Providing Value with the Buyer Consultation

 Lisa Spencer walks through the "5 Elements of a Successful Buyer Consultation" and offers helpful suggestions on how to serve buyers in the ever changing landscape of the real estate industry.

Transcript

  📍   Welcome to real estate. Common sense. I'm your host. Lisa Spencer and I grew up in a real estate. Family was a top producing agent and a managing broker for over a decade. Leading an office of over 400 agents. What I discovered is common sense is not that common. Especially when it comes to launching building or expanding a real estate business, .

I have interviewed thousands of agents and helped hundreds launch successful careers. Today, we're going to talk about providing value with the buyer consultation.  

What does your buyer consultation look like? If you're showing property without first doing a buyer consultation, you are doing a great disservice to consumers and yourself. 

Purchasing a home is a process and often has strict timelines and requirements that must be met to stay compliant with the terms of the contract, helping buyers understand that your role in helping them purchase a home goes far beyond just finding a home will strengthen the value you provide. Every transaction is unique, which is why some agents justify not having a consultation. 

They focus on the hunt and the fun and excitement of the home search. And they feel that they'll cover the boring process stuff later. It is true that no two transactions are alike. That is why a buyer consultation is more curated than a listing presentation. Which is why it makes it hard to find resources for building a buyer consultation. 

There are more adjustments around local customs and processes, as well as the individual preferences of the buyer that have to be considered. We'll cover as much detail as we can with the understanding. That you'll have to build your own version based on your own office policies and procedures, as well as the individual needs of your buyers. 

Think of the buyer consultation as a way of explaining the value of your services. And a way to determine the level of commitment of the buyer. It's impossible to cover all the details of the transaction until the buyer has identified a home. However, there are a few roadblocks that occur frequently, and these are the subjects that we need to cover in our buyer consultation. 

So let's get started. Essentially, there are five elements of a buyer consultation. The first is a needs analysis, which is kind of a clinical way of saying, getting to know your buyer. The second one is community and market information. Then I usually step into a conversation about pre-approval notice. I didn't start with that. 

And the fourth is just helping them understand the process. And the fifth element is your opportunity to surprise and delight the buyer. So let's discuss them one at a time. 

The needs analysis, getting to know your buyer. Rather than making this a complicated process. There are a few basic questions you can ask. 

The needs analysis is mostly a way for us to hear what the buyer expects and to assess whether the market will support those expectations. At this point, the consultation is about listening, taking notes and finding connection. As to how you can best serve the buyer. Here are my favorite questions. 

What are the five most important things you're looking for in a home? I always start with that. And don't ask them how many bedrooms and how many bathrooms let them define what's important to them. So what are the five most important things you might find out that the most important thing is they want to live within a five mile radius of their sister. 

So let's leave that as an open-ended question. Then once they've defined the five things they're looking for. Ask, what are the three must haves? This helps you to determine if they are someone that's willing to compromise. If they say, oh, I don't only have five things. I have 15 things I must have in a home. You might be dealing with someone who's a little unrealistic. 

So once we've asked the five and then we've narrowed down to three, I asked just a few more questions. Does commuting factor into your home purchase? This used to be assumed, but with today's work from home environment, we can have people that are willing to work far away from a city that we normally felt had to be commuted to. 

Then what does an ideal weekend look like? This really helps you understand their lifestyle. Do they love to go to sporting events and therefore need to have access to. Uh, stadiums and other things, do they spend a lot of time at the beach? This is a great way to find out where they need to be by asking how they spend their ideal weekend. Then I always say, how important are community amenities? This doesn't just mean community pools, but also do they go to the library often? 

And then ask a really open-ended question. Describe your ideal home. Let them give you detail again, we're still in a place of listening. These six questions can reveal a lot. If you're focused on listening and allow the buyer to fully express themselves. Based on this conversation, you move into the next element community and market information. 

This is your opportunity to access all of the national, state and local statistics provided through your board, MLS or broker. As well as confirming what consumers are seeing on realtor.com and Zillow. In addition to the statistical information, buyers can benefit from your connections to the community. 

You may want to highlight the closest hospitals, universities, or largest employers in the area pointing out recreational and culture facilities, and a few of your favorite restaurants and local businesses can provide reassurance that they're working with a realtor that will provide value. 



After you've provided some great community information. It's time to move into the preapproval question. Now they're in my opinion. There is only one way to ask if someone is pre-approved and that is. Have you spoken with a mortgage lender to confirm your purchasing power? Rather than instill fear in the buyer that this is going to be like an algebra test that they fail or pass. 

We're asking them, have they been informed about the power? They have to purchase a home? I love to work with a lender that provides a clear financial picture of what the process is going to look like. Not just a piece of paper. The lender that I work with actually has a way to offer some credit repair. If in fact, when they go through the credit process, 

That they aren't quite ready to purchase a home. We don't leave them high and dry. We give them a process and a plan that they can purchase a home later, which is great for us as realtors, because that provides a lead for later on when they are ready. Another thing that I think has to be discussed in the pre-approval process, whether by the lender or by you. 

Is the current interest rate right now, buyers are very fearful of the interest rate. And yet our interest rate is still at a low of the 30 year historical interest rate. Which is about 7.76. So we're hovering with historical averages, not some kind of sky is falling type of interest rate. So it's important to get everyone's head around that. And to also share, again, lenders that I work with, have ways that we can help a buyer get into a home for a lower interest rate, perhaps having a seller provided. 

Uh, concession that will maybe buy down their interest rate and things like that. So this is a great time to allay those fears about what the interest rate is doing. Partner with a lender. That's going to really help them understand the process and instill confidence because it's confident home buyers that actually move through the whole process to buy. 

So once we've gotten through the pre-approval, then we want to help the buyer understand exactly what steps are necessary in purchasing a home. I like to call that the process. So do you have some type of chart that you can show them that says we are here? And kind of like if you were at the mall, we are here and we want to get to the other side. So what does that look like? What are each of the next steps? Hopefully we've guided them through the preapproval process. 

Then we're going to say, we're going to have lots of fun looking at homes. At one point, we're going to find a favorite and we're going to put that under contract. Once we have an offer that has moved into contract. We're going to have to do inspections and appraisal. This process is very time sensitive. So we're going to work very closely together to get you through that process. There'll be a title company and or attorney involved in the process after this point. And I am here to facilitate and communicate and coordinate all of these different people that work in the real estate transaction to get you to your goal of a. 

Beautiful new home. Now at this point, this is where it is very specialized for Florida. So this is where you're going to have to make some adjustments for your area. But when I meet with a buyer, I tell them there's five special considerations. When purchasing a home in Florida, the first is property taxes. We have a special. 

Homestead exemption that the Florida voters voted in in 1992, which in essence means that when you look at a tax document in the MLS printout, whatever those taxes are, that's not what you're going to pay. That's based on the homestead exemption, or if it wasn't homestead exempted. You might pay less than those taxes. 

So taxes are really individualized. You might point them to a source, the property appraiser's office or something where they can get up to date tax information. But in the state of Florida, we never use that MLS printout for tax information. And then we want to talk about maybe insurance in Florida, especially our flood insurance and homeowners property insurance. 

Is more expensive than most other states in the country. So if someone's moving here from out of the area, we want to prepare them that they  may need to budget a little more for insurance than they thought they were going to have to. And then we may want to cover deed restrictions. At this point, we want to talk about, do they have an RV or a favorite chicken? 

That they may not be able to have in a deed restricted community. Also school districts, school districts are very, very unpredictable in our area. And so it's really important to cover. If a school district is really important to you, we're going to have to do a lot more research and we need to know. 

That it can change next year. . 



 

And last the fifth element of a buyer consultation is highly individualized. I say  it's your opportunity to surprise and delight. So at this point, I usually talk to them about. Uh, buyer. , representation agreement. This is really important. , as we see things are changing in the real estate industry, we've shown them some of the value we're going to provide, and I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but you can find on real estate common sense.com. 

A one page document that we use as a buyer representation agreement. And then we just want to let everyone's, , emotions. Get into a better place. We've talked about a lot of nitty gritty things we've actually had to cover. some office documents at this point, maybe you have some disclosures affiliated business disclosures, things that you need to sign. So now we want to get them in the mood to go look at a new house. 

So one of the ways you'll move things into a more upbeat tempo is to talk about the houses that you'll be looking at that day. Go ahead and review some of the great features of the homes that you're going to be showing them today. Hopefully you've previewed some of them and you'll have some beautiful little tidbits that you'll be able to share. There may be some homes that they had requested to see. Maybe they found them online. 

And you previewed them and said, well, let me tell you about this one. It does back up to a railroad track, or it does look like they're expanding the road and that may influence the traffic patterns in the neighborhood. Showing that you've really researched the homes. You're going to show them. Again, instills in the consumer that as a realtor, you provide value. 

So hopefully they're feeling excited about the homes they're going to see. And then I use this. Um, method to try to even further elevate their mood. So, if you want to play along, as long as you're not driving, I'd love for you to participate. I ask the buyers to just close their eyes. Just go back and visit a favorite home. 

Either of their childhood or recent years, maybe it's a home. They lived in, in the past. And just go there emotionally, physically, just close your eyes and walk through that house. Was it your grandparent's house? And you remember being out on the porch, having lemonade? Is it a favorite friend's house? You know, the fun house, the one with the pool and the big backyard where everyone hung out, where did they go? 

Ask them to  just take a couple of minutes to visit that house. And now if you've done that. I'm not going to waste the minutes on our podcast allowing you to visit, but I usually walk them through and say, how did it smell? How did it. Feel when you were in that house. And then ask them, go ahead and open up your eyes. 

How do you feel. I have found most people share that they feel like they're in a good mood and just listen to what they said about that house. If they're talking about the kitchen, we know no matter what their budget is, even if that house is out of their price range, we know to focus on kitchens. If they were talking about great things they did in the backyard with barbecues and all that, then we know that they're going to want some property.  

We've given our buyer time to describe qualify for and dream about the ideal home. And now it's our job to go out and find it. 

 📍 We hope you've enjoyed this conversation about the five elements of the perfect buyer consultation and that you'll use it to provide value. The next time you meet with buyers. Thank you for joining us on real estate. Common sense, helping you launch, build and sustain a wonderful real estate career. 

This is Lisa Spencer, sending you love and wishing you success.