Special offer

Seller Incentives Increase Buyer Contacts

By
Education & Training with Retired Executive Director of Education at eXp Non-Licensed

Incentives offered by sellers at closing are nothing new to the real estate industry. 

Sometimes it’s as simple as leaving that beautiful pool table behind, rather than moving it out of the basement.  Or, it’s the seller agreeing to fix the front porch, or repaint the pink bedroom that the future buyer just can’t get past as they dream of a new in-home office.

Seller-funded incentives have also gone to extremes.  It wasn’t too long ago that everything from a free car, boat, and luxury trips could be included in the mix. 

Incentives are back and have become a bit more realistic. Perhaps they are back to their true purpose, which is as a valuable marketing tool that can draw attention to a listing while providing an added benefit to the buyer.

Zillow Special Offers Screenshot

In October, Zillow introduced "Special Offers" to address this need and it’s already having a positive impact on agents who are taking advantage of this new marketing tool.  More than 1,000 listings have a seller-funded cash incentive attached, which provides added visibility on Zillow, among other benefits.  

The early results for those agents that are participating in the program are promising. Listings with a Zillow Special Offer are currently receiving 10 times more buyer contacts than listings without.

Tyler Rygmyr, with Revolution Real Estate in Nashville, is already a fan of the program.  “I learned about the Zillow Special Offer program late one evening, so I ran a special later that night on a listing that had been on the market for 9 months. Several scheduled showings happened immediately thereafter, and an acceptable offer was submitted within days. Pretty cool!”


Let me know if you have any questions or if you need more information about seller-funded incentives, I'd be happy to show you some great examples of how other agents are using these "special offers" in their areas.

Comments (51)

Brad Andersohn
Retired Executive Director of Education at eXp - Boulder Creek, CA
ActiveBrad - 707.646.1876

Hey Larry - I actually think that with the volume of email we all get these days, many probably just missed the announcement that was emailed out.  I too am glad that Blogging has the value and power of getting our messages out to the rest of the online world.  Now days, seems like we need to add video, podcasting, tweeting and texting etc. to the mix as well.  lol~   Happy Holidays!  :-)

Nov 27, 2011 05:48 AM
Wayne Johnson
Coldwell Banker D'Ann Harper REALTORS® - San Antonio, TX
San Antonio REALTOR, San Antonio Homes For Sale

Brad-Looks like a good plan for getting more eyes on the listing. The more eyes you get, the better your chance for getting a buyer, right?

Nov 28, 2011 03:13 PM
Brad Andersohn
Retired Executive Director of Education at eXp - Boulder Creek, CA
ActiveBrad - 707.646.1876

Yes Wayne - EXACTLY!  Very well put, I couldn't have said it better myself!  :-)

Nov 29, 2011 11:51 AM
Lora "Leah" Stern 914-772-4528
Coldwell Banker, 170 N Main Street, New City NY 10956 - New City, NY
Real Estate Salesperson

Brad - this is the first I hear of it (I too must have missed the email that went out) but glad I didn't miss this blog.  Suggested and hope it gets up there so that others like me don't miss it this time around.  Have! a super holiday

Dec 21, 2011 01:57 PM
Ken Brandon
Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage (Jacksonville, NC) - Jacksonville, NC
Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, NC

Add me to the list of agents that didn't know about this. But I think it is an excellent idea and I am going to spend some time looking into it further.

Dec 21, 2011 02:58 PM
Margaret Rome Baltimore 410-530-2400
HomeRome Realty 410-530-2400 - Pikesville, MD
Sell Your Home With Margaret Rome

I, too, missed this. Had a delightful call from Kerrie at Zillow who set up the banner on my AR blogs. I really like this feature!.

Margaret

Dec 21, 2011 03:18 PM
Fred Carver Real Estate Consulant
Retired BC Realtor - Victoria, BC
Accredited Real Estate Consultant

Hi Brad...Great Idea. Nice to see Buyers are getting on board. It's better than keep dropping the price.

Merry Christmas-Fred Carver

Thanks to You and Zillow...Hope you plan to Come here soon :O))

Have your best year ever in 2012

 

Dec 21, 2011 03:33 PM
Ben Ganje + Partners
Lakes Sotheby's International Realty - Minneapolis, MN
Minneapolis Market Leader

Zillow keeps raising the bar for added value to everyone's listings.  Great article to hear about the news at Ziloow!

Dec 21, 2011 04:11 PM
Pacita Dimacali
Alain Pinel - Oakland, CA
Alameda/Contra Costa Counties CA

Brad

Thanks for posting. Will definitely explore that in January. Expecting a new listing and will want to wow the customer with new marketing ideas. Will keep a close look at the stats.

thanks!

Dec 21, 2011 07:32 PM
Cheryl Ritchie
RE/MAX Leading Edge www.GoldenResults.com - Huntingtown, MD
Southern Maryland 301-980-7566

Sounds like a new way to put some spunk in your showings!

Dec 21, 2011 11:00 PM
Margaret Woda
Long & Foster Real Estate, Inc. - Crofton, MD
Maryland Real Estate & Military Relocation

Brad, thanks for mentioning this.  I, too, must have missed the email announcing this to Zillow Premier agents.  By the way, I've had two Zillow leads this week.

Dec 22, 2011 12:24 AM
Jimmy Phan
KELLER WILLIAMS REALTY IN MOORESVILLES, NC - Hickory, NC
Phan real estate group in hickory

Wonderful wonderful post Brad.

I did send the article to my sellers for reference as the 3rd source.

Great share and Happy Holidays Brad

Dec 22, 2011 04:00 AM
Cindy Edwards
RE/MAX Checkmate - Johnson City, TN
CRS, GRI, PMN - Northeast Tennessee 423-677-6677

Sounds like something I need to look into.  On to Zillow!!

Dec 22, 2011 04:17 AM
Digital Digital
Alachua, FL
full service

Hi Brad,
Thanks for sharing.
This sounds like a nice incentive for buyers, plus it brings in offers faster for sellers.
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Dec 22, 2011 04:18 AM
Phil Leng
Retired - Kirkland, WA
Phil Leng - Retired

Hi Brad,

An interesting post.

Zillow continues to come up with interesting and creative ways to make things interesting.

Thanks for sharing

PHil

Dec 22, 2011 10:37 PM
Brad Andersohn
Retired Executive Director of Education at eXp - Boulder Creek, CA
ActiveBrad - 707.646.1876

Lora - thanks for the comment and the suggestion. Happy Holidays to you and your family too.

Dec 23, 2011 04:14 AM
Kathy Clulow
Uxbridge, ON
Trusted For Experience - Respected For Results

Brad - trusting you and yours will ....

Have A Very Merry Christmas

and

A Prosperous New Year

 

Dec 24, 2011 01:34 PM
Brad Andersohn
Retired Executive Director of Education at eXp - Boulder Creek, CA
ActiveBrad - 707.646.1876

Kathy - we did, thank you.  Hope your Holidays are just as good...  or even better!  :-)

Dec 26, 2011 02:45 PM
LaNita Cates
REMAX of Joliet - Joliet, IL

I never heard about this and I advertise with Zillow! Sad that my rep never mentioned this to me but they keep trying to sell me zip codes.

Jan 10, 2012 02:47 AM
Brad Andersohn
Retired Executive Director of Education at eXp - Boulder Creek, CA
ActiveBrad - 707.646.1876

Hi LaNita - this is something new that we've recently added. It may be that your sales rep at the time didn't have this available?  There were numerous emails that went out to ALL Premier Agents when we did launch this, unfortunately I think many of those were missed or deleted without being read.  (I do that sometime too

We also did 3 separate webinar trainings to show how this works and how to set it up for your sellers.

I'll make sure I pass along your comment to the sales team so they can be sure to mention this as an added-value to those they are helping with their advertising like yourself. 

Thanks, and if you ever need any assistance or have any questions, feel free to contact me anytime. :-)

Jan 10, 2012 03:10 AM