A 5-Step Playbook to Have a Great Year in a Down Market

Recent data confirms that COVID-19 is pushing the 2020 real estate market in the wrong direction, but your business doesn’t have to go with it. A veteran agent with almost 40 years experience says personal performance has a bigger impact on results than any pandemic.

In this episode of The Walkthrough, Los Angeles-area agent Gary Gold says he often has his best years in a bad market. And he shares a 5-step playbook for how you can do the same.

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to get future episodes delivered automatically: Apple Podcasts/iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe to get future episodes delivered automatically: Apple Podcasts/iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | YouTube

Links and Show Notes

• Gary Gold on HomeLight.com
• CNBC article: Home sales down 8.5% from February to March
• HomeLight flash survey: ~33% of buyers/sellers have dropped out of the market
• Article: Gary Gold and Drew Fenton Complete Los Angeles Record Sale for The Playboy Mansion
• Gary’s five-part video series on Facebook: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
• HomeLight’s Move Safe Certification
• Article: What’s Happening to Paid Media Performance During COVID-19
• Article: Is Now the Time to Boost Your Social Media Advertising?
• HomeLight’s COVID-19 Resource Center
• HomeLight’s Agent Resource Center
• Subscribe and listen to The Walkthrough: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

Full Transcript

(SPEAKER: Matt McGee, Host) Let me start with a quick story. Many years ago, I was walking with a huge crowd of people. I think it was after a concert. Everyone was filing out, all of us going in the same direction, and then suddenly one person came pushing his way through the crowd from the opposite direction. You’ve probably had this experience yourself. People weren’t happy and someone yelled, “Going against the grain only works in football.” Everybody laughed and then we all kept moving slowly toward the exit.

Well, that story reminds me a little bit of the way 2020 is shaping up in real estate. The market is going in one direction. No one knows how bad it’ll get or how long it’ll last. Sure, there’s some optimism that things will start to rebound sooner rather than later but I think we’re all expecting this to be a down year in the end.

In other words, this is a good year to go against the grain, to swim against the tide. Today, one agent tells us that he’s often had his best years in bad markets and he shares his playbook, the specific things he’s doing now to make sure it happens again.

This is “The Walkthrough.”

(INTRO MUSIC)

Hey everyone. I’m Matt McGee, editor of HomeLight’s Agent Resource Center. On this show, you’ll learn what’s working right now from the best real estate agents and industry experts in the country. At HomeLight, we believe in real estate agents. And we believe that by helping agents like you be even better at serving your clients, the entire industry improves. If you’d like to reach me with feedback ideas or questions about “The Walkthrough,” send an email anytime to walkthrough [at] homelight.com.

How is your 2020 looking? Industry-wide, the latest numbers aren’t real good. The NAR just came out with data showing that March home sales dropped 8.5% compared to February. In our latest HomeLight survey, agents estimate that about a third of buyers and sellers have dropped out of the market at least temporarily.

On today’s show, we’re going to talk with Gary Gold from Hilton and Hyland in Beverly Hills. Now, you might know Gary’s name already. He’s one of the top luxury market agents around. In 2016, he was all over the news after he sold the Playboy Mansion — yes, that Playboy Mansion — in a $100 million deal.

But none of that is why I wanted to talk to him this week. I wanted to talk to Gary because he’s been in the business for almost 40 years and has seen more ups and downs than most. Gary says he often has some of his best years in a bad market. So today I’m asking him to share how he makes that happen — and how he’s making it happen this year in this market. So as you listen, pay attention for Gary to talk about

• how he’s having a ton of conversations with clients and leads and what he’s saying to them
• why you need to know your market data more than ever right now, and
• what he’s saying to buyers and sellers in a five-part video series that he recently published

After our conversation, I’ll share my takeaways and then be sure to stay tuned to the end of the show for a quick heads up about my recent Facebook Ads experience with a new real estate listing.

All that’s coming up but let’s dive in now to this week’s conversation. I started by asking Gary how this year’s events compare to what he’s been through before.

(BEGIN CONVERSATION)

Gary: Well, first of all, I’ve never seen any situation, whether it be a war or recession or, you know, the S&L debacle, you know, in 2008 or a number of things, earthquake, they all are different. We all have this level of uncertainty and they’re all a little different. This one to me seems like nothing really happened economically. This is something happened, you know, health-wise. And I think everyone just stopped for a moment. I mean, there certainly will be carnage from what has happened, no question about it. But overall, I think things are going to normalize pretty quickly myself.

What’s really different here is that we stopped working. That’s the big thing. I mean everyone literally just kind of stopped working. The economy shut down. In my life or ever, Vegas never stopped. I never had it where I couldn’t go to a restaurant, I couldn’t go to my office, I couldn’t show a home. That is pretty unique.

That being said, I think real estate and our industry has been very, very prepared for a situation like this. We didn’t realize it, we weren’t planning for this. But you know, when you show a house today, the first time you show it, it’s online. Houses are being shown every day. When people go to see an actual house today, it’s a second, third, fourth showing. They’ve already been through it, been through the neighborhoods, gone through it 19 times, looked at the video. I mean, often they’re really, really familiar with what’s going on. So we are still in that process. We’re just stuck for a lot of times right in that beginning stage.

Matt: What’s going on in your market right now? What are you hearing from buyers and sellers?

Gary: For me, I’ve been very, very busy and I have just been more focused in getting things to that point than closing deals. I have put two deals in escrow since this has happened and my business is — that wouldn’t be necessarily abnormal in a four or five-week period. I, on average, sell 20 houses a year. I’ll sell a couple giant houses. So anything from $2 million to…last year it was $2 million to $150 million. I mean, I think I would have been doing a lot better. Coming into this it was amazing. And you know, I did have one big deal that I think fell out because of this, hard to say. But I’m just super busy and I’ve got lots of clients, especially this week. Every week has been a little different. Talking to them on the phone, getting people ready. People are getting real antsy right now. And I think buyers and sellers are ready to rock and roll.

Matt: I’m kind of hearing that in a lot of the conversations that I’m having as well that, I mean, you know, we’re getting into in some states, some markets, you know, we’re coming up on two months or so that this has been going on, that there’s been quarantines in place. And I do sense that there’s this sort of anxiousness to get back to normal. You’re saying you are hearing from more buyers and sellers that are like, you know, “When can we start taking the next steps?”

Gary: Yes. We are taking the next steps and they’re talking about…. Week one, literally we were all deers in a headlight. And I would be calling clients, “What can I do for you? Let me talk to you.” One of the things I said week one is, “Listen, I’ve been through a lot of different situations. I know how to function in these uncharted waters. So I’m here to help you any way you want.” But people really didn’t know what to do and no one was really even in the mood to start talking real estate. Week two, I had some of the early kind of independent people saying, “I’m looking for some opportunities.”

Week two, everyone took their house off the market and now I think it started to turn around for some people. Week three, people, I think, were getting a little bit more nervous. Some of them because the numbers were getting higher and others were starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. At this point there, there could be…and I think around the country is different. I mean, if you’re in New York City, New Jersey, those areas are literally 20 times more impacted than, you know, being in California. So it’s a different feel. All I really think has happened is that all this business that hasn’t happened in this last…it’ll maybe in total be like a two to three-month period, will happen in the next three months.

Matt: If you’ve listened to this podcast or just if you’ve been paying attention to what veteran agents are saying these days, many of them are comparing what’s happening now to what happened around 2007, 2008, or maybe what happened in 2001 after 9/11. But Gary told me that he found comfort early on by going back even further to 1994 when a 6.7 magnitude earthquake damaged a huge part of the Los Angeles area. He says thinking about that prompted him to start doing some serious market research.

Gary: The first week when I was really anxious, I started thinking, “You know what, I’ve been through this before.” I remember when the earthquake happened 20-plus years ago, I thought my business was over. I remember having to crawl out of my kitchen door. I thought L.A. had been leveled. I went down to the desert because I had insurance that would pay for a nice hotel. And I said, “What am I going to do because real estate is done?” Little did I know that the unintended consequences of all these houses being literally damaged and destroyed is that there’s the same amount of people live in Los Angeles, there’s less homes.

And there’s all this money flooding in and all these people are redoing houses and selling houses and buying houses. And it literally restored the economy in California. So what I thought was devastating ended up being actually really positive. You never know how things play out. So I started to do some research. I heard a guy a couple of times named Steve Harney. You know who he is?

Matt: I do.

Gary: In “Keeping Current Matters.” So he has a slide that I saw. I coached with Tom Ferry and I saw this early in January, we were at an event. And he showed in the last 45 years, we’ve had 6 recessions and only 1 recession negatively impacted real estate. And that’s what we’re going into — or in now heavily — is a recession. So only in that one was 2008, which was created by real estate.

Matt: It was led by the market.

Gary: That was one piece of information. I went, “Interesting.” So real estate…and I’ve known this but, you know, I was in a panic situation. Real estate and the economy, they don’t go hand in hand. And I also looked at the sales. What sales have been in the United States for single-family homes over the last 20, 30 years? And the lowest houses have ever gone when the shit totally hit the fan, it was lowest as ever, were three-and-a-half million sales. And the highest it ever got was seven million sales. It’s a 50% thing. Right now, in the last few years, we’ve been around five-and-a-half million. Not because we don’t have the demand. It’s because we don’t have the inventory.

Matt: You have said that some of your best years have come in down markets. Let’s dive into that. Like, how do you explain that? I thought … can we get Gary Gold on and brainstorm a list of, you know, four, five, six, whatever it might be, what are the things you do when the market takes a turn for the worst so that your business is not going down with it?

Gary: Yes. I’ve had some of my best years in horrible markets and I’ve had some of my worst years in great markets. And I would say my personal performance has a much bigger impact on my outcome than any pandemic. And it’s all about discipline and mindset and doing the right thing. And I’ve been very capable, and throughout my…I’ve been doing this so long. You know, there’s like athletes or golfers, I mean, Tiger Woods is on top again, I think. I mean, I know he just won some big tournaments and he had a really … downtime because of some personal things. I don’t have anything scandalous like him. But you really need to be very, very disciplined in this business in terms of lead conversion. That’s where all the money is.

You know, we can talk about all this stuff, the economy, COVID — what really, really matters, in my opinion, it’s very, very easy to get a lead today. Leads are a dime a dozen. The rub is for every lead you get, 10 other people have that same lead. That’s the deal. And where all the money is going from being that 1 of 10 to that 1. Now, for me, at any given time I could…you know, I’ll be working on hundreds of different leads in different categories. And how I manage that and how I stay on top of that and my discipline and my structure and my performance on dealing with those leads and also my sensory acuity of being able to pick the winners at any given time, that’s where all the money is. It’s not any of this other stuff.

Right now I think we have an amazing opportunity, any agent. Right now, all that stuff has kind of slowed down. We’re not running around, we’re not doing appointments. Everyone who’s your lead is home on the phone, sick of their family. You pick up the phone with anyone you’ve ever spoke to before, you’re a real estate agent, they’re interested in what you have to say. This is one of the greatest opportunities I’ve ever seen for agents to connect on a deeper level with your pipeline.

Matt: First thing you said was discipline in lead conversion. So that starts with conversations.

Gary: Yeah, it is A, definitely having conversations. Now, that can take the form of email, texts, in person, on the phone, Zoom, Facebook, respond…you know, there’s a lot of different ways to do that. Everyone is a little different. I got a friend, Bjorn Farrugia is a top agent in my office. This guy can pick up the phone and start talking. He’s Australian, he’s charming. He’s just like pick up the phone, start talking to anybody right off the bat. Personally for me, if I don’t have something to offer to say, I am literally the most insecure real estate agent on the planet. If I have something to say, I could call anybody. And I really had a struggle with that. I really had a hard time calling people. I felt like I was asking for something. But I call people and offer them information.

I also, you know, built a reputation. Now people when they hear from me they know it’s going to be…you know, I’m someone they want to talk to. But I call and I talk about, “The house is sold next door. The house is coming on the market.” How many sales have been in their market? “You know, I know you were looking last time we spoke in this area, have you considered that area? It’s really getting hot?” And I keep on mixing it up and I keep it very relevant because I believe that, you know, all these people are doing that for the most part.

And at some point, if you stay disciplined and structured with this person, you’re going to call them or text them or say something at the right time, in the right way that they’re going to go, “Let’s go look at that house.” Or, “You know, why don’t you come over? Maybe we really should commit. Now is the time to sell the house.” And it’s sometimes just taking me 200 times.

Matt: Right, which is what I wanted to get to — you know, real estate is obviously not just a one-touch business. You’re having multiple conversations with the same person. You want to try and keep it fresh. So what you’re saying is if I understand, each time you’re pulling in some sort of different piece of information, some sort of something new that sort of gives you a justification or a reason to get in touch with that lead again.

Gary: To be obnoxious, I’m just being what a real estate agent should be. I’m providing valuable information. And my mindset with people is I become their agent before they give me the job and I start providing value to them. I rarely go on listing appointments. I just end up like…I’m sure people can relate to this. They’ve ended up, they met somebody, like, you know, and they started hanging out. Next thing they know, they’re living together or they have a girlfriend. They don’t even know how it happened. That’s what it’s like. I’m your real estate agent. You don’t even know what happened. I just have become your real estate agent. And that’s the attitude I take.

I’ve heard a lot of people go, “I don’t want to put all this work into someone. What if they use somebody else? Or what if they buy a house with someone else or listen to someone else?” I say to myself, “So what? Big deal.” So if I talk to this many people, a percentage of them I’m not going to get, what else is new? And also in this world, so maybe I don’t get it the first time around, maybe I get it the second time around. Now, my business is way different than a lot of people here. I’m assuming, I don’t know that much about it, but if you’re selling $300,000 houses and you’re selling a lot of them, the gestation period between someone calling and saying they want to buy or sell a home could be very short compared to mine. I know a lot of people go, “I went on 16 appointments and I got 15 listings the other day.” I don’t even understand that. That’s a different world. I usually have a conversation with somebody and it’s the seed of somebody that is going to want to buy or sell their home sometime in the next week to five years. I have lots of deals that are five-year gestation periods. Lots of them. I guess as you get in the high-end and people have sometimes multiple houses and they’ve got lots of options, they take their time. No one’s in a rush. If you’re, you know, first-time buyers and you just had a kid or you just got transferred, you know, that’s a different story.

Or you know, if you’re in a certain area and the decision to buy something isn’t that big a decision because you’re dealing with a lot of really … subdivisions and master-planned communities that they’re not that different, people make, I think, decisions quicker because the decisions are limited and they’re similar and they’re easier to make. So, mine, I have to be 100 times more disciplined than people that are dealing with someone who’s going to move or do something in 30 days. So that would be easier, not harder. But it’s the same thing whether it’s 30 days or 30 months, it’s really the same thing.

Matt: Let me ask you one last thing about conversations. In the conversations you’re having right now, what do your buyers and sellers want to hear from you? What are they asking?

Gary: The biggest difference between now and ever before is I’ve never seen it where people want to know the truth [like] today. No one wants to have to be bullshitted, especially sellers. You know, we’ve had an 11-year run of prices going up, people wanted to be bullshitted to a certain extent. People wanted, kind of, you to be over-optimistic. And I mean, people, they call it buying listings. I never really subscribed to it even though I’m capable of it. So right now, people got…In fact, I’ve talked to a lot of people that are way less…sellers who are way less optimistic than I am.

And so I think right now people want to know the truth. And the one thing I would advise anyone on this call is know your shit, really know what you’re talking about. And then you’re going to get the business. But it’s not that complicated today to understand the market and what you’re talking about and do some research. If you’re on this call, you’re probably the kind of person really looking to get that information. But that’s who’s going to prevail and is going to do really well in this market. People that know what they’re talking about, they have a plan. They’re not just like, “I don’t know.” You know, they’re really, really professional real estate agents. This pandemic that we’re going through, in terms of the real estate world, is going to separate the winners from the losers. And a lot of people who really aren’t taking this business seriously will perish.

Matt: If I’m making a list here of what we’ve been chatting about — number one, discipline and lead conversion, just to reset here. Number two, lots of conversations, and number three, know the market. What kind of data are you sharing with your buyers and sellers?

Gary: Things are usually not as bad or not as good as most people think. And just give them honest assessment. Don’t exaggerate on either level. But when you start to back it up with some statistics like this and you have a certain mindset, I think people are getting very comfortable with me that a) in my case, I’ve been through this before, b) I really have a good understanding of what’s going to happen because I’m not buying into these sensationalistic opinions that aren’t based on any facts. And I’m just a slow and steady person that’s going to be a better person to represent them.

Matt: I mean, it sounds like you’re saying that by having this data at your fingertips that you’re able to share with your buyers and sellers, it’s reassuring them that you know what you’re doing and you are going to be able to help them navigate whatever the next several weeks, several months, year, whatever it looks like.

Gary: If you put a house on the market for somebody, let’s just use a seller or a buyer. It could be seller or buyer but let’s just take a seller. And you were someone that was kind of panicking, you might undersell that house. And you could be leaving some money on the table for that person. If you were an agent that was overly optimistic, you could way overprice a home for somebody and they could miss a market. If there was a good opportunity, they might pass up on a deal that they should have taken. So I think someone is looking for…It’s almost like picking a doctor right now and it matters more now than some normal market.

They want to pick someone who makes the right decisions. When you’re under anesthesia, we have to make some decisions for people. We have to guide people and they don’t want somebody that is super negative. They probably wouldn’t want someone who’s overly optimistic. They want someone who’s kind of has a real, realistic assessment on the world.

Matt: So we’ve talked about discipline, lead conversion, conversations, know the market, sharing data. What else are you doing to make sure that you are staying above and going against the tide, not letting your business go down as the market goes down?

Gary: That first week when I was a little stifled and I wasn’t calling enough people and I was just trying to get my bearings, I got really depressed and I got really panicked. When I started calling people…I’ve been in AA, I’ve been sober 34 years and we have a saying about, you know, being of service. If you’re one week sober, what they want you to do is go help someone who’s one day sober. So just going out there and being of service to other people.

I have one deal in escrow right now but I’m talking to tons of people. Again, if we do business together or not, I’m happy to go out there, give them my expertise, talk on the phone. I’ve been talking to a ton of agents. This is like the sixth webinar I’ve done. I’m really out there being of service and I think that’s really how I kind of run my whole business being of service. But especially now when I’m doing this, I’m talking about it. And every time I talk and teach, I’m getting feedback and I’m learning more. I’m not the only person that, you know, has a feel for this market. A lot of these things I’ve learned, I’ve learned from other people.

And that’s the best part. I never stopped working. I don’t actually feel this huge shift between what I did before and what I do now. It still feels very, very similar. I wake up in the morning, I have breakfast, I get on my computer, I just wear shorts every day. I’m not running around on all these appointments but I look at that as an opportunity. I’m having way more conversations. Tom Ferry talks about “loading the cannon” and be prepared because when we come out of this, it’s going to roll out differently in different parts of the country but people are going to be anxious to transact.

Matt: Are you doing anything differently right now in terms of marketing?

Gary: I did a series of five videos on why someone would want to buy now. Some are why somebody would want to sell now and why other people would want to buy after this COVID debacle or sell after this. It’s not black and white. There’s plenty of good reasons someone might want to sell their home right now. I have clients that say, “Listen, if I have to take 10% less than I was going to get a month ago, for peace of mind, I’d do it right now. I’m still going to make a ton of money. Bring me that offer. I’d like to do that.” And even knowing that most likely they’ll do better if they wait a month. And there’s other people that are living in their house, they don’t want to be bothered and they just have no good reason to sell now, they’ll wait it out.

So, and buying is the same thing. There’s reasons why someone would want to buy now or wait. So I’ve done those videos. I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from that. And that ups my, you know, top-of-mindness. So, you know, I’ve been getting a lot more calls from my principals, you know, they’re seeing some of this stuff.

Matt: Got you. Let me make sure I understand you. So you said it’s five videos and you’re basically…It sounds like if I heard you correctly, sounds like pros and cons of buying now versus waiting, pros and cons versus selling now versus waiting. Is that the idea?

Gary: Right. And I also just at the very first video, I just went on how the market isn’t going to, in my opinion, radically shift. It’s gonna pretty much stay the same and, you know, some of the things we talked about, I just backed it up with those statistics. But yeah, I mean, I can definitely see reasons why you would want to do any…I’m advising some people to wait, some people to do it now, and hybrids of that. Like, I don’t know if this has happened all over the country but that first week, like week two, everyone took their house off the market, which made sense to me at the time. And then week three, I started telling clients, “Listen, coming into this we had no inventory. Now all these people have taken their house off the market, there’s less inventory. Why are you taking your house off the market? Shouldn’t we have it on the market even if you don’t want to sell it now?”

Because now we’re getting into like week four and five, people are sitting there looking on the MLS, looking on Zillow, Trulia, all this stuff. They’re looking at things and they’re circling homes they’re interested in. So even if your house isn’t getting that activity now, I’ve just tracked it. I don’t know if you guys have done this at all, you have somebody do that. But more and more people are looking. It was down big week one and I believe every week is picked up but now lots and lots of people are really looking at real estate. So, even if your house is not getting any showings, I’ve noticed a lot more inquiries on it. I know I’m getting a lot more traffic on it.

So I say if you had your house on the market, I would definitely, you know, not take it off. I would keep it back in the MLS. I wouldn’t try to sell my house today though if I had no place to go unless I really…I wouldn’t want to have to find something in this world. I would want to wait. But I would buy a house if I…I think you could probably get…like, in New York City, in general, I think people are getting 2%, 3%, 5%, 6% discounts in this market just to get a deal done. So, you know, there’s reasons for different people, different strokes for different folks.

Matt: Let me just sort of dive into that a little bit more. I think as a listener, it sounds a little bit strange for me to hear a real estate agent saying, “Hey, I’m creating a video telling you why now may not be the right time to buy. Or it may not be the right time to sell.” So should we add to this list of things that you’re doing now to, you know, grow your business and, you know, swim against the tide, trying to be empathetic and more understanding towards the situations that buyers and sellers find themselves in right now?

Gary: I mean, we should be that way all the time. I mean, you know what, that’s how I go. I mean, you don’t have to be the most ethical person to be a successful real estate…there are plenty of just monsters that are hugely successful. So anyone out there that is a monster, you can make a lot of money. But I take, you know, a higher road, and yes, I am empathetic. And you really got to look at individual situations. I have clients in all those quadrants. Like, right now, it’s really hard to get stuff done. If you’re not paying cash or you don’t have a loan completely locked or you can’t get a really long a loan contingency, getting a loan right now is a bitch. That would be a reason you might want to wait if you don’t have those ducks in a row.

And I just give different advice. If you’re going to sell your house now, sell it to someone who’s ridiculously qualified. Sell to someone who’s ridiculously committed, they really have a very good reason. Because I think a lot of people in this world could flake out. I’m giving advice too, if you’re going to do any of these, here are the best practices to do them. And that’s what I would be telling clients.

Yeah, I’m very empathetic. I don’t need someone to sell their house now. I just need to give them the best advice. That’s what people really like about an agent when they put their…you know, we do have a fiduciary obligation to put our client’s needs ahead of ours. And I take that seriously and I think people recognize that. And I would assume more people are doing that today than normally because we’re all, you know, feeling like we’re together in one way or another.

Matt: To wrap up, is there any like final words of advice that you would want to give to agents that are listening? Anything that we didn’t talk about?

Gary: If you just look at the numbers, the opportunities to make a good living in the worst market and the best market — if you are doing a good job, you’re adapting to the times, you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, is not significantly different. It just isn’t. I just don’t think there really is any excuses. Real estate brokerage, you know, it’s just — the opportunities really don’t change. Now, I think people think they do and they might be impacted by that.

The other thing is it’s so much more competitive when the market’s hot. There’s so many more agents. This is a great time to kind of get market share and differentiate yourself. There are no excuses. This is not an excuse to do poor. Every opportunity you had yesterday, you still have.

(Speaker: Matt McGee, Host) No excuses. The opportunity is still there. I love what Gary said at the beginning… In fact, why don’t I just jump right into the takeaways segment right now? Ready?

Number one, as I was about to say, I love what Gary said at the beginning. His quote was, “My personal performance has a much bigger impact on my outcome than any pandemic.” You’re in control this year. No matter how tough it gets or how long it takes for your local market to rebound, your circumstances don’t decide your results, you do.

Number two, Gary’s playbook begins with discipline, especially as it relates to converting leads. “For every lead you get, 10 other agents probably have that lead too,” he said, “so you need to have the discipline to go from 1 of 10 to the one.”

Number three, the playbook includes a lot of conversations. And if you stay disciplined with these conversations and focus on adding value, eventually you’re going to say the right thing that makes your clients say, “I’m ready to buy,” or, “It’s time to sell.”

Number four, he said you have to know your market data and be straight with people. No BS. No one is going to listen to that right now. People want to know the truth.

Number five, the playbook includes helping others. For Gary that means, helping agents by doing things like our podcast where he can share his experiences. But it also includes helping buyers and sellers like with that five-part video series where he lays out the pros and the cons of buying and selling right now.

Then lastly, he talked about being empathetic. He said, “I don’t need someone to sell their house now. I just need to give them the best advice.”

So that’s Gary’s playbook for swimming against the tide in a down market.

That quick heads up on Facebook Ads is coming up at the end of the show but right now, a quick reminder before we wrap up. Have you started your Move Safe certification yet? Move Safe is a new HomeLight program that identifies agents who are using the best tools, technology, and practices to help keep clients safe during COVID-19. Now, there’s a short questionnaire where we ask how you’re working with buyers and sellers. If you get certified, we’ll automatically update your HomeLight agent profile to show that you’re helping clients buy or sell in a safe manner. I’ll put a link in the show notes so you can learn more and get started.

Questions for Gary? Questions for me or HomeLight? You can email us anytime. It’s walkthrough [at] homelight.com.

That’s all for this week. Thank you so much to Gary Gold for joining us. Thank you for listening. Remember, at HomeLight, we believe in real estate agents. We believe that by helping agents like you be even better at serving your clients, the entire industry improves.

Stay in, be safe, and sell some homes. We’ll talk to you again next week. Bye-bye.

(OUTRO MUSIC)

Hey, thanks for sticking with me to the very end. I wanted to share a heads up with you about Facebook Ads. Last weekend, I ran a Facebook Lead Ad for my wife’s new listing. Now, that’s pretty common. We do that for just about all of her listings. But a funny thing happened with this ad. In the 16 hours that we had the ad active, 47 leads came in at a total cost of, get this, $11.36. That’s 24 cents per lead. It’s way less than we normally pay.

Now, you might be seeing something similar. I did some research, asked some friends who are really smart about paid social media and they said there are two things going on right now.

Number one, everyone is at home and spending more time on Facebook. So Facebook can show a lot more ads these days. Then number two, a lot of advertisers have pulled back. They’ve cut budgets or stopped advertising altogether. So you put those things together and you end up with way cheaper Facebook ads.

I’ll link to a couple of articles about this in the show notes so that you can read more. As always, your experience might be different but I just wanted to point this out and let you know this might be a good time to do some Facebook advertising if you’re not already doing it.

That’s all. Thanks again for listening. We’ll see you next week.

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