The Boston2.com Real Estate Blog

Do You Leave a Voicemail?

Are you making the most out of your prospecting time with leaving the right voicemail?

Hi, I am Jeff Chubb and I wanted to share with you the proper technique as well as a successful script when leaving a voicemail to increase your conversation rates.

If you are leaving a voicemail and trying to sell yourself in the voicemal, then you are wasting your time.

A prospect will not all you back from a message where you are talking all about you or some special offer.

So what’s on a selling yourself email? What does it sound like? It would sound something like, “Hi, I am Jeff Chubb with eXp Realty. We have a proven and repeatable system that has been proven to get seller’s more money…BLAH BLAH BLAH

People do not want to be sold. They have deleted the message by the word “proven”. Don’t sell yourself. None of this is about you!

What is the intention of leaving a voicemail? It’s to get them to call you back! So think like a consumer.

So what should you do when leaving a voicemail?

You want to remove your title and leave a lot of curiosity in the message.

So what does that sound like? “Hi, this is Jeff 617-480-2600, I sent you an email. Give me a call when you have a couple minutes. 617-480-2600”

Notice I am not saying a title or anything about eXp Realty or the Chubb Realty Group.

So what are we doing here? We are putting curiousity in the air in regards to “what email?”.

It is EXTREMELY important to not leave anything else other than your phone number. No brokerage information, no website, no details about the services… Nothing.

The only point of this is to get them to call you back so you can do the selling on the phone. You will never...

I Love this home, now what?

Hi, I am Jeff Chubb with eXp Realty and I wanted to share with you today the next steps once you have found that dream home.

You have walked through the front door and have been swept off of your feet.

The home checks nearly all the boxes and you can see your future you and the Thanksgiving Turkey coming out of the oven and to the Dining Room table.

There are enough beds and baths and the size of the home meets your needs today as well as the needs of your near future.

So now what? What’s the next step in the process?

If this is the house for you, then it is time to start gathering some information.

The information gathering step is one that you will not want to drag your feet on as waiting too long can allow other buyers to swoop in and steal your dream home out from under you or put you in a position to have to pay more!

So what type of information?

At this point, you should already have your pre-approval.

We will need to make sure the pre-approval is still up to date and that the amount is in line with the price of the home.

In some cases we may need a couple pre-approval letters with different prices depending on the offer strategy that we ultimately choose.

If you are paying cash, then we will need some sort of proof of funds.

These proof of funds can be a bank statement or statements or a letter from your banker verifying funds.

We will also want to look at the comparables… aka “comps” on the property. Is the price of this home in line with the neighboring properties that are close in size and condition? Or is the price higher or lower than what the area supports?

We have the pre-approval or proof of funds, we have an idea of what the home is worth and what...

Online Leads Suck?

I wanted to share takj to you about the myth that all online leads are bad.

This is something I hear all the time. I also see it in facebook forum after facebook forum how bad they are.

If you are one of my competitors, then yes… Online leads suck. You are definitely wasting your money.

For everyone else, online leads when handled properly can make you a small fortune.

Consider this, yesterday I showed an $11.3 million dollar house… From an online lead! Now it wasn’t an $11.3 million dollar inquiry, we started working together about a year ago when he came in on a crappy $4m house.

Here is the crazy thing, this lead actually passed through all of our buyer agents in our lead distribution system. After no one accepted it, it was assigned to me as the systems failsafe. Because seconds matter when it comes to lead conversion… I called and set the appointment. I don’t compete with my agents, but every once in awhile will take a lead when no other agents want to work the opportunity…

When working online leads you must keep in mind that speed to lead is an absolute must. Realtor.com has done a study and found the optimal response time is within 38 seconds after the lead is generated.

38 seconds!

This is why if you are going to be investing in online leads and want to be successful then you must have the systems in place and the discipline for continuous follow up.

Keep these numbers in mind, last year a 100 million online leads were generated and there were 5 million sales throughout the United States. Online leads aren’t bad. They just take effort.

Like any other lead source, we have had online leads that have taken years to convert and others where we have written an offer on the first house they have...

Improvements to Make Before Selling your Massachusetts Home

One of the most asked questions is “Should I make improvements before selling my home”. The correct answer is maybe.

I wanted to share with you you today what improvements if any you should make when putting a Massachusetts house on the market.

The reason that the answer is ‘maybe’ is because each situation is different. For example, it most likely will not make any sense or return any value to refinish the hardwood floors for a house that will most likely be completely renovated.

So what should the golden rule be when it comes to making improvements before putting a home on the market in Massachusetts? You should only make an improvement if it will provide you a return over what you are investing or an improvement that will come up in a home inspection.

But even with possible Home Inspection Issues, I have to say that you must be careful. I can often times negotiate an amount less then what it would actually cost.

A recent example is a client of mine in Boston had a furnace that was at the end of its life and had asked if he should have it fixed. This process would end up costing my client in the $15k range and would not have offered any additional value to a buyer when the property is on the market. We were able to negotiate an amount of less than half and buying a home warranty.

The smaller stuff that you know about like broken window seals, loose cabinet doors or maybe plumbing or electrical issues are generally areas that you will want to address. Other areas that...

For the first-time home buyers, the world of real estate and its legal lingo may be overwhelming and confusing. There is a lot to take in and be aware of when it comes to buying your own house, from desired square footage, do you or will you have kids with you in the next few years, neighborhood, lending company, pricing, budgeting; it's no wonder that over thirty percent of homebuyers say that buying a house is one of the most stressful modern life changes.

These four tips and terms throw some clarity on the world of real estate and break it down into bite-sized pieces.

1. Get a Good Realtor

A good Realtor is the first starting point for anyone looking to buy or sell a home. Lending companies, loans, listing agents, the sellers; all those are second place to a good Realtor. Having an honest and dedicated agent advocating for you makes navigating the home process from the very start of touring houses, ...