the hospital, or a buyer got fired from his or her job, you must always be available to help them with their crisis.

Ask Questions

Showing a genuine interest in your clients by asking good questions leads to significant communications.

Never assume you know what a client looks for. To find out what they seek you must ask questions. Asking the right questions establishes the details about the type of property they want and the time for purchasing.

Also, ask if they worked with other agents and if they were happy or unhappy with their services and why. This provides you with a better picture of what they expect from you as their new agent.

Don’t ask yes or no questions. Encourage them to express their preferences and opinions.

Always Listen

Communication requires listening to what the other party says. How else will you know what your new client wants?

Paying attention and listening while responding to what they said demonstrates great communication skills.         

 

Communication Tips for Real Estate Transactions

 

Think like a symphony conductor who coordinates all the players for a successful transaction. The seller, buyer, other agents, inspectors, lenders, attorneys, and the closing officer must coordinate their roles to close the transaction.

Real estate lawyers often tell buyers to “expect delays” during transactions due to poor communication between the parties. They also recommend buyers to quickly reply to the lender’s questions and supply necessary documents. Many agents protest that too many lawyers pressure them to “speed things along”. Good communication resolves these problems. 

It all starts with the listing agent using effective communication skills with the seller. On the other hand, if you are the buyer’s agent, you must be accessible by text, phone, and email to quickly return their messages and calls. First-time homebuyers normally feel nervous but are afraid to annoy their agent. You can set the rules from the beginning when your buyers can call (not too late or early) while explaining the best methods to communicate with you.

Learn how you can improve your communication skills with all parties to a transaction below.

 

Communication Problems

 

Breakdowns in communications often occur during negotiations. Especially during the time from offer submission to acceptance. It’s the listing agent’s job to receive your offer and review it before discussing the offer with the seller. This may take days. A counteroffer takes more time. Meanwhile, the buyer continues looking and may find a more suitable property or have buyer’s remorse.

Communication problems arise when too many players get involved in a transaction. A party forgets to forward a message. Another party took the day off. Documents went missing.

 

Solving Communication Problems

 

Escrow companies often provide the parties with a checklist of required documents and tasks. This helps each party to fulfill their duties.

They also ask for full contact information of all parties including the best contact methods and times for communicating. The purchase of a condo unit requires contact information for the condo association for a Certificate of Approval or a copy of the CC&Rs. Additionally, full contact information for all inspectors also helps.

With full contact information of all parties contacting them to sign documents, attend meetings, or the closing becomes easier.

 

Managing Real Estate Transactions

 

While real estate transaction software exists to help manage them, they still require a coordinator to contact all players to remind them of tasks, signatures, reports, meetings, inspections, documents, and the closing.

Most real estate agents don’t have the time to manage transaction software and act as the coordinator between all essential parties.

This is where a Transaction Coordinator (TC) comes in. Relieve yourself of the time, responsibility, and hassles that coordinating a transaction entails.

Contact Us to learn how we coordinate transactions to save you time and stress while guiding the purchase towards a successful closing.

Steven Rich, MBA – Guest Blogger

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Transaction Monster – Real Estate Transaction Coordinating Company