How Boston Real Estate Agents Can Thrive During the Fall Season

If you are a Boston real estate agent, you might be asking yourself some questions about your current brokerage. “Am I at the right real estate office?” “Can they provide me with enough listings and leads to be successful?” After all, rising interest rates are causing buyers and sellers to sit on the sidelines for an extended period. Let’s be candid; it was easy to sell properties when interest rates were at all-time lows.

As the buying and selling tide has significantly receded, it has exposed some harsh truths. Namely, most Boston real estate offices simply didn’t spend enough revenue on their own proprietary local real estate technologies and search engine optimization (SEO) to help them weather tougher times. Most real estate offices use off-the-shelf software. This doesn’t have the influence and impact of custom-designed real estate software.  A custom, localized approach offers the edge needed to win during a stalled, or contracting, market.

In the months ahead, it is quite possible that you will see a lot of real estate offices either consolidate, merge, or go out of business. Adapt or perish has always been the golden business rule for countless years across all industries. Real estate is going through some dramatic changes right now, and it might be time to pivot within real estate to other avenues of revenue.

If you are experiencing a loss of commissions and transactions, it might be time to step back and see what your brokerage is providing for you. Is your current brokerage empowering you with new revenue streams or holding you back? Do they have the technical expertise to bring opportunities directly into your office? Does your real estate office have a sound business plan? What about the tech infrastructure to power you through changing times?

The Fall is a Great Time to Switch to a New Boston Real Estate Office

The Real-Time Availability Rate (RTAR) in Greater Boston right now is 1.16%. The Real-Time Vacancy Rate (RTVR) is 0.68%. This means we are in an incredibly tight real estate rental market. Demand, as usual, remains strong—but if you don’t have apartments to show, then clients simply won’t come to you. A lot of real estate agents see fall as the “slow season”. This couldn’t be further from the truth. If your brokerage encourages you to take this time off during the fall, it means they mainly have access to the same limited pool of tired listings that the entire city does. If your brokerage tells you it is slow during the fall, it’s time to do a deep dive on the fact that all brokerages are not created equal. It might be time to ask, “does my office have a competitive advantage in this current marketplace?”

What if your real estate office had a technology platform that brings in new listings EVERY SINGLE DAY?

What if the breadth and scope of their reach gave you great listings to show and close across the entire Greater Boston Area? During the Fall and Winter, you want to be with a real estate office that increases the geographic range of your closing footprint. You may want an office or technology platform that is helping to serve up great possibilities through massive eyeball reach. Have you ever asked your broker how many unique IPs visit your company site daily? Remember, a lot of those visitors are investors and landlords in addition to rental clients. Does it make sense to count up the number of agents in your office compared to the number of Unique IP visitors that come to your site? If your broker can’t tell you that – this could be a signal you are in the wrong place at the wrong time in the real estate cycle.

Maybe it is time for you to leave that slow residential office and switch over to working with Boston multifamily homes, commercial, and investment properties. Perhaps you could make a lot of money in apartment leasing while you pursue large multifamily sales listings. Consider the fact that rentals are about more than just a quick leasing commission. While closing 20K+ in rental commissions a month is great, it also allows you to build deeper relationships with multifamily owners and investors.

As a landlord and developer, I can tell you I always appreciate agents who rent my properties and I always think of them first if I am interested in selling one of my multi-family properties. Having worked in this space for over 2 decades, I can tell you most landlords feel the same way. Multifamily sales listings have much larger commissions than single-family homes. If you were in an environment that helped you work on incredible leasing opportunities and multi-family sales at the same time, your commissions would skyrocket.

LEADS, LEADS, LEADS

Having high-quality sales and rental leads is vital to your success. If you are sitting in your office and that phone isn’t ringing every ten minutes –something isn’t right. What is your office doing to get the phones ringing? When the leads are scarce, and your broker is telling you to call expired listings again (or hit your “circle of influence” for the 20th time) it’s probably time for an office change. Listen not to what your broker tells you; ask them what they are doing for you.

What do they spend annually on their Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? What unique technologies does your office provide you with? If your broker is telling you to go to another training session that you have to pay for, they are just stringing you along. Are they hoping that rates will come down next year? Really? Particularly in a period of decreased transaction activity- it’s time to start examining everything. Waiting for rates to come down is not a business plan. You most likely need to make money today – not in 2025.

Practice Makes Perfect

It’s quite true that the more leads you have, the better you become at closing deals. You’re getting necessary and essential practice in pre-qualifying leads and pitching clients with each call. It is almost identical to when you are working out—your closing muscles stay in shape and/or grow stronger. When you don’t have leads, many of your skills are simply not utilized enough. You get rusty, and that may cause your closing ratio to drop significantly. Top producers and athletes across all sports and industries practice daily rituals and fundamentals, and real estate is no exception. Perhaps it might be time to examine a team that can put you in the game every single day? Players like to play. In real estate, players become better real estate agents when they have more clients.

Is your brokerage providing you with enough leads to stay in game shape? Or do they tell you to sit there and prospect for 12 hours per day since they have nothing to offer you? Right now, it is a big struggle for Massachusetts real estate agents to get the volume of leads they need to keep them closing deals and in a positive mindset. Sometimes, brokers take most of the best leads and give their agents the poor-quality leads. Those agents are then wasting time and gas money. Are you competing with your broker? If so you might want to check out other offices where the broker hands out the best leads rather than taking them.

The Greater Boston Area is teeming with endless potential, but without the right technology, marketing, leads, and inventory, these opportunities might as well be ghosts– present, yet intangible. Inflation and interest rate hikes have changed the real estate landscape. You need leads. How many leads can your office provide you with each week? Having ample access to great leads will make all the difference in the world to your financial success.

The Listing to Agent Ratio is Key

Is your current brokerage providing you with the most leads in the industry? If so can they prove it in writing? Have you studied your roster and seen the Listing to Agent Ratio (LTAR)? In other words, did you go to a real estate company website and count how many sales and rental listings they have against the number of agents that work there? You might find your research quite shocking.

It is worth your time to do some simple math. You may have been dazzled by the charming real estate recruiter who took you to lunch. They may have stretched the truth and said you would do better over at their office. They may have told you how great their giant real estate roster appears to be – but how many of them are working other jobs to make ends meet? When you see a massive roster but no listings and leads– it might be time to question what is being sold to you.

If half the agents at your office are driving for Uber or painting on the side – that says a lot about the real estate office and the brand itself. If their real estate office was doing so well; then why do most of them have side hustles? The resources, listings, and leads you receive are instrumental in defining your journey in the competitive real estate landscape of Boston. You need a lot of sales and high-commission rental leads – and you need them right now. You might want to look for offices with the highest unique IP views vs. number of agents. Math is Math. Numbers are numbers. The LTAR and Unique IP traffic makes a massive difference in the success of real estate agents.

Make the Right Choice to Thrive as a Boston Real Estate Agent

Evaluate your current brokerage with a discerning eye, weighing its current offerings against your professional aspirations. What worked 11 interest rate hikes ago is most likely not providing leads for you now. The landscape has changed significantly. If the scales tip towards complacency, inadequate support, or limited growth, remember- Boston’s vibrant landscape is not just a hub of real estate transactions but a realm of limitless potential. And to harness this potential, consider aligning with a brokerage that transcends traditional roles. It could be time to examine a full-stack real estate ecosystem. It is probably time to leave the shelter of traditional brokerages providing you with general tactics that were deployed under a low-interest rate/ high lead residential sales environment.

Consider the brokerages powered by Boston Pads as your allies while you build your professional path. After all, there is a reason why Boston Pads features the largest collection of real-time Boston apartments and Boston real estate in the area. More landlords trust Boston Pads than any other platform. Every quantifiable real estate metric out there proves that our specialized system will deliver you leads and listings unlike any other traditional real estate office you have ever encountered. Our real time systems provide landlords, investors, and clients with far more value- through our unrivaled real-time data, powerful Property Owner Portal, and informative market reports. The difference is dramatic and the outcome is beneficial for any agent.

If you are a Boston real estate agent– contact us today! We invite you to a confidential interview. Let’s explore how we can help you make more money for yourself than you ever thought possible.