In this article, we discuss how to promote yourself as an international real estate agent. We provide some strategies, examples and observations that have helped our agents and clients in the global real estate market.
What is an international real estate agent?An international real estate agent is a realtor who has obtained special licensing to help clients purchase homes or expand their businesses in countries around the world. Agents can work primarily in their country of residence and help people from overseas to find homes in their home country, or the agent helps clients find homes in other countries, based on their preference.
The international real estate agent assists people to sell their current homes and find them a home to purchase. They help businesses that are expanding into other countries, support clients who are looking to purchase a home overseas and provide professional advice on current real estate trends in certain regions of the world depending on their specialization.
Being an international real estate agent might be a great career choice for you if you're interested in learning more about international brokerage, regional market conditions and selling properties overseas.
Many real estate agents enjoy the idea of developing their property selling skills by expanding to a global real estate market. Selling real estate to a wider audience can increase overall revenue and give you the opportunity to explore other cultures in the world.
International real estate agents
Real estate is a dynamic and challenging business to be in, but the rewards are worth the hard work and effort. The pandemic has greatly affected how people do business in almost every job or market you can imagine, but the real estate industry has proven itself to be resilient and adaptive. There are many factors for an international real estate professional to consider: understanding the market, marketing yourself, working your sales funnel, having quality listings and so much more. There is a lot to pay attention to in order to avoid losing credibility and potential sales.
Understand the real estate market
Understanding the international market is one of the top priorities for a global agent. There are volumes of research, reports, trends and online information to assist you in this, including articles and tips from our own experiences with international real estate agents. For example, do you know how foreign buyers search for property? Research will give you insight into these important basics about the market:
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Customer needs and wants: Do they expect a house with pool, an investment property or a cabin in the woods?
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Investment trends: Learn about the type of buyer that is attracted to foreign property and where that might be.
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Foreign buyer activity: use data to provide solutions for foreign buyers and to predict their buying behaviour.
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Listings and leads: manage your business with a focus on attracting buyers and great customer service
Entering the global real estate market requires you to market your products and services to international buyers, and the best way to do this is to take advantage of the digital tools and research findings that can really give you an advantage. Being informed and developing a strategy will impress both your property seller and foreign buyers.
Global Agent Program
To attract foreign buyers, list your properties on international real estate portals to increase your chances of attracting more buyers. Properstar has a Global Agent program, which is paid subscription with many benefits. Your listings will be published in 60+ countries on 100+ property portals. Review the plan options and find one that suits your business needs. After registering LG/PS will retrieve your selected listings via your CRM, (direct feed or regional MLS), translate them into the language of the audience, enhance the features of your listings, provide larger photos, showcase the agent in a profile, and place your listings higher in search results. Listings are updated daily through direct feeds, though you can update the listing details through your dashboard when uploading manually. Furthermore, agents who work with global clients on average make 50 percent more than agents who work exclusively with domestic clients. Connect with us and a team member will be glad to answer your questions.
Global Agent Insight
The best way to attract clients is to have a large inventory of properties that are attractive to specific client types. For example, people from Hong Kong normally prefer new condominium buildings on the West Coast of the United States.
Market yourself
Developing your personal brand means that through all your combined sales and marketing activities, your clients will have a sense of what your goals are, what your skills are and how you are different from other agents. Buyers and sellers will have some idea of your personality or style. Resonate with your clients by having a strong personal brand.
Building a brand around your personality is an excellent way to attract interest from buyers and sellers.
In today’s economy, it is no surprise that over 95% of consumers use the internet to find a business. This is the same for those looking to buy or sell a home. You must have an online presence.
In order to show up in online searches, you must be active online. This includes engaging with others on social media, maintaining your website and even posting articles on areas of your expertise. If there's something that everyone is talking about in the industry, you can engage in the conversation.
When you post on social media, share the link of your properties on Propertar portal. Your network will have opportunity to support you and share the post, too. Of course, you can return the favor for them! Your Properstar profile page will display your credentials and contact information as well as highlight all your listed properties for sale.
Our network allows you to choose your unique path to success on our extensive, established, and professional network of portals and support services. Learning how to handle the ‘new normal’ can provide you that extra edge that will be noticed by buyers and sellers in the market – all over the world.
Agents need to have a distinctive voice and approach to stand out from the competition. That’s why we have developed marketing resources that provide a polished supplement to your existing personal brand.
Another savvy option for you is to target your audience by utilizing our customizable listing promotions, which places your properties at the top of search results for a specific region and type of buyer.
Differentiate yourself
Today, the world is more connected than ever. Cross border transactions and investments in international property remain stable and global property marketing has become a requirement. You need to impress your selling clients with a robust global marketing strategy that will maximize the exposure of their property to global property buyers.
We can help you efficiently gain access to your chosen market and build bridges first with the key people in your target market before heading out to launch your campaigns. If you are interested in targeting the global market and landing international leads, then you’ll be glad to learn that ListGlobally and Properstar have developed some marketing materials that help you do just that!
Marketing resources to help you succeed
- Global Agent marketing kit
- Luxury marketing kit
- Customized resources for your buyers and sellers
- Share Report for your clients
- Personal brand
Belong to a network that supports you on the path to a profitable and productive career and access your marketing resources.
Global clients need your advice. Help them navigate through the process by having connections to stellar service providers like, inspectors, repair people, attorneys, bankers, high-net-worth advisers — anyone the client may need to close the transaction. Your clients want to know that you are an expert and that they can rely on you to handle all aspects of the transaction. Develop a reputation as an expert international real estate agent and watch your business grow.
Skills when working with international buyers
Foreign buyers are spending more money than the locals when it comes to buying a house, and this makes international customers really interesting to work with. Due to the rising interest of foreign buyers, there is a growing need for global agents to be prepared to work with them. International real estate agents need to find buyers, capture their attention, bring them “aboard”, and prepare the necessary legal documents. Having the relevant information ready to assist international customers will help you to close the sale.
Making a list of the criteria for your foreign buyers is essential. Don’t be shy and ask them a lot of questions. After doing a complete diagnosis of their needs, wishes, and expectations, show them images/videos specifically on these aspects. Provide them with a full summary that will encourage them to imagine life at the property, including any potential for investment gained with the property. It also works the other way – and you may need to advise your local clients about what they need to look for in a property abroad.
Work your sales funnel
We conducted a survey on the habits and preferences of home-buyers and you may be surprised to learn that 21% of foreign buyers did not hear back from the agent that they contacted. Read more interesting findings in our article Foreign buyer survey results, 2021. Homebuyers rely on web content, making online property searches the norm for the vast majority of buyers. However, real estate agents are still the most important source of information once buyers have narrowed down their search and are getting ready to move forward in the buying cycle.
Differing real estate practices and cultural differences present interesting scenarios for international real estate agents, but the bottom line is always affected by how you respect your clients with courteous, timely responses. Following a country’s business etiquette is not only good manners – it’s good business!
Quality listings
Impress your buyers with the quality of your listings. Online property tours are the new trend in real estate and they are vital for both international buyers and an option to offer socially distanced viewings for clients who may be uncomfortable visiting in person. Use stunning photography for showcasing individual rooms and their features and use video to express the lifestyle and layout of the entire home. Videos are great to show buyers how they can interact within the space.
In today’s world, where visual impact prevails, it is paramount that the listing images attract the potential buyer as they scroll online. When you have made that sale, it turns out that the picture was not only worth a thousand words but also worth thousands of $ to your bottom line. We talk more about location, photo orientation, furnishings etc. in this helpful article. It is becoming more important in the competitive real estate market, to provide drone footage, gather community information, or hire professionals to stage homes, so that your listing is attractive, informative and cannot be resisted by buyers!
In some cases, perhaps the property is not selling as quickly as the owner would like. It could be that the listing is missing some key information, or that the description does not seem appealing. There can be several reasons for this, and we discuss them in depth in the article 6 Reasons Why Your House is not Selling.
Global Agent Insight
Be familiar with not only what is happening domestically, but what is happening internationally. Global buyers often comparison shop, not only between cities, but between countries as well.
Networking
When working with foreign buyers you will be losing real estate sale opportunities if you are not listing properties internationally. However, agents who love working with international clients can give us some tips and insight into just how successful this market can be.
Online reviews from customers have created a new field in marketing and communication that can influence a potential client. It’s important to collect testimonials from customers and share it online. All of us are interested in knowing what others say before we make a buying decision. Collecting and sharing testimonials will enable newer agents to stand competitively with more established competition.
We often check in with our agents to help us better understand their needs, to give them a voice and to create customer loyalty – all similar tactics that you can employ in your real estate business.
The power of partnership
We are excited that you are interested in marketing yourself as an international real estate agent. This is our business too, and we work closely with agents and their clients from every corner of the globe. There are many ways that our prior experiences and gained expertise in this field can benefit you.
We always talk about Properstar being an international network, but we are much more than that. We are a selling tool, we are a differentiator, and we offer the opportunity for you to be at the forefront of international real estate. We talk about 5 ways that your partnership with Properstar gives you a selling advantage in the international real estate market.
If you have read this far, you can be assured that international real estate is really a passion that you would like to pursue, or you see that there are ways that you can increase your business activity by entering the global real estate market. The next step is to contact us, and we can talk more about building your listing reach, your client portfolio and your business profile. The power of partnership will make us both successful in the international real estate market. Are you ready to get international?
Learn more about Properstar
Properstar offers you all the marketing tools necessary to attract buyers and provides you with two networks of portals to expand the distribution of your listings on a larger scale, and capture a clientele suited to your properties.
