Alex Capozzolo
By: Alex Capazollo
Has blogging been on your radar for a while? A blog is a great way to present yourself as a subject matter expert, bring useful content to your audience and grow your following as a real estate agent.
An increasing number of real estate agencies are realizing the benefits of including a blog in their market strategy. By creating a blog, you make it easy for homebuyers to locate the information they need. Simultaneously, a blog allows you to draw in your target market and expand your email list.
Getting started can be the hard part, though. Like any other part of your marketing strategy, you want to think about your blog long-term. There are some important questions you want to ask before you get started:
- How often do you want to post content?
- What do you want to write about?
- Will you be the only voice on your blog, or will you also invite other agents or office personnel to write?
- MOST IMPORTANT: How much time per week/month do you have to commit to blogging?
The last question is most important because you want to think of your blog as a long-term commitment. You don’t want to start it and then be unable to keep up with it. Make sure to commit to only what you think you can keep up with on a weekly or monthly basis, and over-estimate how long blogging takes. Seriously. Between coming up with ideas, editing, and finding media like photos or video to accompany the post, editing and posting, blogging takes more time than you might think.
Now, you’re ready to get started! And that means coming up with ideas, which can be the hard part! Pro-tip: come up with ideas that will carry you through a couple of weeks or even a month. So, if you want to post once a week, have four ideas on hand before you even start publishing. Not sure where to start? Here are some ideas to get you going.
Local Area Properties
Begin your blog by identifying some local area properties— affordable or luxurious— that adhere to the standards of your potential clients. Real estate transactions depend heavily on location. For example, if you’re based in San Diego, CA it is helpful to write about local topics in that area.
Property appeal and price are influenced by neighborhoods and their resources, including but not limited to the schools, stores, entertainment options and recreational opportunities. You may quickly gain a following in your neighborhood by blogging about the most recent real estate offers. Include these descriptions so you can provide justifications for each property’s prices.
New Listings
Pick a listing that really attracted your eye. When choosing properties for your blog, try to pick one with special or unique features that you can elaborate on as you write. Details matter! Make sure you include homes in your local area, and if you’re catering to a specific group of home buyers like first-time buyers, families, seniors, etc., make sure to include who the home you’re featuring would be a good fit for so that your audience knows.
Home Buying Tips
Writing a post with home buying tips is a great way to present yourself as an expert in your field. Lots of potential home buyers will do some research online before they contact you. If you have useful information on your blog like this, it could help establish yourself as a credible professional. You could also opt to use the blog post as a lead-in for a cheat sheet or booklet. Doing this will boost the opt-in percentage of people and give relevance to your website.
Market Reports
For potential real estate clients, market reports are essential. They effectively demonstrate your marketing and real estate expertise, and they help potential clients compare home values on several properties at once. But data reports can be overwhelming and hard to digest, so you must ensure that you provide excellent tools to disseminate this information. A blog is a perfect place to do so. Make sure your audience knows what they’re looking at. Explain the details, and use interactive infographics and appealing titles to make the information accessible.
Client Testimonials
Of course, you also have to build trust and connection with your potential clients. Do this by visiting your past clients and asking if they are willing to write a testimonial about their time working with you. These client-generated experiences add another layer of credibility to your reputation and can guide future clients to you. Testimonials allow potential clients to learn from others about what it’s like to work with you.
Mortgage and Financing
For most borrowers who don’t have access to dollars in cash to purchase a property, mortgages are a necessary component of the home-buying process. Before making a blog about this, you must conduct your own research about the financing stuff to avoid providing your potential clients with the information you’re uncertain about and avoid potential pitfalls. List down the types of mortgages and provide some tips so that your prospective homeowners can purchase properties smoothly.
A Guide for a Purchase Contract
At some point, we’re all “first timers” at something, including buying properties. Make a comprehensive and interactive guide for those new to homebuying and thus new to contracts. As a real estate agent, your reputation will be enhanced since it demonstrates that you are genuinely trying to help your clients avoid swindlers and understand how contracts work.
Additional Blogging Ideas For Real Estate Agents
Not interested in the above or want more blog ideas to pull from? I’ve got you covered.
Home Features and Architectural Designs
It’s no doubt that clients are most excited about the interior and exterior designs of the house. List down some unique home features and architectural designs and make sure to include pictures!
How to Tell if You’re Getting a Good Price
Another way of building trust with your clients is to assure them that your goal is to truly assist them in getting the best price on a home or the most out of a sale. Dig into the details on how pricing works in a post.
Things to Consider When Viewing a Property
Some clients could hurry into renting or buying a house and later discover something is lacking or they don’t like. Inform them of the frequent errors that your clients make and how to avoid them.
Don’t Rush Your Blog Content. You Will Get There!
As a real estate agent, it’s important to take things step-by-step. Keep in mind that you don’t need to rush things out. Instead of attempting to appeal to every potential client, focus on creating blog content that makes your expertise shine. That’s the most important thing. Make sure you’re the expert on what you’re putting out there.
At the end of the day, real estate agents are busy people. If you’re super busy but still want to have a blog as part of your marketing efforts, hiring a writer to do the blogging is a perfect option. You can hire well-versed writers in making your website rank on Google. A higher rank means more traffic, and thus the potential for more sales!
Alex Capazollo is the co-founder of Brotherly Love Real Estate. He has been investing in real estate for +7 years and owns a small portfolio of 14 units. Alex works full-time as a real estate agent in Southern California and enjoys writing on home improvement, marketing strategies, and other real estate topics.