PLEASE NOTE we are now brokered by eXp Realty. Call or text Alisha Collins, eXp Realty at 307-247-1806 or email at alisha@casperpowerhouse.com We are excited to talk with you!
Problem Solving at its FINEST! And a bunch of other stuff! A tiktok follower and video watcher commented how agents don’t do anything but put a sign in the yard and put the house on MLS. I even have had a friend’s husband say that. How wrong he was! LOL! I tell the story in the video! Our problem solving skills (and connections) got the problem solved and we closed! I could tell 100’s of stories like the two I told in the video. Gone are the days that an agent can just put a sign in the yard, put your house on MLS and do an open house. Your home needs to be seen by as many people as possible. We are digital marketing experts and love creating social media about your home. Then we put money behind those posts to deliver this ad to right people at the right time using remarketing!
Recently, I had someone comment on a video that I had posted of me putting up a sign in a yard. In the video, I had sped up the process and posted the video on TikTok. Well, guess what? Someone commented that they thought that all a real estate agent does is put a sign in the yard and take a few pictures. Seriously, what? Hi, I’m Alisha Collins and if you didn’t already know, I’m a realtor.
You know what? This isn’t the first time I’ve heard something like this. A friend of mine’s husband said something similar not too long ago, and the interesting thing about that situation is that I ended up having to do some major problem solving during the transaction. Why? Because issues arose that needed to be handled and that’s what real estate agents are paid to do, solve problems. We are expert problem solvers in fact. So in this particular situation, my friend’s husband may have said this half joking, at least I think he was joking, but he ended up that he jinxed himself. What ended up happening, you ask? Well, the horse property that he owned, 10 acres with horse barn installed, plus another shop, and probably like five lean-tos, seven automatic waterers, a really nice property. But oh, by the way, we discovered that it wasn’t zoned for horses. It was zoned for residential rural area where you can have no animals. Well, come to find out, prior to 2000, the county had done some massive rezoning and they had rezoned it incorrectly. So let me tell you how fast I was in making sure that we brought it to everyone’s attention to fix this. The point is, as a expert problem solver, I knew the right people to contact and was familiar with the process that we had to go through to help my clients get it fixed. Now, I didn’t know every single step, but I figured out the steps I didn’t know, and it’s not just me that’s problem solving. I have surrounded myself with great people on my team that know how to get the answers we need when we don’t have them. In reality, this incident is just one extreme example of many.
Another transaction found us dealing with a single wide in the middle of two additions on both sides. So it looks like a modular home, but it isn’t. It’s a single wide that has a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bath, and then they decided to add onto it on either side. So it doesn’t have a HUD sticker, it doesn’t have a VIN number, it doesn’t have a serial number on the trailer, and the owners can’t locate the title because it’s been sold so many times. The clients have to file for a lost title, and then the DMV is going to give a serial number to put back on the trailer, which is absolutely amazing. I actually didn’t even know that was something that could be done. So as it turns out, in the course of problem solving, I learn something all the time too.
So that’s a couple of examples of problems that I’ve faced alongside my clients. I really think problem solving is one of the most important things every listing agent does, and selling agent too. And no, we don’t do it all the time on every single transaction. Sometimes things run a bit smoother, but we have to do it often.
The second thing I really wanna talk about is the marketing at these homes. If all you do, and I know this sounds pitchy, but if all you do is put a sign in the yard and take pictures and put it on MLS, then you really aren’t getting the most people into your house as possible, nor will you get them there fast enough, and you want to do that, like as soon as you can. So at the Alisha Collins Real Estate Team, we use professional photography not cell phones to capture our client’s property and present them with the best possible image. A lot of you probably have heard me on my TikTok channel talking about how I do not like the use of cell phone pictures. Whoever you choose, I think that your agent should do as I do and hire a professional photographer. Listing photos are something that I feel we use and are only given one chance to make a good impression. So if we are not doing that and we’re just using a quick cell phone picture or if we go on MLS with just one picture, then somebody that might be interested may just skip on by, because they’re going to think that if there’s only one picture then there’s obviously something wrong with the property. If there are more pictures but they look real dark because the lights weren’t turned on or the flash on the camera wasn’t used, or they just held up a cell phone and took pictures quickly, this is really the first thing everyone has learned on every single platform. When a house comes on the market, potential buyers are going to go look at it right now. They have alarms and notifications set up on their phone. They’re not going to wait three days while the agent goes and takes good pictures. First impressions are so important.
Okay, second thing about marketing is that when you are selling your house, you want someone who will market your house to the masses. And how we do that is through paid social media. We pay for advertising on different social media platforms. We hire a professional videographer who also flies a drone over the seller’s house. That way, we end up with a really nice professional video so people can walk through your house without stepping a foot inside, and that really catches people’s eyes. So let’s say somebody’s looking for a house and they see the video, they are 65% more likely to go walk through your house than if there were no videos at all. Imagine how powerful that is. Another thing is when we’re doing the video, we actually point out what positive attributes of your house are. Then we post that on every social media platform and people watch them. They know we do them, and they love watching them.
So we have the photos, we have the video, and the next thing we do is we’re going to do a 360 degree video, that doesn’t have any words. It’s through a company called Matterport. It’s a big camera that almost looks like it’s from 1910 but it’s filled with amazing technology. You go every two or three feet around the house and you take a picture, and then the technology puts it into an interactive video. How cool is that?
We also send postcards through Every Door Direct and it is a great way and an inexpensive way to get people in your neighborhood to know about your house. People love living in the neighborhood they live in. If they get something in the mail about the property for sale, then they’re like, oh my gosh, I have to tell so-and-so about it so they can live next to me. That helps us. We include a link on the postcard that will actually go to the online listing, so they can watch the video and look at the 3D view.
Okay? I think that now we’re doing open houses again. It’s really important to note that I think there are more tools in our marketing tool belt, they’re not the most important of tools. We don’t sell a ton of properties through open houses. We sell enough that it’s worth it to do them. So my whole team together, we do a lot of open houses every single week, and so that equals a lot in a month, with opens at each of our listings.
Another thing we do as real estate agents is we’re available for our clients. They can call and text us all the time, whenever they need. We are here. I think that is so very important that you make sure understand everything you’re doing. Everything, every repair you’re making on your house is for that new buyer. You need to understand why it’s important that you do it and what’s the outcome going to be? And if your agent can’t explain to you those things or can’t explain the offer to you, that is a problem. You wanna make sure when you sign a contract, you realize you are signing a legal document.
Recently, I had someone that went through a situation where they didn’t know what they were signing and they were scared afterwards, even though it didn’t come together. They were not explained the contract, and sadly, in most instances if you agreed to something, you can’t change it later. You can’t change the dates unless the buyer or the seller agrees with you. So that’s why it’s so important to know what you’re signing. You’re signing more than a sheet of paper. It’s a legally binding document.
This little snapshot at what we do as real estate agents, it seems kind of like we do a little bit more than hammer a sign and take a picture. What do you think? I don’t mean it lightly when I say that my team and I are passionate about our jobs. We have spent time, learned so many things that help us, help you be successful, whether buying ourselves, we know our stuff, and we have your back.
We love living in Casper. We want you to love where you live as well. We have time for you, we are so grateful that you watch our videos and you respond and reach out to us. We can’t wait to talk to you. See you soon.