Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast we're talking with Rene Nelson from Eugene, Oregon and Renee is a commercial real estate broker who specializes in multi-family apartment complexes in Eugene.
She's had a lot of success, especially around the University of Oregon campus where a lot of investors are eager to buy multi-family homes because of the rental nature of people coming to go to school.
We had a wonderful conversation about the importance of really dominating that target market because there are so few people actually control that whole space. There are only 235 owners who own 500 buildings, which can tame all of the multi-family homes over four units in Eugene.
We talked about a complete strategy to dominate not only the listing side of the market but the buyer side as well. The ideas are totally transferrable from everything we talk about on the residential side, and the same applies if you're trying to dominate lakefront homes or golf course homes or oceanfront condos... multi-family is no different. We need to speak to sellers in a language that's appealing to sellers, all the while speaking to and attracting buyers with a language that's attractive to them.
Then we can put them together as a market maker.
This was a really great conversation, it went very quickly, and there's a lot for you to get out of it.
Links:
GoGoAgent.com
Listing Agent Scorecard
Be a Guest
Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep091
Dean: Rene Nelson.
Rene: Good morning, Dean Jackson. How are you?
Dean: I'm so good. Where are you calling in from?
Rene: Eugene, Oregon.
Dean: Wow, look at that.
Rene: Yeah.
Dean: My friend, Evan Pagan, is from Eugene, Oregon.
Rene: Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah, we are two hours south of Portland, Oregon and we are home to the University of Oregon. So we've got a pretty good football team and a pretty good basketball team.
Dean: Pretty good. Yeah, exactly. That's funny. Well, I'm excited that you're here.
Rene: Thank you.
Dean: We've got the whole hour to just focus on the Rene Nelson plan here. So I'd love to hear, I know you're doing commercial real estate so I'd love to hear your take on how we got connected here and maybe what you'd like to focus on.
Rene: Okay. I have listened to all of your podcasts on Listing Agent Lifestyle. And a lot of that is residential, but it's just easy to equate that to commercial in my mind and think about your systems.
Dean: Of course, yeah.
Rene: I really like your more cheese, less whiskers. I think that's how I originally got turned on to your podcast because I started listening to that and signed up for your emails and your P.S.s of here's three ways that I can help you-
Dean: Oh, yeah. Uh-huh (affirmative).
Rene: Your a mastermind of system, Dean. You've got a lot of great systems in place. And so, when somebody plugs into you, they eventually trickle into the right section of system.
Dean: The right spot, exactly.
Rene: Exactly.
Dean: That's good.
Rene: As a matter of fact, when I made a commitment to myself about a week ago I am never going to make another cold call, I reached out to Diane and I said, "Okay, I surrender." I said, "I have listened to Dean's Listening Agent Lifestyle process. I know there's a whole system here. Walk me through it." And I went to your GoGoAgent page and read the blog and Diane walked me through it. And as we were getting off the phone, I said to her, "Okay, now, check in with me in a week just in case. Because if I get frustrated with this process, I want to make sure that I don't quit the process." And she said, "Oh, I'm so glad you mentioned that because you can actually push the easy button and hire me and I could do it for you." So right while we were on the phone, I put my Visa card in and just turned that whole system over to Diane.
Dean: That's great. That's such a smart thing. I mean, the whole thing is really eliminating frustration for people because I know that the systems work, that we get the result. And what I see people struggling with is the execution of it, not even not just from not understanding what to do, but just that so much else is going on in their life that it's hard to take the time to do it too. So that's great. You're on the right track there. Tell me about your business and your background in real estate.
Rene: Okay, so I have sold commercial real estate for 15 years. And prior to that, I was a residential mortgage lender. So I have been in real estate since 1989. But right before the mortgage meltdown and the recession, I switched out of mortgage lending and went into selling commercial real estate. And my real focus is apartment complexes and multi-family.
Dean: Oh, I love it. Okay, that's great.
Rene: And Oregon just passed rent control. In February of 2019, we passed rent control statewide.
Dean: So how is that going to affect your... Is it grandfathered in for people who own properties right now or is it sweeping?
Rene: No, it affects everybody immediately.
Dean: Right.
Rene: So if your property is 15 years or older... So the new properties do not fall under the rent control, where you cannot raise your rent higher than, it's 7% plus 3.3% for CPI. So in total, at 10.3%, you cannot raise your rents higher than that.
Dean: Okay.
Rene: And traditionally, most landlords have not raised their rents that high, but I've heard of-
Dean: Yeah, it doesn't seem like they're raising it that much anyway right now.
Rene: Yeah, but part of what's happening is the change, is with the rent control cap, they also passed a new law that you cannot give your tenant a no-cause notice. So in the past, if you had an unruly tenant, rather than lose all your other good tenants, you would just give that bad tenant a no-cause notice and ask them to move and you didn't have to tell them why. And that really helped multi-family owners keep their properties under control, but that's changing. And now, you no longer can do that. If you give a tenant a notice, you have to tell them why and they have the ability to cure it. So let's say they played loud music, then they just stopped playing loud music for three days, and the notice expires and they get to stay and they still get to be a troubled tenant.
Dean: Oh, boy. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rene: So for a lot of what I call mom-and-pop apartment owners, they are frustrated with the new rules because a lot of them have self-managed. And so, they are starting to get out of the multi-family business and either 1031 exchange into other leased commercial property, or they're just paying their capital gains and totally getting out of the business of multi-family all together.
Dean: That's an interesting thing. Are they switching into retail or into office? Or what are they... If they're doing 1031 to get out of the residential stuff, is that what they're switching into?
Rene: Yeah, a lot of people are going into single-tenant leased properties, so an AT&T store, Verizon, a Dollar General, that type of a building where it's a national credit tenant that's taking care of the taxes.
Dean: Triple net lease.
Rene: Yeah, triple net, yeah.
Dean: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay. So the fun thing is that all these Listing Agent Lifestyle elements, all fit. You can overlay them on commercial real estate, especially on apartments. It's literally just another type of target audience. So I'd be curious to see what your focus is within apartments. So how wide of an area are you covering? And what type of size of units and stuff are you working with?
Rene Nelson: Well, the part that made me kind of just put my pen down about a week ago and say, "I'm never making another cold call," is I have a buyer that wants to buy in the University of Oregon campus. He's coming out of California, He wants to spend $13 million, which will get him about 50 to 60 units near the University of Oregon. And he's what I would call kind of an industrial buyer. He owns lots of properties across campuses across the US. And he now has targeted the University of Oregon. So I started down my list of people and started calling. Well, of course, with students, they move out every year. So for the owners, rent control doesn't necessarily apply to them. It does, but they don't have as many rules because they don't have the long-term tenants, like what I call market rate tenants where they stay-
Dean: Right, exactly. Anytime a tenant moves out, they can reset the rent, right, to whatever they want. It's only in relation to that tenant that you can-
Rene: Yes, yes.
Dean: Yeah. Okay.
Rene: Yeah. So I'm focused on the University of Oregon campus and trying to get people to raise their hand.
Dean: And how many complexes would there be that are 50 to 60 units?
Rene: Diane and I... I just sent my mailing list to Diane, and there's 235 owners on that list, but some of those owners own multiple properties. But I pulled out the list, so I have 235 people on my mailing list.
Dean: Okay, that's great. And is that all in Eugene? Or is it spread out a little more?
Rene: It is. What I did is I drew a radius around the University of Oregon campus of a mile, and I went all the way down to four units. Because I figured if I'm going to do a mailer anyway, I may get other business, obviously smaller than what this particular buyer is looking for. But I just drew a one-mile radius around campus.
Dean: That's awesome. So there's the thing, that you've got a... If you just take your map... This is what I always say to people, when you're kind of narrowing in on a target audience, if you just take your map and you dropped the pins on the map of where these multi-family ones are that go from four units to... What was the max? What was the biggest one that you did?
Rene: 200 units.
Dean: Yeah, so four to 200 units, you've got this [inaudible 00:12:52]... That is the 235 owners who own all of the buildings. How many do you think buildings there are if you take out or if you add in kind of account for the multiple, the ones who own multiple buildings?
Rene: Yeah, it makes it closer to about 512.
Dean: Okay, So if you just look at that, this is the way we kind of think about it, that there's 512 of those buildings. And what kind of a turnover rate do you have among those buildings in a typical year?
Rene: For sales, where they would sell them?
Dean: Yeah, yeah. How many sales of multi-family units are there in a typical year in the last 12 months say?
Rene: There's been two in the last 12 months.
Dean: Okay, so that's it, only two of the 500 buildings sold in the last 12 months.
Rene: Well, of the bigger stuff where it would be in this particular buyer's range. So if we looked all the way from four units to 200 units-
Dean: Yeah, I'm saying out of these 500.
Rene: Got it.
Dean: Out of these 512 buildings, how many exchange each year, would you say?
Rene: There's about 15.
Dean: Okay, so that's a pretty low turnover rate when you look at it like that. Like that's less than... Is that about 3%? Or is it 0.3%? About 3%, I guess, right?
Rene: Yes.
Dean: Yeah, 15 out of... Okay, so about a 3% turnover rate. So here's the reality of how this goes, that when we look at it, that those those 512 buildings are the multi-family buildings in Eugene. That's it. They're there they are. We can point to them on a map. They're visible prospects. And the 235 people that you have on that list are the owners of those 512 buildings. So they're the ones that are making the decision here, right? Now, when we look at it, that of those 15 buildings that sell each year, it's a different 15, but they're all a subset of those 512 buildings. That's where they're coming from. Right? So it's only coming out of those 512 buildings, which are attached to these 235 owners. And what would be the average, the selling price of what we call the total yield? If you took the 15 buildings that sold last year, what would be the average or the total-
Rene: Of the their sales price.
Dean: Yeah, price that that... Yeah. What was the dollar volume in a multi-family sale last year?
Rene: $2.7 million.
Dean: Okay. So that must mean that of those... Oh, you mean $2.7 million each of them. So it would be the average price?
Rene: Yes.
Dean: Yeah. Okay.
Rene: Yes, yeah.
Dean: I was thinking you're saying total price.
Rene: Oh.
Dean: So that means that roughly $45 million, $40 million in total volume.
Rene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dean: Of those. And so, what would be a typical commission that you would get from an apartment complex sale like that?
Rene: Two and a half percent, between two and two and a half percent.
Dean: Okay.
Rene: To be safe, just call it two.
Dean: Okay. So at two percent of $40 million, that would be $40 million, $4 million. My math, I'm hard at these things. So what would be two percent of $40 million. One percent would be $400,000. $800,000 total, is what is on offer or available here from this target audience. Right? We say that. But that's about somebody earned $800,000 last year in multi-family sales there. And then, probably another $800,000 for the people who brought the buyers, right?
Rene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dean: That's the, yeah, the whole thing. So total yield of $1.6 million. That's how we're thinking about it here, that this little micro-economy is that those 512 buildings have a yield of $800,000 on the listing side, $800,000 on the buyer side. Now, when you look at that, the cost, they all come down to those 235 people that own all of those buildings. And they are in somewhere between who the heck is Rene Nelson? And on the other end of the pole, I would never sell with anybody but Rene Nelson. Every one of those 235 people are somewhere on that spectrum, right?
Rene: Right, yep.
Dean: And the goal would be that those are the only 235 people that matter, that we need to go to that... They definitely need to know who you are. How many of them do you know personally, would you say?
Rene : Yeah, I can look down the list, and I just see names. And I'm like, yes, I know them. Yes, I know them. I've done a deal. My husband is also a commercial real estate broker in Eugene and has been for 52 years. And so, if I don't know them, he knows them.
Dean: Right. Well, that's a good thing, right?
Rene: Yes.
Dean: That's a good... Yeah, that's awesome. And do you get a sense... How much of the market share do you have right now? How many of the 15 were you involved in last year?
Rene: I did two of them last year.
Dean: Okay. And when you look at the 500 buildings or the 235 owners, how many of them are incumbent? You're the incumbent real estate agent. You're the one that got them into it. Do you typically work on the buyer side of the listing side?
Rene: Well, my preference is to work on the selling, to represent them and do the listing.
Dean: Yeah.
Rene: But right now, I have more opportunity where people are coming from out of area, especially near the university campus. So I'm representing more buyers than listings right now.
Dean: Yes. That's great. And that's good because every one of those that you put in is planting another for you here, that you're the incumbent. You're the realtor. Do you... Just anecdotally are estimating out of the 512 buildings, how many do you think you would... are your... you're the realtor that got them into that building?
Rene: Boy, I would have to count, Dean. I did a fairly large one with a student housing developer in about 2014. It was a $45 million project, where they...
Dean: Nice.
Rene: I found them the land, and then they came in and just built from the ground up. And that really put me on the map for the University of Oregon housing, kind of being the expert and working with out-of-town developers looking to come into the campus area.
Dean: Uh-huh (affirmative). And so, of these, I guess what I'm asking is the 512 buildings would you say I mean, over all of this time, would it be possible that there's 10 people or 50 people?
Rene: I'd say 50 for sure, looking at the list.
Dean: So in looking at the thing, that you're the incumbent in 10% of those buildings, are people are in there that you you're the one that helped them get in it. That's awesome. So the thing that's the most important is that we need to win the hearts of the other 150 people because they're the ones that are going to make those decisions about when their property is, when they're going to list it or sell it. And if you're at the top of that choice, that you've established a brand that they wouldn't think of doing it with anybody else, that's the good place to be in. And it's kind of an interesting thing. Because when you look at what it costs to mail postcards into a group like that, it's very inexpensive. That challenge often is just getting to them behind the LLC walls and whatever they've put up for the properties. Where are you mailing? And who are you mailing to?
Rene: I am mailing to the true owners of the property.
Dean: That's great. So you've got that information. Yeah.
Rene: Yes, yeah. I subscribe to a service that helps peel back the layers of that LLC and find the true owner.
Dean: Oh, that's awesome. So there you go. So you got the chance that you are going to them. So one of the things is offering this report on Eugene apartment prices. That's going to be interesting to people who own those apartments. Do you do some kind of analysis like that? Like some published information like that right now or is this-
Rene: Yeah, I'm putting it together. Diane just mailed out my postcard, so I'm pulling that report together. I have it and I have always had it available if somebody asked for it, but I never promoted it to... I mainly did just sold postcards to the campus owners.
Dean: Right. Love it. So this is going to be a great... We'll see what happens here. So when we look at it, that part of the thing is that all we're trying to do is to get on the radar of the 15 people, assuming that it's a pretty stable turnover rate, that it's pretty consistent, that we can expect that maybe 15 will sell in the next 12 months as well.
Rene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dean: Did last year feel like particularly heavy volume or low volume? Or is it pretty standard across the board like that, about a 3% turnover?
Rene: That's pretty standard right now.
Dean: Okay. That's good. So that means that all we're trying to do is to get in the hearts and minds of the 15 people who are going to sell their apartment building this year. And so, when you're mailing a postcard like this to that group, we're not expecting that we're going to get a big response rate to the postcard. What we're more focused on and interested in is that we get the right response to the postcard, right, that you're truly getting somebody who's interested in knowing what they're selling for, what they're building might be worth because they're in the early stages of contemplating getting rid of it or moving up or doing an exchange. Of for whatever reason, they're thinking about selling now. And that's our entree into now we get to provide more and more valuable information to them.
Rene: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dean: And then, we want to establish that when they get this information, that they know what the next step is. So on the residential side, what we call the super signature items, the things that are whenever you're ready, here are three ways we can help you. On the residential side, we have the pinpoint price analysis and we have the room-by-room review and we have the silent market, where those are the three ways that we can anticipate that somebody might be most inclined to take the next step, meaning they either want to get the pricing or they want to know what to do to fix it up to to get it ready to sell or they may sell if you had a buyer. Those are really the three situations. And we just put a wrapper on those to make them easy to articulate, and it sounds like it's already done. Now, have you thought about what would be the appropriate next steps for somebody who owns an apartment building?
Rene: Yeah, I think those three fit into the commercial world because somebody that would want a pinpoint analysis, they would supply me with the information that I need, and then I could give them a most probable sales price.
Dean: Yes.
Rene: And the room-by-room view would be where I would meet them at the property. And most people have a friendly tenant or two, and walk through one or two of their units to look at the condition and the age and just how it looks.
Dean: And what they might recommend, right.
Rene: Yeah, yeah. And then, the silent market is definitely intriguing to me because there's a lot of property owners that do not want it to be made public because their property is out on the market.
Dean: Right.
Rene: But if a buyer brought them an offer, they would be happy. But they don't want their tenants to know, they don't want a for sale sign in the yard. They especially don't want their property manager to know. So using the silent market would be a great marketing tool for me.
Dean: There you go. And so, I think now and that was going to be my next step here, is that you're the most valuable thing that you can do. And this is true for you hear me talk about it for any target audiences. We talk about here in Winter Haven as lakefront homes as an example. We do the getting listings program for lakefront homes, but then we also, and more importantly, look for people who are looking to buy lakefront homes. So we're trying to create that triangulation to kind of be a market-maker. And so now, the thing is that what would be the best thing that we could do that put you in contact with anybody from anywhere who is thinking about buying multi-family in Eugene? And where do those people come from? [crosstalk 00:31:41]. Of your 235 owners, where are they, how far flung are they in geography?
Rene: All over the United States.
Dean: Right.
Rene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dean: So that's an important thing. I think that there's an interesting opportunity where people are sort of scouring where's the best opportunities right now, like where? And so, I think it's going to be a valuable thing if you could create and build the case for Eugene.
Rene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dean: And anybody who is thinking about what would be... When you look at it, Florida has traditionally been, and even more so now, been a very popular multi-family place just because of the natural migration of people to Florida. There's constantly new people. There's constant population increase. And so, there's a lot of national attention, international attention on investment properties in Florida. And then, certain other areas that are booming economically, whether it's because of a particular industry that's hot or whatever right now. But what would drive Eugene? What would be the main and biggest appeal of Eugene?
Rene: Well, for me being with the multi-family, there are people that want out because of the rent control, but I already have a list of buyers that either have a bunch of properties and a professional property manager or they're a property management company themselves. And they have said, "Hey, when somebody comes to you and wants to sell, call me. I want to buy more units."
Dean: Yes.
Rene: So what I really want to focus on is getting to the property owners that own the multi-family and say, "I'm the expert. Call me. I can give you strategies. If you're considering getting out of multi-family, I can show you ways to 1031 into other commercial property and not pay the tax." Because if I get that listing, then I also have a buyer that's standing by that wants to buy everything from four units to 400 units. I mean, I've got just a list of buyers that are looking and ready to buy.
Dean: Oh, you've got that, perfect. So when does this take effect?
Rene: It already has. Rent control is in place.
Dean: Okay. When did that happen? Was it-
Rene: February of this year.
Dean: Yeah, just this year. One of those things that anytime there's turmoil or any change on things, that there's an opportunity to really provide clarity for people. And so, we have done things like anytime there's a change on stuff, we've had an opportunity to prepare a booklet or a guide or something to educate people about what their options are or about how it affects them. Because they're still they're not really sure exactly what this means, but they know it means something. And so, we've had a pattern of... We use a headline and a postcard that looks like... It's a yellow postcard. It says, "Public notice." And then, we do... The kind of words that we've used in the financial advisor world is, "If you or your spouse plan on collecting Social Security after December 31, 2018, read this," where it's saying like something is changing and we're offering them the Social Security benefits guide.
And we've done this same thing, where some regulation things changed. In Canada, where fees for mutual funds had not been disclosed, and now needed to be disclosed. And we did this similar format of saying, "If you bought over $250,000 of any mutual fund prior to December 31, 2008, read this." And it went on to say, "All these things are changing, and here's the guidelines." And it's almost like a magnet that people are attached to it. And so, you're saying about this affects properties that are 15 years or newer. Is that what it was? Or they're grandfathered-
Rene: Older. Yeah, if it's 15 years or newer, it doesn't apply. If it's 15 years and older, then it applies.
Dean: Okay, perfect. So if you were to say what would be the actual? That will be 2004. Wow, that just feels wrong to say that 15 years ago was 2004.
Rene: It does.
Dean: I mean, that is just... I think you said you got your license in 1989. I started in 1988. So right there, but I mean, yeah. Wow. Okay. So 15 years ago, we just went there... 15 years ago was 2004. So if we say I think if we had a postcard or an ad even, but I think postcard because it's a contained group of people. That if bought a multi-family apartment unit in Eugene, Oregon prior to... or in Oregon. So it affected all of Oregon or just Eugene?
Rene: All of Oregon.
Dean: All of Oregon. Okay, so in Oregon, prior to what would be the day prior to December 31, 2003, that kind of... Yeah, prior to December 2003, read this, and that would be a good lead into the mentioning of the changes, but then offering the Oregon rent control rule book or something that feels like, oh, this is going to be my opportunity to figure out what we could actually do here. That might be a nice way to start a conversation about it.
Rene: Okay, so I wrote a book using your 90-Minute Book process.
Dean: Okay.
Rene: And I labeled it Disruptions in Oregon Real Estate. Betsy and Christy made it such an easy process. And my books just arrived in my office this week.
Dean: Oh, nice, good.
Rene: And I was debating to create a postcard with the picture of the book on the front and mailing that to apartment owners. But it sounds like if I do kind of the yellow postcard that that may catch their attention more. What do you think? Should I do the ugly yellow postcard? Yeah?
Dean: I think what I would do is I would look at that because this is why we do things like just being completely outwardly focused on the first time. And the reality is that you've got such a small group of visible prospects, that it might be worth it just to send everybody, all 200 of those people, a copy of your book with a letter. You're almost at a point where it would make economic sense to just adopt all 200 of them, as you're just imposing yourself into the position of their advisor, and acting as their advisor for the ongoing. And I think when you look at it that even if you were to mail, because it doesn't sound like it's really fast moving the market as much.
But if you were to say, every month mailing these people an educational postcard, almost like combining the newsletter and the super signature, the next steps, that might be a nice approach for you, because we're talking about 200 people, 250, 235 people. And where the postcard, I'm glad that we're mailing out the postcard, as is this first round here. But the reason that we do the postcard the way we do it is because typically people are mailing to 1,000 homes or to more, and we're trying to identify the people who are most likely to sell, because they asked for the report. And then we mail those people the Get Top Dollar newsletter and the updates every month of what's going on. So you're mailing a more substantial package to the people who respond.
And since you've got 200 of them, and the economics of it are so high, meaning that there's kind of an average of 2.7 million for it, so you're talking about a $50,000 or $60,000 commission typically for each one. It just makes economic sense to spend $500 a month on mailing all 200 of them a really valuable piece of information, right? So you're spending $6,000 over the course of the year. You really raised your chances of being the one that they choose, that you're just going to show up at just the right time.
Rene: Yep, that makes total sense.
Dean: It's pretty funny. I do some work with a gentleman who wrote a book called The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. And he is a speaker and consultant to the energy industry, and we selected the top 200 CEOs of US energy companies, and just adopted them as take on this advisory role for them. And so we sent all 200 of them a copy of his book and a letter, and then each month, are mailing a postcard, a eight-and-a-half-by-11-size postcard that on one side is an article, like a magazine article, that would be educational and valuable for those people. And then on the back, there's all kinds of resources that they can get along with his super signature, the next steps. So I can imagine that there's an opportunity to do something pretty unique with your group that if you did write an article that is educational for owners of multi-family and included that along with information on what's been happening in the market along with your analysis, and then the next steps, whether you call it the pinpoint price analysis or you come up with some different... pinpoint price analysis is great. And maybe even all of those words are still great, room by room review of the property or the silent market, all of those things that some of it is going to arrive at just the right time for somebody.
Rene: Yeah, I like that idea, Dean.
Dean: And then you could be highlighting, of course, the buyers that you're working with, right? Because if along with it, you say, "Listen, you can have a section for the silent market," where you're saying, "I'm working with somebody who's looking for, they're looking for 30 to 50 units." And that might stimulate somebody to go, "Oh, tell me about this buyer you have for for 30 units." That may be a great opportunity.
Rene: Yeah, that's perfect.
Dean: Because you've got such a small, manageable group, but it's so valuable.
Rene: Okay, Yeah, that's a good idea.
Dean: And that's where your book may be a nice calling card too.
Rene: Okay, that makes sense.
Dean: Because it's so manageable.
Rene: And once somebody goes to the landing page and asks for a copy of the report, then do you pull them into a new database, so to speak, and you start dripping on them? Obviously, I'll reach out to them and contact them, try to set up a meeting. How do you deal with them once they go to the landing page?
Dean: So when they go to the landing page, then that automatically gets put into your CRM, gets put into your Google agent account. And then you can set up, they'll all be flagged that they asked for the the multi-family report or the whatever you called it, so that you can then call up just those people, so you can have separate flags for these are the people who responded to the building, the report, and you can have another flag for buyers, or any kind of regeneration thing that you're doing. You can bring them all into your CRM and manage them in one place.
Rene: Okay. Yep, that makes sense.
Dean: Yeah. And then each month, you will send out the updates for them. And you can reach out by email to them as a market-maker at any time. You'll be able to say... What I would look at is I would just start acting like I am the representative and the listing agent for all of these buildings, and just start preparing for that. Just go, because you know that, when it really comes down to it, what they're going to want is a buyer when it comes time. They're not going to be emotionally attached to it. They're not going to have a hard time letting go of the memories and all that stuff. You're not gonna have to walk them through that kind of thing. But what would be valuable is that all the while you're focused on promoting this idea of Oregon, and Eugene specifically, apartment investments. That if you look at where would people who are looking or considering Eugene, where would these buyers be looking for information? How would they uncover the information?
Rene: Most people are going to do SEO searches for it and look for it that way initially.
Dean: And What would they be searching? What would they say?
Rene: Commercial real estate predominantly.
Dean: So they would just say commercial real estate-
Rene: Eugene, Oregon.
Dean: Eugene, Oregon. Okay. And where would that take them? What would come up?
Rene: Well, I spent the last year and a half driving my SEO up, so hopefully that search brings up where I'm in the top one to three people at the top of that page for that. And then it goes obviously to my web page.
Dean: Yeah. And so what would be really valuable is that if you become the publication of record of the State of the Union of Eugene multi-family investment properties, that you do the most thorough, useful, thoughtful, precise analysis of everything that's affecting the Eugene, Oregon, multi-family market, and publish that as a monthly or quarterly report that people can seek out. So anybody who's thinking about and stumbling on considering properties in Eugene, that you're going to seem like they've stumbled on the gold mine of all the information they need to really make a thoughtful analysis of the market.
Rene: Okay, got it.
Dean: And that's about content, and I think it'd be a really interesting thing for you to have the database of... One of the things that I really try and impart on people is this idea of planning to dominate. And that's straight from the Procter and Gamble playbook. There was a great book that I read, it was very influential on me, that they talk about, this is a former P&G executive who sort of outlined 99 principles that he observed and that they follow at Procter and Gamble, and the ones that stood out to me, the first one was that they plan to dominate. So when they're going into the laundry detergent category, they're planning on being the dominant brand in that category. And what that allows you to think about is, if we were going to be the number one thing, if you were going to be the number one choice and dominate the Eugene multi-family market, you've identified that target audience of the 235 people that control the 500 buildings. That's your kind of universe there.
Now, everything, all the information, I would look at building up a database of pictures of all of those 512 buildings, a little file so that you know what they look like, where they are, that anybody kind of looking for the area would have a feeling like, "Wow, I really stumbled on the source for Eugene info." And if you get these buyers to stumble across that and you have a super signature with offers for them that are what would be appealing to buyers, because they would know that most of the best deals are off market. They're not on the market right now, that they may be able to have access to, through you, apartments that are not yet on the market but maybe could come on the market if they knew somebody wanted to buy.
Rene: Yeah, that's a great idea.
Dean: And you've got the opportunity to be the market-maker.
Rene: I like that strategy.
Dean: I do too. I love that idea of the just sort of long-term commitment to serving a particular target audience.
Rene: Wow, that's great. Okay, that was the piece that I was kind of missing.
Dean: Well, that's the thing is now you just want to assume that you're the... This way, you don't need a listing to go out and find buyers. You start looking for ways that you can generate buyer interest without having, it doesn't depend on you having the listing.
Rene: Okay, great. Yeah.
Dean: That way, you don't need the sellers to list their property with you, right, so that you feel like you're in the game or that you've got the opportunity now. You don't need the sellers to find the buyers. And that puts you in a great position with the sellers then because you've got the buyers.
Rene: Yeah. Okay. I hadn't really thought of it that way, Dean. That's a great mind shift, and really easy to just take ownership of that and jump into that.
Dean: Yeah. Especially when you realize how manageable it is. It's only the 235 people that you need to win the hearts of.
Rene: Wow. Okay, got it.
Dean: I love it. So, recap for me here then. Now let's unpack it so that we think about what your action steps or your plan could be here. How did you hear it? I did a lot of talking on this one.
Rene: No, I appreciate that. The postcard has been mailed out. It's going out today. I'm definitely going to, the next postcard that goes out, I'm going to do the ugly yellow, I call it ugly, but ugly yellow postcard that has the fact information on there that we talked about. Today I'm going to put together the recent sales statistics so I've got that market report ready and offer the three different offerings and my super signature going forward.
Dean: I like that. I like that.
Rene: I really like the idea of just dominating the market and being the market-maker and reaching out to everyone. And obviously I'll mail a copy of my book with a letter to them also.
Dean: That would be great, because the books are inexpensive. You can do that whole thing for, the books are $2.30 or $2.50 each. So that's a really inexpensive thing. That's great. Now do you do any pay per click along with the SEO?
Rene: I haven't done that. That was something that I was considering doing next.
Dean: Especially with the high target buildings or the high target search terms, especially somebody that's going "Eugene, Oregon, apartment complexes for sale," or any of those kind of things that if you're offering, if the ad came up and it's offering the September 2019 report on Eugene multi-family apartment prices, that's a valuable thing or the guide to Eugene multi-family. That kind of things where people who are going to the Internet are in research mode. So if you can make it seem like they've stumbled on the gold mine, where you're not trying to convince them to do anything right now, you're not trying to convince them to buy or convince them to use you to buy, you're just trying to compel those invisible prospects.
Because the people who own the buildings are visible prospects. You know who those 235 people are. What you're dealing with on the buyer side is invisible prospects. You can't point to a list of people who are considering multi-family in Eugene. So you have to attract that list by offering them information that's completely outwardly focused. Nothing about you, "Choose me for all your Eugene multi-family real estate needs." It's not about you at this point. It's about just offering the valuable compelling information that they want. And then once you've turned an invisible prospect into a visible prospect, now we offer them the information, plus everything about Rene, that you're here to help them. That's where we start to do the convincing.
Rene: Okay, that's super helpful, because I wasn't sure at what point to add the pay per click and how to reach out to them. So offering the guide and the September 2019 guide to Eugene multi-family would be the-
Dean: Yes.
Rene: Yeah, that's it. Okay.
Dean: It's all very exciting, Rene. I can't wait to see how it all plays out. I think we're really laying the foundation here. And I think that I like that we're coming into the first proper decade in a long time now, into the '20s here. So I think you're going to be poised and established to dominate the '20s as Eugene's commercial apartment queen. I love that.
Rene: Well, thanks for the ideas, Dean. I really appreciate your time this morning and all the great ideas you gave me. Thank you.
Dean: Awesome. I'll Talk to you soon. Thanks.
Rene: Okay. Bye-bye.
Dean: Bye. And there we have it, another great episode. And if you'd like to continue the conversation, you can go to ListingAgentLifestyle.com. You can download a copy of the Listing Agent Lifestyle book, the manifesto that shares everything that we're talking about here. And you can be a guest on the show if you'd like to talk about how we can build a Listing Agent Lifestyle plan for your business. Just click on the "be a guest" link at ListingAgentLifestyle.com. And If you'd like to join our community of people who are applying all of the things we talked about in the Listing Agent Lifestyle, come on over to GoGoAgent.com. It's where we got all the programs, all the tools, everything you need to get listings, to multiply your listings, to get referrals, convert leads, and to find buyers. And you can get a free, truly free, no credit card required trial for 30 days at GoGoAgent.com. So come on over, and I will see you there.