Recent trends show that while residential real estate inventory is increasing, transaction volume is down compared to last year. Buyers continue to face challenges with respect to affordability, particularly due to high interest rates, and many sellers are unwilling to accept less for their homes to compensate for the higher rates.
While it may seem that the real estate market has reached a bit of an impasse, brokers have an array of tools and resources at their disposal to generate business while helping buyers and sellers achieve their real estate goals.
Tools to enhance broker marketing
NWMLS offers an extensive range of products and services to assist brokers in enhancing their business. Following are tools and resources specifically designed to help increase marketing and client prospecting efforts:
Customize the Northwest MLS mobile app and client portal – The NWMLS mobile app makes it easy to customize the real estate tools provided to clients. Brokers can choose their logo and color scheme to create their own branded version of the app, and then share their customized app with their clients. Branding the app also carries your custom theme to Listing Detail reports, and to social media posts that can be automatically published to your Facebook Business Page when you list or sell a home. With integration into the OneHome client portal, branding carries over seamlessly.
Generate leads with Down Payment Connect – Brokers can help clients achieve homeownership with Down Payment Resource programs. This service offers a comprehensive list of financial assistance programs tailored to specific listings, along with a personalized lead generation page called Down Payment Connect. The tool generates free leads directly from brokerage websites, email signatures, and social media pages. Prospective buyers can easily search for homeownership assistance programs; when they request details, brokers receive an email with their contact information.
Showcase market expertise with real estate statistical data and trends – NWMLS’ statistical data tools elevate local expertise with customizable monthly charts, market trends, and more. Charts are downloadable and shareable on broker websites, blogs, and social media to showcase in-depth market insights.
Expand listing visibility on NWMLS.com – NWMLS.com broadens the reach of property listings. When brokers enable this feature, which adds a link to the listing directly on the brokerage site, the listing receives increased visibility, and the site benefits from a boost in search engine optimization.
Leverage the MLS Plus Advantage Branding on Realtor.com – NWMLS member listings are automatically featured on Realtor.com. With the MLS Plus Advantage Branding, brokers can add their firm’s logo and the listing broker’s photo at no extra cost to make their listings stand out. Once the firm’s account is established, other brokers in the office can personalize their profiles with photos, bios, specialties, and coverage areas.
Trainings to support prospecting
NWMLS offers comprehensive training resources including in-person and virtual clock hour classes, free workshops, and one-on-one virtual sessions with experienced trainers. Members also have access to free customized trainings which can be held at their offices Prospecting trainings include:
Farming with Matrix and Realist – This course familiarizes brokers with NWMLS tools to find various types of real property to increase marketing efforts and grow the pipeline for business longevity. Brokers learn how to search using attributes such as land use, zoning, subdivision, absentee owners, and other key search attributes to find specific types of property farms.
Cultivating Your Farm – This follow-up course expands on NWMLS tools and techniques, such as customizing displays and exports, saving stats and gathering various reports to send to prospects, using the marketing resources available with the Down Payment Resource tool, selecting properties based on Sell Score, and much more.
NWMLS has proudly powered the residential real estate industry for more than 40 years and looks forward to continuing to be a valuable resource to this vibrant and dynamic community.
Tara Marino is the director of communications and training at Northwest MLS.