The Ultimate Guide to Geo-Farming in Real Estate

INTRODUCTION

Who is geo-farming in real estate?

Top-producing real estate agents typically employ a multi-faceted strategy for prospecting and business development. Most of these agents will focus on newly EXPIRED LISTING LEADS as the foundation of their prospecting outreach. Secondarily, they may prospect FOR SALE BY OWNER LEADS, understanding that most FSBOs (90% or more) will eventually turn to a real estate professional after going it alone for several months.

Another revenue source for top performers is targeting specific neighborhoods or sub-divisions. This neighborhood approach is known as either geo-farming or circle prospecting. Most agents use these terms interchangeably, but technically, they mean different things, as discussed below.

Real estate geo-farming.

Are there particular neighborhoods you are in and out of all the time?  Do you want to be the neighborhood specialist who comes to mind when homeowners are ready to sell or know someone who is?  Geo-farming is more of a long-term strategy designed to establish you as the “go-to” agent in a particular area.

The approach to geo-farming includes:

• Consistently market to homeowners in your selected geography to keep your name top of mind with them.
• Your marketing strategy may involve direct mail campaigns, door-knocking, sponsoring local events or charitable organizations.
• You may also phone prospect using advanced technology, such as Vulcan7’s NEIGHBORHOOD SEARCH TOOLS, which are discussed below in more detail.

Geo-farming is a strategic approach designed for agents who would like to be known as the “go-to expert” in a particular area or neighborhood.

Real estate circle prospecting.

Circle prospecting is a more immediate strategy that capitalizes on an agent’s recent activity in an area, notably:

1. Just-listed outreach: When one house goes on the market, another in the neighborhood typically goes on the market within 2-3 weeks. When you take a listing with a Vulcan7 expired, FSBO, or FRBO/Investor, call around it in order to grab the next listing! Let homeowners know you are a trusted agent in their neighborhood. They may be open to selling, and they may want to hand-pick their new neighbor by bringing you a buyer.
2. Just sold outreach: You (or a colleague) just sold the home down the street!  Your credibility with neighbors is at an all-time high when you make these calls.  Neighbors may know the real estate market is strong, but they may not know what it means for them.  Hearing that the home down the street sold at a record-high neighborhood price or in record time could be the catalyst a potential seller needs to take action.

The circle prospecting strategy includes:

• Calling or sending flyers/postcards to homes within a fairly tight radius of recent activity.
• Highlighting your success as a listing agent to see if the homeowner might be interested in selling their home soon.
• Or, asking the homeowner if they have friends or families who might be interested in moving to the neighborhood.

Again, circle prospecting is designed to leverage recent sales activity to secure additional business in a given area.

So, let’s summarize the difference between these two real estate prospecting approaches.

• Geo-farming is a longer-term strategy involving ongoing marketing to build the agent’s reputation as a neighborhood specialist.
• Circle prospecting is tied to recent sales activity and is designed to more immediate results.

In the next section, we’ll define geo-farming and discuss the benefits of becoming a neighborhood specialist.

REAL ESTATE GEO-FARMING

Towards an understanding of geo-farming.

As we said in the previous section, an agent might focus on geo-farming in real estate to establish themselves as a specific area of an MLS.

Let’s look at a few of the characteristics defining a geo-farming strategy.

• A value proposition: You provide value to the residents of your areas through market updates, home valuations, and referrals to home improvement specialists (e.g., landscapers and painters).
• Building your personal brand: Through ongoing marketing and involvement in local community activities, you can imprint your name as someone to trust with the sale of a home.
• Continuous marketing: You’ll need to invest time and energy to keep your brand top of mind in your chosen area. This marketing outreach could include phone prospecting (using Vulcan7’s Neighborhood Search tools), direct mail campaigns (postcards, newsletters), door knocking, local events, social media advertising, and online marketing tailored to that geographic region.

Benefits of geo-farming.

Real estate agents can realize a variety of benefits through geo-farming. Here are a few:

• Local credibility: Consistent marketing and listing success in a specific area establishes you as the go-to expert in the neighborhood. This credibility can be enhanced as you gain a deeper understanding of local trends, property values and issues that might be relevant to future home buyers.
• High-quality referrals and leads: As you establish your brand and reputation, satisfied customers will likely refer you to friends and family. This allows you to build your prospecting pipeline over time.
• Community goodwill: Investing time and energy in your local community builds goodwill, which ultimately translates to being a real estate agent that people will trust with the biggest financial decision they might ever make.
• Competitive point of difference: Real estate is a highly competitive business. As such, if you position yourself as a neighborhood expert, you create a distinct point of difference versus other agents in your area.

THE VULCAN7 GEO-FARMING/CIRCLE PROSPECTING EDGE

Leveraging technology to drive your business.

Whether it’s making just-listed/just-sold calls, creating buzz for your open houses, or prospecting buyers and sellers in any given area, circle prospecting software should be part of your overall prospecting strategies. When it comes to Real Estate circle prospecting, Vulcan7 Neighborhood Search is far and away the best circle prospecting software in the business.

Vulcan7 Neighborhood Search provides various map searches, advanced search filters, PLUS, single address, and bulk upload search options. Upgrade to our Premium Leads package, and you will also get verified emails, plus richer, more up-to-date, on-demand data, including more phone numbers.

Premium Neighborhood Search.

Vulcan7 Neighborhood Search is the best Neighborhood Search data on the planet. With its powerful CRM and built-in dialer, hands down, you can’t get better than this! Make more calls AND talk to more people with our enhanced neighborhood data. Use this powerful data to not just reach new clients, you can also use this product to update your existing database with missing/outdated info.

Vulcan 7’s Neighborhood Search has long-been considered the best in the industry. It features a powerful CRM and built-in dialer that allows you to make more calls to more people with its enhanced neighborhood data.

Following is a breakdown of the key features of Vulcan 7’s Neighborhood Search.

Real Estate Neighborhood Data.

Get real-time contact data for your neighborhoods using Vulcan7’s real estate geographic farming tool. Every query searches the live database and returns the freshest data to get you in contact with homeowners that need your help more quickly. Whether you’re looking to prospect a single address, a database of contacts, or a geographic area, Vulcan7 Neighborhood Search can help you find your next listing.

Find just the homes you are looking for with our advanced filtering system: search for absentee owners, by the length of ownership, property value, or look for just single or multi-families.  You can even search by property details like the number of bedrooms, square footage, or acreage.

Vulcan 7 neighborhood real time/live data results.

Once you enter a query, Vulcan7 begins searching a live database with current contact information in real time, unlike historical archived databases other neighborhood searches use.

Quick results.

V7 Neighborhood Search returns results in batches allowing you to start dialing on hot leads right away. At any time, request more leads and the next batch will download. Don’t wait for thousands of results to load just to spend all of your time dialing through old contact info. We know your time is valuable, get to what matters – faster.

Range Search.

Enter an address, then select miles to draw a radius or use the radius draw tool and draw your own radius.

Radius search.

Enter an address then select miles to draw a radius or use the radius draw tool and draw your own radius.

Single address search.

Use an existing address to quickly find contact information.

Bulk upload.

Bulk Upload is a great way to locate contact data for a group of addresses. Upload your existing database and easily reconnect with those you have lost touch with due to out of date or missing contact data.

Name search range.

Name and save your search to quickly find specific neighborhoods when you return

Contact folders.

Each search is nicely packaged into a folder based on the ‘custom name’ you provided. This makes it easy to return to your neighborhoods and begin dialing more of the great leads.

FINAL THOUGHTS

What the pros say about Vulcan7 Search tools

For additional tips on circle prospecting and neighborhood search, check out our blog post CIRCLE PROSPECTING SUCCESS REQUIRES THE RIGHT TOOLS.

Whether you are using circle prospecting as one part of your prospecting matrix, OR, you want to focus on being the neighborhood expert in your area, it’s worth checking out Vulcan 7’s Neighborhood Search. Learn more HERE.

Doug Spak

Doug Spak has over four decades of experience as an advertising copywriter, agency creative director, blogger, and content creator. He joined Vulcan7 as a Content Specialist in 2016. In addition to ongoing website copy refreshes, Doug has produced over 300 blog posts while developing content for Vulcan7’s social media platforms.