- Ads are not enough to impress international agents; share market information to generate international business.
As the founder and CEO of Coldwell Banker France and Monaco, other realtors often ask me about how to get into international luxury.
Let’s talk about the two questions I get asked the most:
- How can I make sure my ads are seen by the wealthy around the world?
- How can I receive leads from buyers around the world?
Let me start with a personal question: if you wanted to buy an apartment in Paris, how would you go about finding it?
You will quickly find our French real estate portal SeLoger, and since you don’t know Paris well, you probably wouldn’t know where to start.
You would then try to find a friend who has a property here or someone with family in Paris who could tell you where to look. Eventually, you also called a French agent that you knew, like me, or someone to whom you were referred.
Well it works the same for the rich of the world who come to buy in the United States
While you can advertise on sites like SeLoger, Rightmove, and Zoopla in the UK, remember that the wealthy use these sites for local listings, not international.
Instead, they’ll start with the major US sites and Google to take a look at the listings. But just like the example I gave earlier about moving to Paris, properties probably won’t mean much to them just because they’re unfamiliar with the area.
Instead, they’ll call people they trust, including friends who have recently bought property in the United States to ask them who they’ve worked with or a real estate professional in their country who has issues. international relationships.
Sending me, or sending me other international agents, your ad doesn’t help you much either. I can’t tell you how many emails I get per day from US agents sharing their new listings. I feel bad because I don’t have time to look at them so I put them all in a separate email file.
I’d rather you send me your market information and explain to me why my clients should consider your city.
For example, I recently received a list from an agent in Boston. I’ve never been to Boston, but I know it’s a big city.
It would have been much better if the agent shared details of the Boston housing market, investment opportunities, and even details of which countries have the most international students at Harvard and other colleges.
I would have been interested, and we probably would have started a relationship.
I believe when you share information, you share business, and lists are not intelligence.
As for international leads, this also comes down to making a strong commitment to building relationships.
When I started Coldwell Banker France and Monaco, I knew I was going to have to work hard to develop relationships in the United States. I started by spending a lot of time on Facebook to develop my audience.
I have attended as many Coldwell Banker and real estate industry events as I could and have reinvested 25-35% of my business income in these efforts.
Slowly I made friends, and references started to come from American agents who are now dear friends. I recently visited Miami to see some friends, and they unexpectedly asked me to meet their client who finally sold me their Paris apartment.
I think the best American agents should travel like me. Meet us in Paris and visit the best real estate professionals in Spain, Italy and the UK
Germany is also important. It will be more difficult to find the right people in Russia and China, but not impossible. It will be a time investment for you that will pay off in the end.
There is a lot of business going in and out of the United States, Europe, Russia, the Middle East, India, and Asia. It is clearly not possible to know the 36 million millionaires in the world, but we can all do a little more each year to make sure that we are in front of the right professionals in our industry who touch them.
These are the relationships that will bring you global business.
Laurent Demeure is the founder and CEO of Coldwell Banker France & Monaco.
