How do you market your appraisal services

[Ray Miller]

How do you market your services?


I have completed the required course for state license. I have passed my state test. I have found a General Appraiser that will inspect and sign off on my work. Now all I need is the required hours of work for real estate. I have thirty years appraisal experience in the equine field and related equine businesses. Such as working guest ranches, ranches, outfitting/hack/saddle horse business. I have also taken the course required for real estate sales and real estate broker and will be taking my state and federal test in a couple of weeks.

I am now doing the following marketing and would like suggestions on additional marketing that I might do. Also input on what I am doing. Good, bad or indifferent.

My local bank has ask me to fill up an application to do work for them. They have six branches in the small towns in our area.

I am sending out mailers to all mortgage, real estate, banks, savings and loans and insurance agencies in the area, I have selected to work in. These mailers announcing the services I offer and my rates. In addition I am running a small three line add in our local shopper papers, under real estate services and/or appraisal services. I am doing several hundred mailers to my clients I had in my other business that I am retiring from after forty one years. I have also set up a new toll free number for the appraisal business to run in the marketing. New appraisal web site is in the works and should be up in a few weeks. I have also gotten 300 business card holders to place around the local business that will hold 20 of my business cards. These are going out to local gas stations, restaurants, barber and beauty shops and etc.

I am also considering the following; running a 30 second spot on the local two local radio stations and running a two inch by three inch ad in our local papers. These ads would be address to the local real estate owner and investor. They would go something like this. “Because of the current changes in Real Value, Real Estate Investment. Be sure of the true value of your property and investment. . This will help you with insurance coverage, financial planning, estate planning and a general feeling of well being that you know the true value you have in your investment.”

I live and work in a very rural area of the state. With small six towns around me in a 15 to 25 mile radius. Our area is changing from rural/farm to rural play farms and acreage, work in the city that is an hour or more a way, come home at night.

Thanking you in advance.

Ray K. Miller, Jr.

auctions@execpc.com

www.appraisalhq.com/emsi

www.saddlefitting.net

 

[Ross (CO)]

Whoa ! , Ray, you're makin' me feel guilty. Sounds like you have definitely launched a spirited effort to get your name out there and that is great. If finances are no limit then all your means of print ads, posted mailers, business cards display stands and possible radio spots will set roots. When you feel you have some "hot" leads it may serve you best to make the face-to-face visits to those prospects and start pressing-the-flesh. You get to look 'em in the eye and read the body language. The quicker they like you, the quicker they can turn an assignment your way. You said you applied to your local bank which has the 6 branches in the area. Have you also gone to each of the six branches and met the managers there ? If they want to use your services and pass that word up-the-line it could be helpful. The thing about radio ads could be that they hearer can not SEE your phone number. How many times can you say the number and still get out the rest of the message. My guess is that more folks are listening to radio when they driving on the road, and many will simply not be able to grab the pencil and paper quickly enough. Any local cable TV ad should display the phone number at bottom of screen through the entire time bit. Always odd that some local ads only flash a number or an address in the closing moments of the ad. I recently had the fortune of getting approved by a major insurance company and made by blitz-tour of 23 of the 33 branch offices in our metro area a few weeks ago. Some warm responses but the fires in the mountains and the entrenched habit of focus to car, home and life insuring exceeds their interest in offering equity and mortgage loan products. Clearly, I have to make return visits or send the "reminder" letter to those branch managers I directly met, and another letter to those where I introduced myself to an administrative assitant only. Today, I am going over the the Chamber of Commerce social-business mixer at the press box lobby above the football stadium at the Air Force Academy. I will check name tags and make my efforts at meeting those from the banker / insurer / financial planner / attorney groups. Certainly, I will speak to the lender too, and I already know their lead-off questions, like 1) what's your fee ? (without being specific to the type of report), 2) do you do comp checks to help us prepare a loan application ?, and 3) what's your turn-time ? In my city there are heaps and gobs of available appraisers and the competition activity is probably quite bold even if you do not encounter it on a daily basis. If several hundred plumbers moved into town in the next few months I'll bet the hourly rate would drop dramatically on the simplest of their homeowners services. Dang that supply-and-demand !

 

[Jo Ann Meyer Stratton]

As an appraiser in an isolated area with only 4 lenders (two of which refuse to order appraisals from me because I am toooo conservative), I have concentrated my marketing to getting my name and access to my web site on NAIFA to every free listing service on the internet. Home owners in my area are shopping the internet--so I get orders from all over the country. If I had to depend on the local lenders, I would have one client and an occasionaly one from the bank that has BPOs completed that are illegal in the state of AZ. They order through an AMC and when they can't convice the illegal preparer of BPOs to take an order, then they order an appraisal. So through my internet prescence I had over 100 different clients last year, enough to remove the unacceptable lenders from MY approved list!

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Safford? I was thinking about slipping thru Tucson next week to see some kinfolk. That's not too far away in Western mileage terms, is it?

 

[Jo Ann Meyer Stratton]

Driving from Arkansas to Tucson, you are probably going to be traveling I-10. My house/office is 25 miles north of I-10 on Highway 191. Safford is another 7 miles north into town. I am at the junction of Swift Trail (the road that goes up Mt Graham) and 191. Give me a call and you can stop by the office or I'll meet you in town to buy you lunch or a cup of coffee. You will get to see both sides of Mt Graham while driving along I-10 from the AZ border to Tucson--that will be highlight of the entire trip! Check out my web site with a view of the east side of Mt Graham taken from my back yard. View at http://www.naifa.com/~jmstratton.

 

[Jo Ann Meyer Stratton]

Terrel:
Just remembered you mentioned Durango. Follow 666/191 south out of Durango and you will end up in Safford. Be prepared for a long drive, it takes 3 hours to drive the 90 miles from Alpine to Clifton, beautiful drive--definitely different than the scenery during the rest of your trip (except for Durango). You will need to drive I-10 back to Arkansas just to rest.