Featured Real Estate Agent of the Month

“The Power of Persuasion”

Leonard Klein, ABR, e-Pro, USAA
Schweppe Burgdorff ERA
Montclair, NJ

This month, HomeGain is recognizing Leonard Klein from Montclair, NJ for his excellence in salesmanship and persuasion. With home sales slow in many markets, the following testimonial from Leonard’s client may provide powerful insight into the challenges of working with today’s home sellers.

The home seller’s testimonial is as follows:

“Right off the bat, Lenny impressed us with his professionalism and quickly gained our trust. He advised us wisely about what work needed to be done and to increase the value of our home, and once the house was ready for showings, Lenny came in (proverbial guns ablazing) with some mind boggling advice to list our house a bit lower than we hoped to sell for. His theory was that the lower price would generate increased interest among buyers. We threw caution to the wind and trusted his advice.

Once word got out in the neighborhood about the asking price of our home, several neighbors approached us and told us we were crazy. Truth be told, we started to doubt the decision as well. However, we didn’t have much time to entertain our thoughts because within four days of listing our home, we received multiple offers. Ultimately, we accepted an offer for $21k over the asking price with only six days on the market ($11k more than we wanted to list it for in the first place).

Lenny is the kind of Realtor you want on your side. He’s a true salesman, but with added bonus of integrity, intelligence, and, the most memorable of all, a terrific personality complete with an unmatched sense of humor. Whenever Lenny was around, no matter how stressful the pressures of moving can become, he always made us laugh.

We can’t write a letter about Lenny without also pointing out how much we appreciate his continued efforts to stay in touch with us. We appreciate every card, note and email he sends.”

Regards,
Paul and Melissa Skabich
January 11, 2008

Leonard Klein has been a HomeGain AgentEvaluator member for over eight years. He stated: “The longer I've been a member, the more business I've gotten through them. I think HomeGain is a great tool for real estate agents and for clients (consumers), as well, because they do not have to give up their anonymity and can choose whether they respond to an agent (proposal) or not.”

Leonard’s achievements and recognitions: NJAR Circle of Excellence Award 2007, 2006, 2005, 2003; President's Club 2006, 2005; ERA Beyond Excellence Award 2006, 2005; USAA Agent of the Year 2004, 2002

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Question of the Month

Dear HomeGain,

I use BuyerLink and one of the free landing pages, but want to know if I can also use the landing page for my other marketing strategies. It does a great job at generating leads and I want to send visitors from other sources there, too. Am I allowed to do this?

-- Wendy Armante, Nashville, TN

Dear Wendy,

As long as you are a subscriber to BuyerLink, the landing page is yours to do what you like! We have several agents who are using their landing page to receive traffic from other referral sites, pay-per-click campaigns and even offline advertising strategies.

Some agents have kept the URL we have provided for the page (i.e. http://demo.rightlanding.com) or purchased a domain that reflects their brand. Then, they take this domain, put a re-direct on it so that visitors are sent to the landing page and are able to maintain their brand while achieving the same conversion rates.

If you are using the landing pages for multiple marketing sources, make sure you also pay close attention to the statistics tab within your control center. In the statistics area, you can see the number of visitors who came to the site as well as the number of leads. What you’ll want to pay close attention to is the referring URL next to each lead/visitor. This tells you where your visitors are coming from, and which one of your marketing campaigns needs a bigger investment, or downgrade.

Best Regards,
Matt Malmgren, Manager, Client Services

Poll of the Month

NEW! HomeGain Media Center includes news, articles, videos, calendar of events, statistics and more.

Industry Bloggers Make Guest Appearances on
HomeGain Blog

HomeGain has assembled some of the best real estate bloggers in the country to contribute content to the HomeGain Real Estate Blog.

Starting this month, HomeGain has started posting content not only from HomeGain real estate agents and employees but also from some of the industry’s leading bloggers, including:

Brian J Brady, Use HomeGain or Blog?
Jay Thompson, Why Do I Blog?
Nicole Nicolay, Real Estate Blogging Made Easy
Mary McKnight, Using your blog to be a successful Realtor not a failed writer
Patrick Kitano, Urban Myths about Real Estate Blogging

HomeGain Recognizes Employee for Excellence in
Customer Service

HomeGain strives to provide its customers with a high level of care and attention in response to their needs and to help them succeed with HomeGain programs as well as in real estate in general. In line with this idea, HomeGain is pleased to announce that it has launched a Customer Advocate of the Month program.

Doug Haas, Account Manager in Client Services, has been selected as the first Customer Advocate of the Month. Doug was selected by his colleagues and agents to receive this recognition and to be representative of the standards that HomeGain strives to uphold for its customers.

Reasons why he was selected:

From Doug’s Manager:
“Every day that he works, Doug’s number one priority is providing excellent service to his customers. Colleagues, management, and other departments have all taken notice of and trust Doug to take care of customers needs, knowing that he will go the extra mile to make sure the customer is a satisfied customer. Doug has been with HomeGain for over six years and even though he has been in different roles, his goal is always the same; how can I make my customer happy?”

From Scott Patterson, a BuyerLink and AgentEvaluator customer:
“I have been very pleased with HomeGain. I am especially impressed with the customer service I receive from Doug Haas.”

From Randy Hendricks, an AgentEvaluator customer:
“I complement Doug Haas as he has been professional and a good support in accommodating my needs and wishes.”

From Elia Cooper, an AgentEvaluator customer:
“Doug is great and his product knowledge and follow up on requests is absolutely superb.”

Give Your Listings a Boost! As a HomeGain member, you can upload your home listings for FREE.

HomeGain Clubs

Congratulations to HomeGain's newest Gold Club and Platinum Club members. These members represent our top performing real estate professionals nationwide and receive a reduced referral fee rate.

To find out if you may qualify for Gold or Platinum status, please contact your Regional Manager or send an email to agent@homegain.com.

January New Members

Agents who have closed $75,000 in gross commissions from HomeGain leads

Find the estimated value of homes. Try our new instant home valuation tool.

In This Issue

• Featured Agent
• Question of the Month
• Monthly Poll
• HomeGain News
• New Gold and Platinum Club Agents

Marketing Solutions

• AgentEvaluator
• BuyerLink
• Source4Sellers
• AIMS

Top 5 Blog Posts

• The Failed Promise of Real Estate 2.0
• Urban Myths about Real Estate Blogging
• The Case Against Blogging
• Improving Your AgentEvaluator Proposal Success
• HomeGain Announces Max/Yahoo! Marketing Pact

SUGGESTION BOX

WIN a set of MP3 speakers if your suggestion is used!

February's Winner:

Nancy Handler submitted the idea to include the age of the home for Source4Sellers. Nancy’s idea will be incorporated in the coming months.

January's Winner:

Howard Gordon’s idea was to have a suggestion box!

Questions?
Comments?

Call 888.542.0800 or email us.