As 2021 starts its slow descent into winter and 2022 begins to show its head around the corner, it’s time to consider how to stay in touch with your real estate clients during the cold winter months. Many businesses as well as prospective home buyers have already begun gearing down for the holiday season. Just as soon as Thanksgiving hits, most of your clients will be off your radar and you will be off theirs just the same.
This is a critical time to stay in touch with your clients, though, and find ways to make sure they don’t forget you in 2022. Here are some ways to stay in touch with your real estate clients.
1. Play Santa Claus
No, don’t dress up as a mall Santa and hand out business cards to everyone who walks by. Instead, consider giving small gifts or at least send a “Seasons Greetings” card to all of your potential and past clients. Holiday gifts are a great way to be remembered for the next year, and if you can target a client at their business it may even generate more leads for you in the coming year. At the very least, though, send a holiday card or postcard to your mailing list. These gestures, though small, will certainly seem like big steps to your clients.
2. Get Involved in the Community
Cities go above and beyond for the holidays to offer family-friendly activities and keep everyone connected during the holiday season. Even if your phone has already gone silent and you’re flipping the calendar to January, it’s a great time to use some of your free time to get involved in the community. Sponsor a sleigh ride, hand out goodies to kids and parents at community events, or host a social gathering with you and your company as the title sponsor. Again, while these may seem like simple things, folks tend to remember the generous man or woman handing out treats to the kids during the Annual Tree of Lights Ceremony.
3. Create and Distribute Content
If you find yourself twiddling your thumbs in your office in the afternoons, consider generating some great home buying content for 2022. Making some top-notch literature and distributing it during the holidays will get some content into the hands of your clients and get them thinking about buying a home in 2022. This is a great opportunity for you to familiarize yourself with the housing market, interest rates, and changes in real estate for the coming year. If you can get quality, well-researched content to your clients, they will see that you’re putting in the work for 2022 when everyone else has checked out for 2021.
4. Sponsor a Charitable Event
The Holidays are about giving, and most Americans will happily give out of their abundance to those who are less fortunate with hope of improving someone’s holidays. Get involved in a canned food drive or angel tree with a local charity. Sponsor the event and be active in helping those less fortunate in the community. If your sponsorship is only in time and volunteer work, it will be greatly appreciated by the organization you’re working with and your clients will take notice of your humility and service. This will lead them back to you in the spring when it’s time to buy and sell homes again.
5. Monitor Expired Listings
As the year closes, there are certainly an abundance of real estate listings due to expire. Keep a close eye on those listings, monitor them, and contact the sellers to see if you can help them sell those properties or contact your clients and make them aware of the properties. This works two ways. It gets you in with the sellers and can connect the sellers to your existing or prospective real estate clients. By doing your due diligence in the local real estate market, you’ll also be more likely to get a leg up on your competitors when the year turns.
Get Ahead of the Mortgage Market
Another thing to keep in mind is to keep mortgage lenders in your back pocket. Having a trusted core of mortgage loan officers and lenders will help you understand the mortgage climate and help find a proper fit for your clients. Get in touch with one of the mortgage loan officers at Tidewater Mortgage Services today to talk to a professional who can help you and your clients get in the best possible position to take advantage of the real estate market in your area.
