3 Ways too many competitors affect new real estate agencies in Zimbabwe !

 

Are you having these challenges?

1. Not having enough customers

2. Unable to identify prospective clients

About Author 

Cain Ndhlovu is a Digital Marketing Agent at Sunrise Consultancy and a Property Blogger on Property Matters News. Cain helps

immovable property owners (landlords), prospective sellers, prospective buyers and tenants with real estate information that they can use in informed decision making so that they genuinely benefit from the world’s best investment - real estate and live happier.  Since his property blog tops major search engines’ rankings for certain key words and its accompanying Facebook page has a strong property specific following Cain also help estate agents, conveyancers and property search sites with digital marketing services that exposes them to exactly the right prospects so that they improve their sales.

I understand your pain …

In 2007 a friend called Thando helped me to get employment as a sales negotiator at an estate agency. The remuneration wasn’t desirable because it was a commission only arrangement that meant no sale no income.

A national economy that was nose diving, competition and the company’s poor marketing conspired to hit hard on my sales. These moments were difficult because I was just a school leaver without any relevant training. The only thing I knew best was writing poems a high school passion and my master piece was titled Wilderness Wanderer which talked about a beautiful girl in search of true love. Surely I could not write love poems for prospects but somehow I managed to turn poem writing to property article writing.

My generous friend noticed this new development and the great marketing potential it had especially when the articles were exposed on the world wide web as a result my blog Property Matters News  was born in 2012. 

The Results

The year 2014 was a turning point because I earned Usd 1 000.00 through my new real estate blog. It all started when I wrote an article titled, “ Financial consequences of purchasing property from a seriously-ill seller and other purchases to avoid ”. The post found resonance in the heart of a Harare lady who after reading it decided to sell her land in  Madokero Harare. The lady had an outstanding balance on a Msasa house she bought from a seriously ill seller. She decide to urgently settle the balance after reading the post.A blog demonstrated how digital marketing can be an answer to the problem of competition. Today as more and more real estate agencies flood the market digital marketing based solutions are needed more than ever before.

 I will be giving digital marketing options that will help estate agents win but I will start by giving the effects of too many competitors new real estate agencies are facing.

3 Ways too many competitors affects new real estate agencies in Zimbabwe!

1. Failure to raise seed capital

Size of affected firms : Individually run real estate agencies > 0 employees  

These are one man enterprises usually start-ups in which the business owner is all in one - the receptionist, sales negotiator and the principal agent.  Many of these outfits operate from home or premises that are not traditional places of business.

The reason behind this arrangement are costs emanating from things like office space, salaries and negotiator’s fees required by law. Since work is overbearing upon one man definitely getting employees is a dream but many real estate proprietors at this stage faces serious challenges related to raising the needed seed capital.

Though seed capital can be raised from family and friends loved ones would also want to see the proprietor raising own capital especially through revenue generated. They would be motivated to support something demonstrating that it has potential to stand on its own. The pressure to generate revenue from traditional sources of estate agency income like property management, valuation and property sales would be on from day one.

 But if the fierce competition is not answered the hard fighting entrepreneur will eventually be forced to close shop and seek employment. For many years he or she would be haunted by a conscience of failure arising from dreams of becoming an own boss that never materialized.

2. Failure to pay employees, office rent and other obligations

Size of affected firms : Micro real estate agencies > 1 – 5 employees  

These guys are business people of firsts. For example they are renting premises for the first time, they have purchased new or second hand office furniture for the first time, they are employing other people for the first time .... As much as being the first is great at the Olympics it isn’t necessarily the case for the micro agencies at this point because all these firsts means new costs therefore, revenue should proportionally increase in order to match.

If competition is strong it can be responsible amongst other things for the chocking of efforts designed to effect the much needed revenue increase. For example there has been an increase in in-house property management by property owners as they tried to save. This means estate agents will scramble for the little property management opportunities that remains in the market. Eventually many vulnerable micro outfits will fold.

Property management income is critical since it is the only one that is almost guaranteed monthly others like commission from sale proceeds is seasonal. If such income continue to fail coming the business can begin to incur debts and if this happens it in turn lead to expensive lawsuits at both the labour and civil courts.

3.Failure to grow the business to the next level

Size of affected firms : Small real estate agencies > 6 – 30 employees

An estate agency at this stage has demonstrated some clout for example being able to meet its obligations like salaries of its initial employees, paying rent, statutory obligations etc and moving to the next level is its natural progression. Moving to the next level or growth means beginning to invest into strategic areas like branch network, ITC and better talent. This will require more money and more revenue. More revenue means sources of income like management, sales and valuation are giving more income and you are answering well to whatever the competitors are throwing at you. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. You should remember that competition at this stage is more serious because if you are to get more revenue that will mean displacing stronger brands and that wont be easy.

Getting a loan will not eliminate the need for standing up to the competition either. Remember after borrowing there should be more revenue in order to ensure that the loan can be serviced after paying expenses.

Indeed, competition is a plague affecting many new real estate firms it affected me too during my early days in the industry but I found an answer to it and its called digital marketing. I shall share digital marketing options an estate agent can pursue in order to win but in the meantime lets look at the 4 Common Digital Marketing Mistakes.

4 Common Digital Marketing Mistakes

 1. Not marketing your website or blog

Many believe that once a site is live it will market itself and visitors will flock to it in their millions. This is fallacious of course. Why ? Because without real efforts to distribute your site’s content especially on social media and search engines your site is wasted resource. There are over 1 billion websites on the internet today so what are the chances of someone stumbling upon yours?

2. Having unrealistic expectations

Sometimes this is caused by the assumption that online initiatives have overnight results. Yes there are cases of exceptional success but these are rare at best. If you are wise you don’t base strategy on exception but on rule . The rule is that online success is built upon hard work not shortcuts.

3. Engaging in shady practices

A programmer once told me he could improve my blog’s ranking on Google for certain key words. When I asked him to explain how I discovered that his methods were what Google Inc call SEO spam or black hat methods that may involve tricking the search engine into giving you a better search ranking for certain key words. Google has invested millions for combating SEO spam that is why they have developed Google Penguin a software dedicated to punishing websites involved in what it may deem black hat methods. Being penalized by Google is something difficult to fix.

4. Marketing to everyone

Many companies erroneously measure a website’s success by the quantity not quality of visitors. For start-ups, micro, small to medium enterprises (MSMEs) successful marketing is usually niche marketing. A site require the right visitors because at the end you need visitors who will convert to customers.