Our team at Realestateinvestor.com had the opportunity to meet with real estate superstar Jeff Cohn this week—virtually of course—to learn more about his experience with us as a three year Managed Service Member with RealEstateInvestor.com.
Our Managed Service Membership is a highly personalized service for professional real estate investors and agents who are focused on growing and working on their business, instead of in their business. This membership is most well known for our sales and marketing team that handles the lead generation and appointment qualification allowing our members to work with the most motivated sellers in their market.
Who’s Jeff Cohn?
Jeff Cohn is an industry leader and innovator whose team of real estate agents has sold more than 5,000 units for $1 Billion in sales over the past 13-years. Today, he’s also the nationally renowned speaker and host of The Team Building Podcast, the founder and CEO of Elite Real Estate Systems, and the new CEO of a tech-powered real estate market center in Omaha called kwELITE.
After Jeff shared the highlights of his customer journey with us as a real estate investor, our conversation naturally shifted to what’s been on everybody’s minds lately…
Life and business after the “Safer at Home” days of the Coronavirus pandemic.
From shelter in place orders to staged business openings and threats of second waves, many business owners have been working hard to keep their fear in check as our nation has navigated through multiple unprecedented stages this year.
Historical data shows that real estate entrepreneurs often make more money during times of economic hardship. But in order to seize this opportunity, they need to keep their head in the game and not give into fear and distractions.
We asked Jeff Cohn if he had any advice for real estate business owners who want to make the most of this upcoming market opportunity. Here’s what he shared.
Real estate entrepreneurs need to be more solution-oriented than ever before.
Providing multiple options and solutions for sellers is the key to being a modern real estate entrepreneur. Jeff has been embracing this for years by giving traditional sellers the option to list traditionally or take an instant offer that’s a guaranteed sale for less money. Essentially he’s been an iBuyer since before the term became popular.
Whether you have a few more weeks left at home, or you’re opening up for business right now, there’s never been a better time to get your menu of solutions fine-tuned.
What kind of solutions?
Let’s look at some of the solutions sellers will be looking for in this new market.
Some sellers will need to sell their homes fast.
Sellers who’ve lost their jobs or need to move closer to loved ones will need to move fast. Conventional listings often require a longer process than selling a home to a real estate investor. Every agent should either offer instant offers themselves, or partner with an investor. The same goes for investors being able to offer sellers a traditional listing by partnering with an agent. Here’s what Jeff had to say about this.
“Every appointment you go on in the investment world you can list traditionally. And every appointment you go on in the traditional real estate world, you can buy as an investment property. They feed each other. You just need to build the right team of agents and investors.”
Some sellers will take a lower offer if it means a guaranteed sale.
Since we don’t have a guaranteed timeline of when the world will recover from the coronavirus, or what the final toll on our economy will look like, sellers will take guarantees where they can get them. This includes taking an offer that’s 30% below market price if it comes with a guaranteed sale, and a 7-day closing. Jeff’s team has been offering a solution like this to prospective sellers for years and it’s helped him achieve great business growth.
Sellers won’t want people in their homes for tours or contractors making repairs.
Some sellers don’t even want their agent or investor to come in, much less a bunch of strangers during property showings and the home repair processes.
Since we’re in uncharted waters, it’s hard to predict if seller fear over having strangers in their home will dissipate once the coronavirus eases up, or if virtual touring and inspections will become a new norm. Either way, it’s important to come up with your solution for what you’ll do if a seller refuses to allow anyone in their home for tours or inspections, and if they want to only meet virtually with you. Here’s what Jeff has to say about this.
“The ultimate future agent who will survive and beat out the big-box shops has to give the consumer a virtual and a physical option.”
Jeff’s uses a solution called VRLY.
Jeff’s team at kwELITE utilizes a top-notch virtual marketing service called VRLY for all of their listings. Since they had this in place on all of their listings prior to the coronavirus, their agents haven’t missed a step when it comes to selling homes. It’s no surprise that they had a record making month last month despite the disadvantage of a pandemic.
Here’s how he’s adjusted for giving instant offer quotes.
When it comes to making instant offers, Jeff’s team can even do virtual tours where they have the seller show them around the home while on Facetime, Skype, or another similar video conferencing app.
Clients will need a low stress experience.
Needless to say, the stress is real right now.
Real estate entrepreneurs should utilize options and solutions like Jeff shared, to help mitigate the stress that comes with the home buying and selling process. Jeff’s team is pioneering this mission at kwELITE through his vision expressed below.
“Our one-stop-shop tech-powered office provides clients a simple, customized home buying and selling experience. Enjoy the flexibility of meeting with your real estate agent, mortgage lender, title company, and insurance agent – in person or virtually – at every step of the transaction.”
If you’d like to learn more about what Jeff and his team are doing, follow him on Instagram @JeffMCohn.
We appreciate our members like Jeff who are committed to being beacons of light in our industry.
We hope that this article has given you a few places to start when it comes to building a solutions menu for your clients. If you’re looking for more tactical advice for running your business right now during or after the coronavirus pandemic, we invite you to join our REI Beacon Facebook Group and our live webinars on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The links are below.
We’re all about providing solutions for real estate entrepreneurs!
Our mission at RealEstateInvestor.com is to provide real estate investors like you with solutions to help build, grow and scale your business. We’ve created a platform that nurtures every relationship, matches interests, and qualifies leads, enabling investors and agents to make more money while working less.
We measure our success by the quality of life your business affords you, and the quality of relationships we’re able to help cultivate.
We invite you to check out our full menu of solutions here.
