What are the best practices for prospecting? We’ve got a great study from MIT about this topic to share with you today.

Join RE/MAX Professionals

I’ve got some great information to share today that I recently came across. A study conducted by MIT and published in the Harvard Business Review examined a number of different factors relating to response times for lead management. They collected more than 15,000 Internet leads in a three-year period and reached out to more than 100,000 different people in order to find the best times for getting responses.

Although every day is a good day to make contact, the study found that you have the best odds of reaching someone on either a Wednesday or a Thursday. There was a 49% difference between calling on Thursday versus calling on Tuesday.

As for the best time to make contact, the best results were found within the 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. time period. The next best time to call would be between 8 p.m. and 9 a.m. The difference between calling at 1:00 p.m. versus calling at 4 p.m. is 164%.

“You have the best odds of converting leads within five minutes of capturing them.”

You’ve probably heard before that making contact with prospects is all about timeliness. In fact, you do have the greatest odds of converting leads within the first five minutes of capturing them. After that, the conversion percentage decreases by 10 times. You absolutely have to respond to these leads as soon as they come in. There is more than a 400% difference between responding within five minutes and responding within 10.

Another thing this study showed was that persistence is key. When making calls, the likelihood of conversion increases greatly after about the sixth call. Continuing to call and being persistent with your leads is another simple way to ensure the success of your real estate business.

If you have any other questions for me, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. If you’d just like to sit down and have a chat about your career, I’d be happy to help with that as well. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

One of our goals in 2017 is to give back, and here’s how we plan to do that. Looking to buy a home? Search All HomesLooking to sell a home? Get a FREE Home Value Report Today, I want to talk to you about charitable contributions.  Over the past 25 years, I’ve had the great pleasure being able to donate a portion of our team’s earned commissions to the Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Our office is involved in a lot of different charities—each agent has their own pet charity, if you will.  In addition to the Phoenix Children’s Hospital, we’ve gotten involved in the last year with a group called One Life Fully Lived, which is a group that reaches out to young adults and high school-aged kids in an effort to give them some guidance on their futures. We’re also a contributor to the Singleton Moms Foundation.  This year, our goal is to give back. One of our initiatives in 2017 is to give back. My goal is to donate $100,000 to charities. Instead of us picking a charity that we think is good to donate to, we will ask our sellers which charities they’re fond of and make donations to those charities in our clients’ names.   If you have any questions or you know some worthwhile charities that could use some help, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. We’d love to speak with you.

One of my goals in 2017 is to have a deeper connection with local business owners. To do that, I want to connect you with my database of past clients. Looking to buy a home? Search All HomesLooking to sell a home? Get a FREE Home Value Report If you are a local business owner, I’d like to help you out by getting you more customers. I’ve been in the real estate business for over 30 years and have helped over 6,000 people buy a house in the Northwest Valley.  With a large database of great past clients, I’d like to see if I can connect them to your business to help it grow. I’d love to sit down for breakfast, lunch, or coffee with you and learn a little bit more about you and your business. If it seems like a good fit, I’ll put your business in the referral directory I send out to all my past clients. I can then refer them to use your services and vice versa.  If it’s a good fit, I’ll put your business in my referral directory. One of my goals in 2017 is to have a deeper connection with all of you and make you part of my life by helping you grow your business. If you have any questions for me or you’d like to have lunch, don’t hesitate to reach out. Just give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you.

Listing your home now might be a better idea than waiting until spring. Here’s why. Looking to buy a home? Search All HomesLooking to sell a home? Get a FREE Home Value Report Is now a better time to sell your house than waiting until spring? With the interest rate hike that we just witnessed, buyers are entering the market now instead of waiting until spring to purchase a house. Not only that, but our current inventory is extremely low, and the demand from buyers is extremely high.  Now is the right time to sell your house. This makes our current market the perfect place to possibly get top dollar in a very short amount of time.  If you have any questions about current interest rates or what our market inventory looks like, please feel free to reach out to me. I’d be happy to speak with you!

Interest rates are predicted to rise this year, so today I want to illustrate what impact that has on you as a buyer. Looking to buy a home? Search All HomesLooking to sell a home? Get a FREE Home Value Report What’s happening with rising interest rates in our current market? In November, they were holding steady at 3.8%. That means if you borrowed $200,000 at that time, your monthly payment would have been roughly $931.  As we move into the first quarter of 2017, prices have gone up. Interest rates have gone up as well. Hypothetically speaking, if the price goes up $10,000 on that $200,000 house and interest rates rise from 3.8% to 4.8%, your monthly payment would increase to $1,105. That’s $175 more you would have to pay each month.  The Federal Reserve tells us that we will probably see additional increases in rates this year, so the sooner you can jump into the market and buy a house, the better off you will be. This is because your purchasing power as a buyer diminishes as rates rise.  The sooner you can buy a house, the better. For example, at a 3.75% interest rate, your monthly payment for a $300,000 house would be $1,389. If that rate rises a quarter of a point, the amount you could qualify for drops by 2.5% to $292,500, and your monthly payment would increase to $1,396. If the rate rises a full percentage point, the amount you could qualify for drops by 10% to $270,000, and your monthly payment would increase to $1,408.  After a certain point, we should see a leveling off of the increase in home prices we’ve been experiencing here in the Phoenix area. If you’re in the market to buy or sell a home, please feel free to reach out to me by phone or email. I’d be happy to help!