Tips for Screening a Call in Real Estate

Screening the Call

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.  Therefore, it is extremely important for you to sound professional and be prepared when you receive a phone call from a distressed homeowner.  One way to ensure that you are prepared when answering the phone is to know exactly when you are receiving a sales call opportunity versus a call from someone else.  This can be done in the following manner:

·                     Have a designated phone line for your real estate business

·                     Purchase a ‘bandit’ cell phone with prepaid calling card and use this phone only for real estate

·                     Purchase a call forwarding service, like Ring Central, to have designated marketing phone numbers forward to your phone.  The benefit about ring central is that you can put an extension on the end of the phone number, so when it’s transferred to your phone,

 

When you receive a sales call, you will want to make sure that you are in a quiet place and can take notes.  The following is the minimum information that you will want to capture from the distressed homeowner:

ü  Name and contact (phone & e-mail)

ü  Property address and subdivision

ü  Property demographics, such as bed/bath/sf/garage/lot size/stories/any other special information about the property

ü  Condition of the property.  You may have to coax information out of them.  For example:

o   I’ll ask them the condition of the carpeting.  IF they say it’s fine, I’ll ask them how long they’ve lived in the house and the last time they installed new carpet.  Then I’ll ask them if they have any children and pets.  I’ll then ask them one final time the condition of the carpeting.

o   I like to be direct and tell the homeowner the following:  Look, if we decide to purchase your house, I’m going to go over and give it a thorough inspection.  If during the inspection I find more wrong with the property than you are telling me now, it may impact my decision to do business with you.  So that we can establish and honest relationship from the beginning, tell me the condition of the property.

ü  Loan information:  how many mortgages do you have / any other liens on the house / who is the mortgage with / how much do you owe / what is the interest rate / is it a fixed rate / what are monthly payments including Taxes and Insurance / what do you think the property is worth

ü  Why are you selling

It is best to ask for this information in this order.  When you are gathering information, people may be hesitant to give you too much information.  But once you get people talking, it becomes easier to gather more information. Logically, you would think most homeowners would not want to discuss how much they owe on their loan, but after asking 15-20 other questions, they have no problem giving the information.

After collecting information, you will then want to determine the market value of the property.  Determining market value will be discussed in the next chapter.  Once you have collected all the housing information, the loan information, and have established an After Repair Value for the property, you will be able to best determine which type of real estate buying strategy to propose to the homeowner or determine that you don’t wish to pursue the sale of the property.