Real Estate Marketing to Empty Nesters

If it’s not obvious yet, these are undoubtedly unprecedented times that we are living in. Times that will surely make people with a bias for action a lot of money.

Unfortunately, I’m seeing a lot of real estate investors sitting on the sidelines and watching Netflix, instead of taking advantage of the opportunity right in front of them.  I hope that you can be one of the few who does, by Hustling From Home (TM).

Now, before I continue, while I believe that it is a great time for you to take advantage of the additional motivations created by the Corona virus, I categorically do not condone or advocate using this as an opportunity to take advantage of anyone.  Compassion and generosity should be our default in times like this, that are understandably difficult for a lot of people.

When we treat everyone that we deal with like they are our favorite grandmother, and do what’s right by them, I guarantee you that profit is not far behind.

Before I get into what you should be doing, let me give you an example of how you can use the situation right now to give people what they want.

 

Empty Nesters Could Be Your Most Profitable Segment Right Now

Although the Corona outbreak deserves the serious quarantine measures currently in place, and the stock market erased trillions in net worth almost instantly, I know that this will come to pass, as we saw with the almost immediate rebound of the stock market.  I have seen a couple recessions already, and I’m prepared to ride it out.  This goes for a large part of upper middle class America in the GenX age group that has been through the dot com boom, as well as the housing collapse.

That being said, for this age group, there are a lot of very fortunate high equity homeowners, with kids leaving for college right now.

They bought a nice house in a great neighborhood in a great school system, perfect for raising a family.  The house has served its purpose well, but at this exact time they don’t need it, or want it.

 

They were already motivated, before the virus

What they really want is to downsize and start the next chapter of their lives, before they have to take care of their aging parents.

They’re really excited about it, and they’ve been planning it for years.

Now, if they wanted to sell the house on the market immediately, they can’t. At least not in its current state. As you can imagine, two and a half teenagers and a big dog are why they can’t have nice things.

So they will have to spend the next 3 months to live out of a hotel and rehab the property, before they can even think of putting it on the market.

Fine, they’re fortunate enough to be able to do that, but frankly they’re not that interested in that prospect.

They know that by doing this rehab, they can easily double their money back, but to tell you the truth, they would really rather not have to.

 

They are not always motivated by money

Why? Because they’re ready to go NOW.

What they would rather happen is for an investor to come in and make them a fair offer that works for everyone, in order to allow them to leave the house AS-IS, right now, so that they can go do what they’ve been planning to do for the last 3 years.  And they see this Corona pandemic as something standing in the way of just that.

Right at this very moment, for people like them, it’s not about the money anymore. Time is far more valuable.

All of their friends and neighbors are also seeing their kids go off to college, and are realizing that their homes are better suited for the next family, and many of them have their own plans.

 

Add to that these new motivations

Add to this the Corona virus, and the prospect of doing a rehab on the house with who knows who working on the house, and whether they are infected. This is something that is creating a huge opportunity for someone like you to come in with a solution to those additional motivators.

For some, the motivation is time.  For others, it could be virus fears, and for someone else still, it could be just the anxiety of the unknown.

For example, I personally would be more than happy to walk away from the doubled gain after a 3 month rehab and let someone else take on that project, and reap the benefits of their hard work.

Many other are very fortunate to have built up more than enough equity in their house to not have to quibble over 5% here or 10% there, so they’re ok with that trade, because again, time is their primary motivating factor.

I bet you it’s the same for many other people just like that in your investing area.

The longer this Corona virus fallout persists, the more motivated people will become, and they will be begging for someone to solve that problem for them.

But you know what’s crazy?

 

Low competition as no one is marketing to them

I’m personally not seeing anyone currently marketing.  No brokers, no investors, not a soul.

It’s like the Corona virus has made it so that all of the hustlers lost their hustle and instead has turned them into couch zombies.

Yet people still need to move into new neighborhoods, prepare for the new school year, need solutions to their problems.  Those fundamentals have not changed.

So if you’re not in front of the people who need you, you are missing a golden opportunity, with apparently virtually no competition.

I’m frankly disappointed at my own investor network for not taking this opportunity as I am not seeing them actively marketing to me and people like me, whether through email, or Facebook ads to their websites.

More on the “how” of that next.

But before I get started, if there is one thing that I would like you to take away from this, is to not let an unknown future paralyze you from seeing the bright side of things that is sure to come at the end of all of this, and prevent you from being there for people as a provider of a very important service.

Many people like me, or with a thousand other circumstances need you.

Can they find you?

 

The 6 steps you need to take right now to dominate marketing to empty nesters

Here are 6 actionable things that you need to be doing to be found by empty-nesters.

 

1) Make sure that your lead capture website is set up

If you don’t have a lead capture website yet, how do you expect people to find you?

When a potential lead is looking to sell their house fast, where is the first place they’ll be looking?

Google.

Are you going to come up in the Google search results? Without a website, the answer to that question is a guaranteed NO.

REI/kit lead capture websites take literally 2 minutes to get started with, so if you haven’t created yours yet, there really is no excuse for not having one.

 

2) Get a list of high equity empty nesters.

You can filter REI/kit motivated seller lead lists using 85 different filters to get to this very specific segment.  Here’s how:

 

Geography > Zip Code

Use a zip code of a desirable school system in your investing area.

Property > Bedrooms

Select 4+

This will mean that their house is too big for them, now that the kids are gone.

Property > Equity

Select more than 50%.

The more equity that they have, the more flexible that they can be on terms.

Demographics > Household > Age

Select 45-54 years old

This is about the age of people whose kids have just left for college, but their parents don’t yet need care.  These people have things that they want to do with their lives for the next 10 years and they don’t want to be burdened with too large of a house.

Demographics > Household > Marital Status

Married

Demographics > Presence of Children

No

Options > Owner-Occupied

True

 

When you pull REI/kit lead lists, they are already skip traced, and a large number of them will have emails, and mobile numbers to send your campaign to.

 

3) Send a cold email, SMS, or RVM campaign letting them know that you solve the empty nester problem

You can use the generic cold email outreach template that we have already created for you, as a basis for your campaign, and then edit the emails in the sequence speaking the language that solves the specific problem that I have just presented to you (time, infected workers, anxiety about the future).

 

 

4) Create a custom audience of the above list and market your website on Facebook to them

A custom audience is an audience in Facebook that you define.  You upload a list of customers, or potential customers, and they will match those people, but also find you other people that are similar to your audience.

Facebook has a guide for creating a custom audience from your list here:

https://www.facebook.com/business/help/170456843145568?id=2469097953376494

 

Then you will need to create an ad in Facebook to advertise to your audience.

If you’ve never created a Facebook ad, you can learn how to do this using our guide:

The Step By Step Guide To Your First Facebook Ad For Motivated Seller Leads

All you have to do is change the copy in the ad to match the problem that you are solving, in this case the empty nester problem.  You don’t have to mention the Corona virus by name, instead, talk about how they are feeling and their anxieties.

 

5) Retarget visitors from #3 and #4

Not everyone that visits your website from a Facebook ad will immediately fill in your lead capture form.  It depends where they are in your funnel, described by the AIDA acronym.  (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action).

Your cold outreach from #3 and Facebook ad from #4 addresses Awareness.

They have not heard of you or your solution, and so you are presenting them with the fact that a solution exists to their problem.

Your lead capture website addresses Interest.

If they click on your ad from #4, your website will talk about that solution in depth to get them to understand the benefits of your solution, in order to move them to the Desire stage.

It might take several visits to your website for them to take Action, and submit their contact information on your lead capture form.

This is why you need a Facebook retargeting ad.

A retargeting ad is just like any other Facebook ad, except that the audience is made up of people who have already visited your website, and defined by your retargeting pixel that you need to set up in Facebook business manager.

It’s then very easy to add that pixel to your REI/kit website and begin sending pixel events to Facebook, simply by adding the ID in your website settings.

Once set up, the pixel will record every visit to your website automatically and start building your retargeting audience in Facebook.

At that point, you can create a retargeting Ad targeting those people who have visited your website by being far more specific about the action that you want them to perform.

Because Facebook retargeting ads are only aimed at an audience that has already expressed some interest in your website, their beauty is two-fold:

1 – They are the some of the cheapest ads that you can buy.

2 – The are also some of the highest conversion ads that you can buy

Our step-by-step tutorial on how to create your retargeting pixel, custom audience, and ad is an excellent start: Facebook Retargeting: A How To Guide for Real Estate Investors

 

6) Put your website leads on a Website Lead to Offer email automation campaign

The next thing that you should do, is to make sure that any leads that come through your lead capture website get automatically put on your Website Lead to Offer automation flow.

This flow ensures that no leads that come in through your lead capture website will fall through the cracks, by creating automated tasks and emails to manage your lead flow.

This post and video walks you through that entire email marketing automation flow: How to Automate Your Offer Emails to Motivated Sellers

You can also check out the email marketing automation launch release post.

 

Summary

I hope that helps you visualize one of the immediate opportunities that are present right in front of you despite these difficult times, and the exact steps that you can take, to take advantage of it without ever leaving your house.

REI/kit is a suite of software tools for house flipping and real estate wholesaling that helps you get into more and more profitable deals by combining lead capture websites, email marketing automation, a real estate investor CRM, and the most robust real estate investment analysis tools in the business.