7 figure Attraction Agent
Tom Panos interviews leading real estate attraction agents. These agents share their strategies for writing 7 figures year after year. Simple, powerful and effective - you can apply these tips to grow your real estate business today. For more FREE tools visit: www.tompanos.com.au
7 figure Attraction Agent
How to Access Owners with Properties to Sell
One of the biggest reasons sales fall through the cracks at the last minute is because agents weren't transparent from the start.
Often they haven't disclosed the full contents of the Building & Pest Inspection / Strata Report.
Poor buyer management not only costs you the sale, but also affects your reputation.
In this webinar, Matthew Everingham, who is consistently ranked in the REB top 100, reveals the tool he uses to significantly increase his list-to-sale ratio, and grow his rent roll.
to before you buy just opened up 80% of an extra real estate market. It was always there, by the way. It's just that, there she is. She is the brainchild. Wow, she's the brainchild. I like it. Yeah, like it's. You know, it's funny.
Tom Panos:We're talking about that because I'm reading a great book at the moment by Seth Godin, called this Is Marketing, and it is absolutely priceless. It is absolutely. Every page has got a gold nugget, a bomb. So I'd urge everyone to look at that. But today we're on and, ladies and gentlemen, can I ask you to press the share button? Ladies and gentlemen, can I ask you to press the share button? Those that are watching on social media press the share button, because we want everyone to understand the information you're going to get is going to help you actually make more sales. And with us we have the founder of Before you Bid, which became Before you Buy. So he's the founder of both. And also I have Matthew Everingham, who I just said on our prospecting with Maddy. I think I've known you for three decades, close to it how old are you?
Tom Panos:How old are you Maddy?
Matthew Everingham:I'm 43 in a couple of months. So yeah, tom, I met him as I was probably 17 when I started A different life back. We're a little bit older now.
Tom Panos:A little bit older, a little bit older, and I've got to tell you you're a lot more successful than what you were, and that's standard in real estate time in the business the compounding effect. But today we're going to talk about a very important subject and that is like you didn't believe, matty, you didn't believe in getting inspection reports up front right, no, no, no, absolutely. Tell me what you were thinking. And now also I understand from Rhys, who tells me you and your team are doing it pretty much every listing, and there's a lot of them. He services my area or the fringes of my area, so I see the signboards up. Tell me more about why you didn't and tell me why you're doing it now.
Matthew Everingham:Yeah, it's very true. I think at the beginning I was a a big skeptic. I'm like, oh yeah, it's just another sort of ploy. I think probably because from when I first started in real estate and like you said, tom, it's been a while now the method was just the buyer can sort that out themselves. And I suppose fear of change, unknown, worried about you know what information was being put out there, and I suppose probably you know thinking about the report and fearful of it rather than being smart and thinking the other way, where, if you give information upfront, you know what you're dealing with. More transparency, far better experience for the buyer and, to be honest, I really believe from our business perspective, we're pretty disappointed. We didn't get on board all in much earlier. So it's been a game changer for us. It's a range of things speed, efficiency, experience for the buyer, but also for the vendor. I mean, technically we work for the vendor, right. So our job is to make sure that you know we've got as much information as we can upfront. Far easier, far easier.
Tom Panos:Can I get you, rhys? Can I get you? Because I know that you've got you love data and you've got an incredible access. You've got this great helicopter view of what happens in real estate. Because of the fact that people buy these reports, you can actually see what goes on. I'm curious last say, last 12 months, last year. Show me the data on that business.
Rhys Rogers:I did prepare a little bit earlier, Tommy, and did it go quickly. Can you see my screen? Yes, I can.
Rhys Rogers:Just to give you an idea, I'll kind of give you what Richard Matthews has got into and this is available for anyone the major CRMs. But you know, obviously, when someone downloads a report, matt, we tell you. You know their name, email, phone number, postcode, whether or not an occupied investor buys agent conveyance. I'll let you touch on how that kind of works. I know, tom, we did a session probably about 12 months ago with the Mid-diac. Now he just said, look, this is not just a hot buyer list, it's also his kind of 90-day list of who's gonna do anything, whether it's buying or or potentially selling. So he goes through religiously and find who the buyer, sellers are and this data and then goes, okay, well, if I can find them one of our properties or a competitor's property, it doesn't matter. Matter, that's a listing on my hands. So we now ask buyers as they download reports whether they've got something to sell.
Rhys Rogers:But I'll just before we go into kind of the CRM integration, I'll touch on your office, maddy. So this is kind of the last 12 months and this is, all you know, accessible through our login but all within AgentBox as well. But if you look at, 250 reports over the last 12 months. 683 people downloaded those reports, tom, and of those 683, there was 107 who said they were investors. So that goes straight to Matt's property management team. So it's off the back of his sale arm extending into his property management team. Matty, off the top of your head. This is a bit of an exam. Do you know a property that you've got under management? What would one property on average be worth? I remember Constantopoulos told me it was about six and a half grand and that was in power?
Matthew Everingham:Yeah, I'd say somewhere between six to 10,000, pending on which area of our business. Yep.
Rhys Rogers:So if you're going in, the middle of that. So that's kind of an annual opportunity there. Tom of you know $850,000 of leads there. Now you're not going to convert them all, obviously, but that's kind of the stuff that you know Matt's team is now seeing.
Tom Panos:Rhys, I've got to tell you, we've just come off a prospecting blitz, right, and what they do at the prospecting blitz is they're trying to uncover leads. So to uncover a lead, I've got to tell you, in real estate it is hard work. You are grinding through uninterested, unqualified people that don't want to hear from you, right, and what you basically said is oh, there's no guarantee you're going to convert the lead. The lead is where the value is in real estate. The victory in real estate is the opportunity to speak to someone who has some sort of propensity to do business. So I think that is major.
Rhys Rogers:to be honest with you, and we worked out, tom we might have lost Matt for a second there, but we've worked out, Tom, that we did this analysis through CoreLogic but it's at least 20%, but up to 30% of people who download our reports have something to sell. So those buyer-sellers which you know Amit was mentioning.
Matthew Everingham:I reckon it's a huge prospecting tool. I think people just pass it by but like just that alone, without doing everything else you're meant to be doing, is a massive opportunity in the pm stuff and the data cleaning that we get out of it as well, like the updated information that goes into agent box for us, that's huge for our business yeah, I'll show you that actually, now that you mentioned it like it's huge, that's huge just to go into that tom.
Rhys Rogers:So, yeah, every single time, um, we do a text message for um, for Matt's team, that goes out after the open home. You'll see here the data going back into agent box. Every single time someone downloads a report. We put that report, taken filled, tick it off. We now make them a hot buyer. We'll update their email address in the CRM as well If we see that Matt's team doesn't have it. They only got the mobile. So we'll update about 5.5% of contacts every single week with an email address. And then if you're looking at that batting order, you know we say you know 20 people go through the open home and then we quickly tell you here's the four who took the building and pest report and that's 80% to 90% likely a buyer. It really helps you focus on the right people post the open home and that makes your job a bit more interesting as well, I think, matt. I mean you tell me, but the idea of calling 20 people and you know 14 of them saying which property I saw seven that day.
Matthew Everingham:Yeah, correct.
Rhys Rogers:Here's the people who actually want to transact on it.
Matthew Everingham:Well, it's a bit of a cheat sheet, right.
Tom Panos:Yeah, can I get you to stop sharing? Because I want to bring you both into the screen for a moment. And the reason I say this is I want to talk to you, matty. I mean, I still have a lot of real estate agents that say to me okay, I get the value of having a report. I understand that if you've got a report, you can influence more from a position of strength. I understand that you can actually find out potential buyer, sellers. I get all of that. Explain the execution of at a listing presentation, how you bring up the report, how does it all work? Who pays for it? Because I know a lot of people that weren't looking at before you bid because they were saying it is not my kind of thing. Now we know that it is. Explain it how you do it, because I'm sure you can do it. You don't do it just for your auction properties, right?
Matthew Everingham:No, no, no, we don't. Obviously, auction properties are a great advantage, but for any of them I mean, I suppose the market now Tom, you're out there every weekend seeing what we're seeing it's a bit of a catch and kill market right now, like if you don't have the buyer ready to go there and then you miss the opportunity. They move on to something else. There's less urgency than there was. Days on, markets have increased. So for us it's been a huge plus for us to have it In the living room. It's pretty simple. I mean, the methods that before you buy have available are different pay options. I mean, obviously Rhys could talk through a bit more detail, but we have a bit of skin in both games. The owner pays a little bit, buyer pays a bit and then at the end, whoever buys it obviously buys the report In the living room. It's a simple one. I say to the owners I want to control who the inspector is. Firstly, because I know that they're going to go through and we know exactly how they're going to report on it. If there's an issue up front, I want to know about it because I can then get it fixed and have them re-inspect it. So that's a number one key, because if it's something that's easily fixable or I had one recently where they were were termite infested and literally we we pulled the campaign because before we started it I said to the owner you need to treat this. We did, we treated it. We had the warranties then and we got the property on. It probably took us I don't know maybe six weeks as a delay there. But you know what, if that was sprung on you midway through an auction campaign or toward the end, the amount of VPA that you've got out there and the headaches involved, the work you go through to get to that point, it's a no-brainer right. Eight of those nine sold and three of those eight properties were actually last minute inspections, like saw it in the last few days of the campaign.
Matthew Everingham:Without those reports we may not have those buyers bidding. Whether it's strata or building, they're available. So, tom, you remember you were an agent. I don't know what did we say 60, 70 years ago, was it that long 60 years ago? But remember, years ago, like if you had a hot property you could have 10, 15 reports. You'd have to accommodate those people. You'd have to make the time sit there, do the report. Really, it was a punish right In this instance. It's all done and you can close a deal like that much easier.
Tom Panos:And I've got to say right now, particularly the markets of Melbourne and Sydney, where it's fragile. I've got to tell you, I understand that one in 10 properties goes off. You'll read about it in the Telegraph and the Herald on the Sunday. We had 75 inspections and that's the story. What they're missing out on the 95% of transactions that are just grinds, and it is one little thing that stuffs up the sale. Now, right, yep, one little thing All of a sudden, that crack on the wall matters. It doesn't matter when there's fear of missing out. Now, in this market where there's an oversupply of listings, they'll say maybe their next listing, I see, won't have that crack on the wall, right? So this is what the report does. It helps you, particularly in marketplaces where people need certainty. It allows an agent to position them from a position of strength. Now, you're a CRM user of AgentBox or do you use Vault?
Matthew Everingham:AgentBox, which coincides perfectly with this.
Tom Panos:With this, it's really okay, because I do know the relationship and I and I know that. And, by the way, congratulations, uh. Because I still remember the first day you, I sabine, sat down at uh, the uh hotel, the pub at northern pub, and I was thinking about, and I was thinking about the fact that there was a small cohort of people that were using Before you Bid. It was a good business. But I'm having a look at it now and it's become sort of like in many businesses across Australia. It is signboard Agent Box. Someone's knocking on my door. I'm at a hotel room in Manila. Sorry, I'll be a moment. Can you come back later? Thank you.
Matthew Everingham:I reckon he's on his super yacht. We said that right, he's on a super yacht, it's not an other service.
Tom Panos:They have a service, you hear, by the way, I am in Manila and for some reason someone said to me before you guys come to this, you here. So I mean, by the way, I am in Manila and for some reason someone said to me before you guys, come to this conference, here as well, I'm convinced, am I right?
Rhys Rogers:No, I wish.
Matthew Everingham:Tell me what's wrong. I'm a bit of a junket.
Tom Panos:Okay, so let me. Oh, I've been a mental cold a second. I can't get out.
Rhys Rogers:I was basically saying something there and Tom just to kind of help what you were saying, those markets down. Where it is a bit cooler and we see this all the time and agent feedback from us is and this happens a lot in Victoria at the moment where, you know, in New South Wales we started here nine years ago it's become quite common to get reports through us in Queensland as well. In Victoria it's kind of just kicking off over the last few years. But agents there are saying you know, when we've got these reports up front, we know some of our competitors don't, and that person's looking at two similar properties but one has made it easy to do the DD. They go for that property. There's only, you know, one or two buyers around. You know they're saying it's a competitive advantage.
Tom Panos:Can I ask you, Rhys, I know the relationship with Agent Box is super strong because, as I was saying before, when I met you I already had a relationship with Agent Box and I then realised soon later you integrated with them, because I remember you were talking with Eddie and his team. Has that process now gone to a lot of the other CRM?
Rhys Rogers:systems. Yeah, so we integrate with Fold Rex and Box and Dice now as well.
Tom Panos:Okay, so four systems, which is pretty much 90% of the market in Australasia. But there's an integration Matty. It's integrated in your CRM system correct?
Matthew Everingham:Yeah, absolutely, and it makes it like Reeve touched on it before, like the cleaning of data. You get an email every single time that somebody downloads, is interested in. It prompts you on leads. It's a no-brainer and I think we were a little bit nervous, to be honest, at the beginning, like, oh, we're giving access to our data, but at the end of the day we've had no issues with that, and I know agents will. Some mooring lines will be like that. It would have been like me at the beginning saying I'm not providing building reports. It's closed-minded thinking and the reality is that it's just an extra layer of reminder, an extra layer of follow-up that you can have there. And they also every single person that comes through our opens, gets a text from us directly through AgentBox and then, as a follow-up to that, they get information from BYB as well. So it's a double-touch point and it's kind of what do you call it? White-labeled to our business. So it's like it's coming from us.
Rhys Rogers:Yeah, and we do the data in the CRM as opposed to anything else with it.
Tom Panos:I've just picked up on my thoughts. Before I had that knock on the door and what it was is like it's pretty stock standard realestatecom signboard domain. You know social media and now I've noticed that before you buy on, that campaign is being ticked off as stock standard. I'm curious, rhys, do a lot of real estate agents have it as part of that process or are they using it selectively?
Rhys Rogers:Most of them just have it in the VPA. So, yeah, the most common now for us is definitely clients having it in the VPA. So, yeah, the most common now for us is definitely clients having it in the VPA. It's just a light item there because it also reminds them to bring it up with the vendor, particularly in those markets where it's not as common vendors might say.
Rhys Rogers:Why am I getting this report up front? And then I still use your one, tom, from the day we were sitting at that pub where I was like how would you sell it? And he said to me Mr and Mrs Vendor, if we, you know, spend all this money on our own domain painting, you know, photography we do four or five weeks of open homes, we negotiate, we eventually get that price you're happy with. They get their own building and pest inspection report and then they found out something we don't know about and the whole thing falls over. Let's avoid that. Let's just get out the front and control it from that day. And I might repeat that you know too many times, tom.
Tom Panos:I'd have to pay you a royalty. Yeah, well, I've got to say to you that I saw a real estate agent in my area using, before you Buy, on a second inspection with a buyer and it was just so beautifully executed. He walked in and he knew that it was going to become an issue because there was something in the living room that looked unsightly and he said to the buyer he goes, listen, I want to let you know, obviously, you coming back bringing your father, who's a bit of a handyman, one of the things that you're going to want to actually look at is in that living room, that top right-hand corner, and I can tell you the good news is that the report that we have shows that it's cosmetic and it's not structural, and that's the main thing and just the way that they were beautifully able to do it, and all I can say is it's so much easier. If you are an agent and you actually can have the information. You have some influence over the narrative. I would find it, I would hate the unpredictability of pulling out an incredible campaign, you know, working tirelessly to bring as many buyers as possible, getting them to fight over it, and you, in the back of your head, being unaware that you know there's this issue there.
Tom Panos:Right, there's this issue. It would be like I'm trying to think of a. It'll be like organizing. It'll be like organizing a wedding right, having everything perfect the venue the DJ right, photographers doing everything, the flowers, the whole lot, the invites are done, high-quality $10 invites, right for each person. And then, for some reason, on the day, you've got no understanding of the catering. What's going to happen with the catering? And you can destroy the whole event. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to reduce the probability of stuffing it up. I've got to say what, rhys, can I ask you from your end, what are the three most common things? You hear real estate agents say they're so happy about the product. What is the most common things that they rave about?
Rhys Rogers:The number one is the transparency angle. That's how it started. John Cunningham, over at Cunningham's Real Estate, just said look, I want to be the transparent agent in my area, matt, we were talking about this the other day. But just, you know, those people who buy off you, they do go on to sell at some point.
Rhys Rogers:If you've made it an easy, transparent, clean process, got the DD there. There's no surprises for them when they move in, um, you know they. Then they then come back to you seven years later and you know that's probably when matt's got that growth to become the the 19th. You know number 19 in the rev list because he's got those repeat customers there, um, so that's the number one. Number two would be the data Back to them.
Rhys Rogers:You know, knowing who's downloading these reports, it allows them to structure the sale a little bit. So if it's going to auction or private treaty, but if you're like, look, usually within two weeks we've got two or three downloads of the building and pest, we've only got one you can have a chat to the vendor about. You know we might want to try and close the deal out for this one buyer pre-auction or just now if it's a private treaty campaign, because we haven't got that. You know excess, you know bill, you know number of people downloading the report. And then the last thing is the buyer lists and the buyer sell lists. I just want to quickly. I'll share one last time, tom.
Tom Panos:Yeah.
Rhys Rogers:This is one other thing I looked at and I was looking at. So this is all the data for you know, matt's office, how many email addresses we've updated, you know, in the last 12 months. So that's 375,. You know hot clients who we can now market to quite easily, but this is every single person. I took out the names and emails and mobiles, obviously but this is every single person who's downloaded a building and pest inspection or strata report on one of his properties over the last 12 months. They can see here he's got a list of 585 really hot buyers and potential buyer-sellers which then his team can just focus on to either buy a match to listings he's got or, if they're buyer-sellers, just match them to you know competitors' listings to try and get that listing. Or if they're investors, then by all means just keep pitching to them and building that rent roll that's gold.
Tom Panos:I can tell you. If today, I was a real estate agent sitting at a real estate office, I would be working those buyers. I would be working those buyers as if I was not a real estate agent, as if I was actually working as a buyer's agent. I would actually be just saying, hey, listen, I don't have something for you, but one of our competitors has got this for better. I'd be looking at that. I would be working that person, showing them this is the kind of person you want to list with, even if you don't buy from me. And that list that before you buy provides, is basically like that list there In your area. What's the average fee? Matty, 30 grand a fee.
Matthew Everingham:Probably more in the 20s 20.
Tom Panos:Say $20,000 a fee? Because a fee Probably more in the 20s. 20. Say $20,000 a fee Because, sorry, you do sell a lot of units as well, so it sort of you know, amortises it down. 20,000, right, okay, 20,000. If you've got, you know, 30 there, that's 600,000 in potential revenue, right, if you're just sitting there and thinking to yourself, man, it just makes sense to get the skill set to sit there in front of a vendor and say Mr and Mrs Vendor, I want to let you know one thing that's going to be non-negotiable with us is we want to have control of your transaction. We are letting you know that you're going to have to invest in before you buy, and the simple question you're going to ask yourself is what's more important to you, the risk of overinvesting by a few dollars or the risk of underselling by $100,000? And that's what would happen if we end up not doing this.
Rhys Rogers:Gentlemen, I want to thank you so much.
Tom Panos:However.
Rhys Rogers:Go on, rhys, I'll jump in quickly with the last thing, just because you led me there. But on that list of ready purchases, if you're looking at about 20% of them being buyer-sellers and a $20,000 commission, that's $2.7 million worth of opportunity for Matt's team and they're people who are definitely doing something in the next 90 days. So you know, between that and the nearly 800-odd grand in property management leads, it's $3.5 million of revenue opportunity for his business. Just refining that list from everyone who goes to an open home to a kind of short and manageable list of people who are going to do something in the next 90 days.
Matthew Everingham:And do you know? The other thing is it's paid for by either the vendor or, ultimately, the buyer, so it's not an impost on your business. It's a huge factor and, like you said, we put it into our campaigns now. So it's something that we can go through and obviously make sure we don't forget it. It's so easy. If you believe in it, just believe it. Like, I was a bit of a sceptic, but I saw the benefits and now in our market, particularly our inner west market, more than our southwest market, the clients actually are asking for it. So they're the next advocate for you guys because they're so used to it now.
Tom Panos:I was sitting on a plane with a person that is a analyzes prop techs like the chances of it being it. So he works for a big fund manager the chances of it being it. So he worked for a big fund manager the chance of it being it. And he was particularly interested, of course, in realestatecom. That is the main. You know he's constantly analysing that business, giving reports. And then he said to me he goes, oh yeah, you're an auctioneer, right. And then I explained because just, probably from Facebook, social media or the block there and we got chatting and he said to me what did you reckon are the top five prop tech businesses in Australia? And I actually said, well, I went through them. I'm not going to mention them all, but before you buy was in the list, right? And he said, yeah, he goes.
Tom Panos:I can see that that is an absolute panadol for a lot of headaches in real estate because he goes with all these prop tech businesses, he goes. Some of these prop tech businesses, I think, are a headache in itself. The secret is to actually be the panadol and I've got to tell you there is hundreds of prop tech businesses and I would say only a handful actually are really cutting edge, not bleeding edge, and yours is one of them, rhys. So congratulations on a great business, matty. Appreciate it. Mate. Nothing makes me happier than watching people from dark pasts. I wouldn't even like. Don't get me wrong, it's not like he was in prison and killed a lot of people, but he's come from very humble beginnings.
Rhys Rogers:He thought about it.
Tom Panos:And he thought about it right and he's built a secondary business and it's an absolute pleasure and a privilege to call you a mate and a client.
Rhys Rogers:Thanks, Tom.
Tom Panos:And Rhys an absolute privilege to be partners with you. I want to thank you all, everyone. How do they actually take next step, and that is, do they just ring?
Rhys Rogers:Yeah, just go to beforeyoubuycomau. Go to the contact us, chuck in your details and the team will reach out.
Tom Panos:Okay, beforeyoubuycomau. Beforeyoubuycomau. Thank you so much. Signing off everyone.
Rhys Rogers:Thanks everyone.