New York is a difficult place to establish oneself as a real estate agent. There is lots of competition. In order to build a positive reputation and make a name for oneself, one needs to be a step ahead of one’s competition. The most effective way of doing this is to find an ongoing development project and ask the developers if you can market the properties for them. If you approach developers early on in the remodeling or development process, you should be able to secure a contract with them and list their properties, either for rent or for sale.
This article will tell you how you can find out who’s remodeling and developing properties in the New York area:
Online Tools
The most effective way of locating property developers in New York is to use online tools. There are many online tools available for use, some better than others. One of the best tools for finding property developers is MLS (‘multiple listings service’) software. In the New York area, One Key MLS, formerly MLSLI and Hudson Gateway MLS, listing and open house alerts is the most comprehensive and useful tool. It serves over 44,000 subscribers and is New York’s most effective directory, offering extensive coverage and concise data. MLS software also provides information on other agents, brokers, buyers, and sellers. Before using any tools, research them, read their reviews, and make sure that they will work for you.
Professional Referrals
If you have friends that work in the New York area as agents, then you may want to consider asking them for referrals. Professional referrals from other agents can help you to learn about ongoing developments and property developers. It’s very unlikely that agents in competition with you will provide you with this information, however. It’s better to ask agents that operate in a different part of the city. As long as you are confident that you can market and sell anything in New York, then it doesn’t really matter what borough the property developers are active in. Make sure that you do not infringe upon your friend’s territory, however. If you begin marketing properties in their area using the tips they have given you, they won’t help you again in the future.
Client Referrals
Another effective method of learning about developers that are currently remodeling properties in New York is to speak to clients you have already worked with (as in those that develop properties themselves, not individual buyers). Professional property developers are always aware of everything that’s going on in the city. As already mentioned, New York is highly competitive. Property developers are always competing with one another there. With that in mind, it should not come as a surprise that your previous clients will know of other ongoing developments. Whether or not they will be willing to tell you about them, however, depends entirely upon your relationship with them. Endorsing other developers to you could hurt their business.
Previous Clients
While on the subject of approaching previous clients and asking for referrals, it’s also worthwhile asking previous clients if they themselves have any current developers or remodeling projects on the go. Establishing good business relationships is essential if you intend upon forging a career as a real estate agent in New York. By building a good reputation for yourself and building good relationships, you will set yourself up for success in the future. When you are asking former clients of yours for information regarding their current developments, make sure to remind them of the benefits of working with you (whatever they are). You do need to ensure that you treat every client well and forge good relationships with the people you represent. If your clients have had bad experiences with you in the past, then they won’t work with you again in the future.
Website Creation
Many real estate agents find that creating their own website exclusively to find real estate developers and ongoing remodeling projects work very well. This website can then be linked back to the agent’s home site. On the subject of website creation, it’s important to always ensure that your website is high-quality and easy to use. If you have a poorly designed website, then you will struggle to attract clients and people to work with. There really isn’t any excuse for a poorly designed website in today’s digital era. The creation of websites is very straightforward. You don’t need to hire a professional web developer you can do everything yourself with an online web building platform. Going back to our original point, if you don’t want to create a website exclusively for the purposes of finding real estate developers to work with, then you can just go ahead and create a section on your website’s homepage, advertising that you are looking for people to work with.
SEO Marketing
Digressing slightly from this article’s subject, but keeping in line with its last point, if you are going to create a website exclusively for finding property developers, then you need to make sure that you market it online. There are millions of websites on the internet that receive less than one view a day. Just because you have created a website to help you to find real estate developers, that doesn’t mean that you are going to find them (or they are going to find you). The only way to ensure that people find your website is to use SEO marketing. SEO (‘search engine optimization’) is the method through which businesses increase their website’s exposure and appear at the top of the major search engine listings. It involves manipulating these search engine’s algorithms, through optimization. Some ways that you can optimize your website include producing high-quality content, acquiring backlinks, and optimizing your website for mobile usage.
Trade Magazines
If you want to know what’s going on in New York, then there’s nowhere better to look than trade magazines. Trade magazines are specialized magazines, whose target audience works in a particular trade. With this in mind, you need to make sure that you buy trade magazines created exclusively for real estate agents. Bear in mind that when you are reading trade magazines, other real estate agents are doing the exact same thing. An effective way of countering this is to contact magazine editors yourself and try to open lines of dialogue with them. If they are receptive to you and engage with you, you could potentially ask them to tell you about any ongoing developments before they reach the magazine’s pages. This might be difficult at first, but through trial and error, you will learn the best ways to approach magazine editors. More often than not, you are going to have to offer them a financial incentive. If you don’t incentivize working with you to magazine editors, then they won’t help.
News Reports
News reports are also an effective way of learning about current property remodeling projects and developments. Rather than checking out The Times or the NY Post, the best papers to check are small, locally-run newspapers. In these papers, you are likely to find information about ongoing developments. More often than not, these articles are written condemning developers for building more property when New York is already one of America’s most overcrowded cities. Regardless of the article’s spin, you can still benefit from reading them and learning about developments in the area. You might not be able to find out the developer’s name from the article, but once you know the area you can go out yourself and take a look (which we will come to shortly). As with magazine articles, remember that there will be other real estate agents doing the same thing as you. Newspaper editors won’t be as receptive to working with you as magazine editors will, so you need to get out on the ground and act fast.
Get Known
If you build a good enough reputation for yourself in New York, then developers will approach you, rather than you having to approach them. While this likely isn’t possible at this time, years from now it might be. Make sure that you work very well with your clients, and you charge very low fees. By doing this you will ingratiate yourself to them and they will be happier working with you. Building a name for yourself isn’t difficult, as long as you work hard and offer your clients a quality service.
Drive Around
Finally, if you want to find ongoing developments and are just building your name in the industry, then you could consider driving around and looking for them. New York’s a very large city, with a huge population. Finding developments won’t be difficult at all. Most developments have the developer’s name advertised on billboards on-site. All you need to do is to take their name (or number), research them, and get in touch with them directly. Explain who you are to them, be polite, and offer to flip properties on their behalf.
If you are an estate agent working in New York City, then you have your work cut out for you. New York is one of America’s most densely populated cities, and there is a huge demand for property. Because of this, there are lots of estate agents. Knowing the right tips and tricks for finding developers to work with will help you to become a better estate agent and build a reputation for yourself.