How One Realtor's Adaptability Is A Master Class To Surviving In Today’s Real Estate Climate

“It unlocks all of the hidden mysteries of marketing.”

For a housing market full of hungry agents desperate for new tools and innovative avenues to ensure 2024 lifts them up from the trenches through which they were dragged turbulently over the last twelve months, it may sound too good to be true.

It’s not.

Sacramento-based realtor Bryan Lincoln, with over fourteen years of experience across The Golden State, smiles as he considers that flexibility, adaptability, and doing things differently in today’s real estate economy may just be the unlock we all need to survive. 

“In years past, when you can basically throw a brick out your window and hit a listing, you know at that point, you don’t have to advertise as much. But right now, with all the noise dying down in the market and a lot of agents leaving the market…it takes a lot of effort, and a lot of energy, and a lot of consistency to stay in it.”

You can say that again.

Realtors are leaving the industry at staggeringly high rates, with 60,000 ditching their positions within the first half of 2023. And those that are staying? They're fighting over the same limited inventory that has further dwindled since October of last year.

So, how do you survive out there in a market full of turbulent ups and downs?

You adapt.

You pivot.

You open yourselves up to doing things differently.

Why? Because you have to.

Securing A Place In The Industry With The Power Of Adaptability

“Getting into real estate wasn’t something I decided; it’s kind of something that happened to me.”

The recollection seems almost humorous now.

Lincoln naturally excels in kind, empathetic, and authentic communication. His realty’s mission “to be the most customer-service focused real estate brokerage in California” does not go unnoticed as his passion for helping others transcends the screen and clearly drives everything he does.

“One thing I focus on is doing what my customers need and putting their needs first,” he explains.

“I listen to people. Sometimes I’m a therapist, sometimes I’m a babysitter, but I do whatever it takes to help my customers get to their goal.”

If Lincoln didn’t go out to find real estate, we’re all lucky it found him.

Quickly shining in his field, Lincoln chose to stick with it, starting his career in San Jose and moving to Sacramento in 2012.

But it turns out this move changed a whole lot more than simple geography.

It changed the entire real estate game as Lincoln knew it.

Gone was the Silicon Valley market, and here was a more rural, family-based market where residential real estate reigned king.

The old tricks of the trade wouldn’t bring Lincoln success in his new city.

He had to switch things up. 

Getting Experimental With Marketing...And How You Can Too

“In order to reach family-based customers, I had to kind of switch my marketing and advertising to be able to focus in on the things that are important and really, the needs and values of my local customers.”

To double down – personalizing your approach to meet the specific needs of your hyperlocal consumers is a surefire way to get business.

And really, a necessity if you want to excel in your new market. 

Think about it this way.

If you were a thriving real estate agent in Florida, let’s say you spent the day going door-to-door in newly built neighborhoods within your community.

Instead of just leaving your business card, you bestow your new prospective clients with tropical houseplants – a welcome sign of your hospitality in The Sunshine State and a temperate enough gift to last year-round in the coastal humidity and high temperatures of the Gulf.

But let’s say you decide to pack up and move West.

You decide on the dusty gray skies and cool winds of Seattle, Washington, betting your luck on another metropolitan destination on an opposite coast, swearing up and down that because you succeeded across Florida’s sandy beaches, your same methods would win you big here.

Then you discover that tropical houseplants don’t reign supreme in the chilly climates of Puget Sound. 

You find out that houses are selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars more in Pacific Northwest cities. That more homes are selling above list price, and more homes are selling faster. 

You uncover that Seattle and its neighboring communities are more competitive and more costly.

That the cost of living near the home of The Space Needle, Pike Place Market, and along the rocky shores of Alki Beach is 47% higher than the national average.

With such different markets, you’d need more than a fresh pair of rain boots and a venti Starbucks latte to find your footing.

You’d need to change your game.

You’d need to change the way you find your clients, change the way you market to your clients, and change the way you communicate with your clients.

Just like Lincoln did.

He switched his entire approach “from digital-based advertising” to centralizing his focus “on direct mail, person-to-person advertising.”

“I’ve tried almost every kind of advertising,” he explains. “From print media to direct mail to shopping carts to billboards, bus benches, buses – I’ve pretty much done it all.”

And while Lincoln began to find some luck in his new location thanks to direct mail marketing, he ran into a serious catch.

“I was spending a lot of money just kind of shot-gunning things out here: mailing entire neighborhoods, every door direct mail, and I was reaching a lot of people that just really weren’t interested in my business.”

Even with his new approaches…Lincoln needed to adapt.

He needed to try something new.

How Using Targeted Audiences Allowed Lincoln To Personalize His Messaging…And Then Some

Enter: PropertyRadar.

An innovative, hyperlocal lead generation platform, PropertyRadar taps into public record data to productively surface vital information on properties, community demographics, foreclosures, mortgages, and more.

It’s the necessary one-stop-shop for realtors, just like Lincoln, to better understand their community and pave the way for them to reach out to surrounding homeowners in authentic, personalized ways based on the data at their fingertips.

“If somebody is in a house that’s too small – it’s a starter house built in 1930 – I can advertise directly to them the new home developments in the area in an opportunity to move up if they have enough equity in their property to be able to put it towards a down payment to purchase,” explains Lincoln.

Before PropertyRadar, Lincoln used an alternate data-driven program but struggled with the interface. He noted he had to type in specific addresses just to attempt to find what he was looking for.

And checking information one property at a time?

A big time-waster and definitely not the adaptability needed to move fast and pivot efficiently.

But with PropertyRadar’s customization capabilities, which allow customers to hyperfocus on precise locations, home value, and circumstances – Lincoln can now effectively target and connect with those who need his services most.

“When you’re able to select and delineate exactly what you want and mail to those people, it increases your odds,” Lincoln explains. “It’s allowing me to be able to directly reach the people that I’m trying to reach.”

And that kind of precision?

It allows Lincoln to excel at the format of marketing working best for him: direct mail.

Explaining that customers can ignore digital advertisements, Lincoln emphasizes that even if your postcard ends up in the trash, you’ll get eyes on it before it hits the bottom of the bin.

He’s not wrong.

According to USPS, 85% of millennials take the time to look through their physical mail. And 62% read through the advertising mail they get versus tossing it without reading.

Over 50% of Gen Xers use marketing mail as prompts to go online (got that website of yours updated?). And not to be forgotten, Baby Boomers both trust as well as prefer direct mail for receiving promotions over any other generation.

“It’s the most comfortable and effective piece of marketing,” Lincoln notes.

“Rather than paying for clicks on Google ads or even paying Zillow…I’m able to get to exactly who I want to get to with my message.”

Finding a tool that helps you scale and doubling down?

That’s adaptability.

What’s Next For Lincoln? Keeping Up Consistency

We’d be lying if we said one unlock will mean smooth sailing through the housing market for years to come.

That’s why consistency, alongside adaptability, is so necessary in today’s real estate industry and something Lincoln preaches.

According to him, “It’s definitely the long game.”

And that long game, played with consistency, dedication, and a willingness to pivot can mean all the difference between success and failure.

And PropertyRadar is helping him get there.

“I went after a bunch of vacant lots in Lake County,” he explains. “It was an untapped market in Northern California between Napa and Sacramento.”

“I delineated to mail to all residential house size lots over a certain square footage. I sent out - like - 2,000 postcards one day…the next month, I got 30 listings.”

That creativity and eagerness to adapt and try new things are fundamental tickets to entry in today’s turbulent housing market.

“Now, only the strongest are left to survive,” Lincoln notes. “We’ve seen a complete, just, decrease in market inventory in terms of the economy, interest rates are very high, and inflation is high as well. So, a lot of people are waiting…a lot of people don’t qualify for purchases, the buyer pool has shrunk. We went from having bidding wars on houses to sellers giving concessions and discounts.”

Doubling down, Lincoln explains, “It’s completely shifted from being…a buyer’s market to now a desperation market.”

Which is why every minute, every new tool, every new approach must be tried to keep yourself in business.

“Things have pretty much dried up to the point where every sale is a must-sale.”

So what does Lincoln do to remain in the profitable real estate cycle?

He leverages PropertyRadar and makes sure to tap all capabilities to drive himself and his business forward. Beyond the direct mail functionality? Lincoln praises PropertyRadar’s GPS capabilities to provide relevant information for homes he passes on the street.

Outside of that?

It’s consistency. It’s adaptability. It’s pivoting with the patterns of your community and taking time to understand their needs and wants best.

And Lincoln is leveraging PropertyRadar to do just that.

“Right now, with the tools of PropertyRadar, it’s allowing me to maintain relevancy, whereas other...advertising methods get lost in the soup.”

Want to adapt to the needs of your community and leverage data to take the next step forward?

Dive into PropertyRadar's comprehensive data with a free trial in order to scale your marketing reach and grow your impact this year.