Why You Can’t Afford to Hire the Secret Agent Behind the Furnace. Successful Holmdel Real Estate Brokers Use Social Media!

Behind the oil furnace of 83 Woodward Avenue lay a corner so sooty, cob-webbed and musty we rarely dared to crawl back there.  My father forbade it, said we risked getting jammed or worse — forgotten.  Today, it’s still the scariest place I’ve ever experienced, right underneath the dining room floor boards the rubber toes of our Converse sneakered feet barely scraped.

But if you were playing Hide-and-Seek against four siblings and the day’s Champion won an extra helping of Cool Whip and raspberry red Jello, then you crawled back there. You curled up in a small ball, scraped your elbows against the concrete foundation and tried not to smell cat pee.

You heard feet rustle outside the room, the damper lid clank up and down when the oil-sucking behemoth chortled, dipping its iron beak into the tank line.

Then silence.

They stopped looking for you.  Too creepy.  An hour later you crawled out of that hole victorious.

How My Childhood Memory Relates to Real Estate Today

For the naysaying real estate agent Social Media is the ominous furnace that swallows children.

The knock on Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In — these are just fanciful Internet games real estate agents indulge in to avoid earning the old fashioned way.  Frivolous portals the lazy and shiftless wile away peak work hours.

Not so.  I can’t imagine how one would succeed in Holmdel New Jersey real estate without these tools.

What is the daily goal of a salesman?  To book appointments. There’s no wrong way to book appointments.It took me a few years of selling real estate to exit the “Hiding” phase and enter the “Seeking” phase.  Finding buyers, finding sellers, finding referrals, finding properties. That’s what real estate agents do.

We find. The seller instructs us to “find” a buyer. The buyer instructs us to “find” a bargain.

Realtors without an Internet presence aren’t even in today’s digital Hide-and-Seek.  Remember the stakes are bigger than an extra scoop of aerosol cream.

Forty three percent of Internet users who accessed my latest Virtual Access Tour for a Sleepy Hollow Freehold Township MLS Listing were referred by Internet applications I use to interact with

my personal network.

Social media outlets empower savvy Realtors to maximize the old adage:  It’s who you know.

The other 57% of homebuyers who accessed the tour came from behind the furnace: the scary, strange hole we call the Internet.  We’re in it right now.  You don’t know me and I don’t know you.

Yet.

You’re hiding.  I’m seeking, but we should really be on the same side — finding the next buyer if you’re a seller.  Finding the next bargain if you’re a buyer. Wait, that’s too generic. Finding the right Holmdel home for sale that qualifies for the $8,000 federal tax credit if you’re a first-time homebuyer.

Okay, Mr. and Mrs. Consumer (let’s say your name is Frank or Lisa) you can come out now.  I knew you were back there all along, but unlike my backwards competition I’m not afraid to find you. At least you won tonight’s Jello.  Lucky you.  Word upstairs is Mom’s baking her world famous fruitcake for tomorrow’s dessert.  I call dibs on the attic hiding spot.

• Click here to preview Holmdel New Jersey houses for sale under $1,000,000. Call me for additional information on any of these Holmdel MLS listings.

E-mail Andrew at alenza@weichert.com or call me on my Mobile (732) 580-0822.

Andrew J. Lenza, ABR GRI MBA Broker Associate

Weichert Realtors, 43 East Main Street, Holmdel New Jersey 07733. Office (732) 946-9400 Extn. 223

(c) Copyright, 2009. Andrew J Lenza

Advertisement