FIND Tip #2: Creating a Real Estate Farming Plan

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This post is the second in our FIND series: Farming Isn’t Dead.

Now that you’ve had a week to research and choose your target neighborhood as your farm, you’re ready to begin creating your plan. Proper planning is essential in making sure your farming efforts utilize your time the most wisely and remain within budget. Don’t have a budget yet? That’s why you need a plan.

Creating your plan is very easy if you remember the 3-in-1 month rule: You MUST make contact with the residents of your farm 3 times each month. One of these contacts should be in person. The other two may be done through mail and/or postcards.

When “walking” your farm and meeting the residents in person, it’s important that you bring something of value with you to give to them. You can give them anything from a sports schedule to a magnet or a coffee mug. Holidays can be a great excuse for handing out things like roses for Valentine’s Day, flags for the 4th of July, or other seasonal items.

The other two contacts through the mail can be your choice. One should be a newsletter or report on current market conditions for their neighborhood and area. The other piece should be something that shows you are active: a “Just Listed” or “Just Sold” postcard or open house invitation.

Once you’ve outlined everything you plan to on a monthly basis, it’s important to calculate the cost of farming. Make sure you factor in the price of printing, postage, and promotional materials. You do not have to spend a fortune to farm effectively, but there will be some costs involved, especially if your broker does not cover the cost of postage. Before you start farming or commit yourself to farming that you can afford to continue farming for the rest of the year. If done right, your plan should pay for itself many times over.

When creating a real estate farming plan, you will want to make sure it includes these things:

1. Budget: How much do you plan to spend each month. $50? $100? $200? Part of this will depend on how much you can afford, how many houses you have chosen to farm, and if you plan on farming through mail or by making personal contact. Walking your real estate farm is a lot less expensive than mailing – and much more effective. Many farming plans fail because agents never utilize walking through their farm and personally meeting the people who live there.

2. Promotional Items: I will be talking more about this in a future post, but it’s important to have a few ideas of what you will be giving to your farm. What will they most likely find useful? What will they keep and what will they throw in the trash?

3. How often you plan to contact: Contacting your farm is very important. The 3-in-1 rule will help make sure you won’t annoy your farm but also show them that you ARE the real estate expert for the area.

4. Goal Setting:It’s important to set goals. Will you convert x amount of FSBO’s from your farm? How many listings do you hope to obtain? How many buyers? How many referrals? If you don’t have goals then you might as well not farm at all if you cannot see any benefits of creating a real estate farm plan.

Creating a real estate farm plan will not only help you succeed in your farming, but it will ensure that you do not fail. Real estate agents who farm without a plan will likely fail because their farming lacks structure, predicability, and effective contact with the farm. Next week we’ll talk about introducing yourself to your farm after you’ve created your real estate farm plan.