5 Tips for Thriving in a Low-Inventory Market

As a real estate agent, housing inventory is the lifeblood of your business—It’s how you find seller clients and deals for buyer clients. 

1. Expand Your Lead Sources 

Less on-market inventory doesn’t necessarily mean fewer opportunities. It just means it’s time to get a little more creative. 

Instead of relying on the MLS alone, explore off-market opportunities. For example, you could search expired and for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) listings. Often, these sellers have had their property on the market for a long time and may be more open to receiving help with selling.

Other ways to find off-market leads include driving for dollars (i.e., driving around neighborhoods looking for distressed properties), networking with other real estate professionals with potential leads (e.g., probate attorneys, divorce lawyers, and financial advisors), and scouring public records for owners of pre-foreclosure and tax-delinquent properties. 

Of course, this can take a lot of time. To speed things up, use a real estate data platform like PropStream to search over 160 million properties nationwide and filter them by pre-foreclosure, divorce, tax delinquency, and other property statuses that could reveal a motivated seller.

2. Strengthen Your Buyer Network 

When property selection is slim, you must build and maintain a strong buyer pool. That way, when you find a good deal, you can immediately match it with the right buyer for a commission.

Start by building a database of buyers in your market. This could include local investors or serious homebuyers interested in moving. Set up online groups for them where you can share updates on exclusive buying opportunities before they go public. 

From there, educate and prepare buyer clients to pull the trigger. This means setting realistic expectations about market conditions, competitive offers, and the overall buying process. If the buyer is financing the home, encourage them to get pre-approved for a loan so that sellers will take them more seriously and the sale is more likely to go through.

3. Leverage Past Clients & Referrals 

It’s no secret that past clients can be a great source of new business. Not only may they want to buy or sell real estate again, but they may have friends and family who do.

The key to leveraging past clients and referrals is to stay at the top of their minds. You can do this by emailing them regular market updates, hosting homeownership workshops, or even offering referral incentives such as gift cards to local stores or restaurants. 

With PropStream, you can easily follow up with past clients and new leads with built-in marketing campaigns. Send custom emails or postcards to leads based on their ownership status, location, and more.

4. Master the Art of Seller Persuasion 

One reason home inventory is low is hesitant sellers. Many are unwilling to give up their low pandemic-era mortgage rates, resulting in a “lock-in effect.”

However, there are still good reasons to sell—especially if mortgage rates fall. 

As a real estate agent, you can persuade homeowners to sell by presenting them with an in-depth market analysis. For example, you can cite local market data, buyer demand trends, and the seller’s equity gained over the last few years as reasons why now is an optimal time to sell. 

In addition, you can coach seller clients on the best pricing strategies. Depending on the market, this could mean overpricing to allow negotiations to lower the price to an acceptable offer or underpricing to incite a bidding war that will drive up the selling price. 

In a low inventory market, sellers are also likely to get multiple offers at higher prices. This could lead to faster closings with fewer contingencies—more reason to sell now rather than later.

Another way to facilitate more deals in a tight market is to suggest creative financing solutions. For example, seller financing lets the seller become the lender, attracting buyers who may not qualify for a traditional mortgage.

Similarly, offering an assumable mortgage or a subject-to deal lets the buyer take over the seller’s existing mortgage payments.

That said, sellers may have other concerns, such as finding a replacement home, moving logistics, and timing challenges. Do your best to address these with empathy and solutions like home-sale contingencies or leaseback agreements.  

Pro Tip: Before suggesting creative financing solutions, ensure their legality in your region to avoid offering unusable options to clients—that can hurt your credibility.

5. Get Creative with Off-Market Opportunities 

Finally, there are countless other ways to find off-market real estate opportunities. It all comes down to who you market to. 

For example, you could search for absentee landlords tired of managing their property from out of state or older landlords looking for an exit strategy. Even if they haven’t listed their property, they may be open to selling if you present them with a strong offer.

Similarly, you can search for heirs who recently inherited property they don’t intend to keep. They may be eager to get it off their hands.

Now, how do you find all these high-intent lead types? There are many ways. You could search public records, run a targeted online ad campaign, or ask for referrals from your network. 

However, the most effective way to find quality leads fast is to leverage real estate data and skip tracing tools like PropStream. It aggregates property data and owner contact information from public records, MLSs, and other sources to help you uncover hidden opportunities in minutes. 

Plus, PropStream offers a comprehensive marketing suite to help you turn leads into listings. Once you’ve skip-traced your leads for contact information, you can set up an automated email or postcard campaign to send out offers. Start your free 7-day trial today and get 50 leads on us!