{"id":11085,"date":"2017-01-30T06:31:42","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T12:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=11085"},"modified":"2018-01-02T15:44:08","modified_gmt":"2018-01-02T21:44:08","slug":"rural-real-estate-when-youre-the-only-game-in-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2017\/01\/rural-real-estate-when-youre-the-only-game-in-town.html","title":{"rendered":"Rural Real Estate: When You’re the Only Game in Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

Small town real estate agents can compete on personal service and sharing their knowledge. Photo by Becky McCray.<\/p><\/div>\n

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By H. E. James, MBA<\/p>\n

Rural businesses occupy a unique place in their communities.\u00a0 If you own one, you know that you have a corner on your market while possibly having a market on the corner.\u00a0 This is especially the case for niche businesses like real estate agents.<\/p>\n

In small towns, there is unlikely to be more than one real estate office, let alone more than one agent.\u00a0 However, having a corner on the rural real estate market doesn\u2019t mean you can sit back and let business just come to you.\u00a0 In today\u2019s real estate game, even rural agents have to work to keep their businesses fresh and appealing.<\/p>\n

Go Digital<\/h2>\n

Real estate buyers, from the commercial to the residential, have much better access to the wide world of property than ever before.\u00a0 This is especially true for rural residents.\u00a0 They have less access to metropolitan areas and service providers.\u00a0 Internet use is key to how they research, shop, even live.<\/p>\n

The real estate industry is changing rapidly in many ways<\/a>, and the most significant is the use of mobile internet.\u00a0 This allows users to conduct their own research and price comparisons before even selecting an agent.\u00a0 If your rural real estate office wants to be that agent, you have to make your listings digital.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to create your own mobile interface, but if you don\u2019t have a website, there\u2019s no time like the present.\u00a0 If your office is small and a bespoke website isn\u2019t in the budget, post your listings on a national site like Land and Farm<\/a> or United Country<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These sites allow both independent agents and larger offices to share their listings around the country and the world.\u00a0 It also allows potential clients nearby to get a glimpse of you as an agent and your community before investing in either.<\/p>\n

Be Personal<\/h2>\n

Large real estate firms typically churn buyers and sellers.\u00a0 They have multiple agents who have multiple clients.\u00a0 For a small rural office like yours, one of the best ways to stand out from the bigger firms, especially when listing online, is to offer personal service.<\/p>\n

When possible, focus on one buyer or seller at a time, avoiding conflicts of interest.\u00a0 During the house-buying process, I was often frustrated at the time it took my agent to get back to me, and I ended up being the one who found my house\u2019s listing, via the Internet.\u00a0 The same has happened to my parents, who moved from one small town to another.\u00a0 They went through multiple rural agents before finding one who could cater to their needs, both residential and commercial.<\/p>\n

Personal services are a great differentiator because you are often working with customers who only have a few pieces of a puzzle.\u00a0 Offer education on things like capital gains and tax deductions<\/a>.\u00a0 These can often be news to a first-time seller and can cost her a great deal of money if she isn\u2019t prepared for them.<\/p>\n

Multi-Task<\/h2>\n

This may seem counterintuitive to offering personal service, but wearing more than one hat as a rural real estate agent can help you offer that assistance and education.\u00a0 If you focus on rural commercial real estate, such as what my parents own, it behooves you to be a master of codes like state taxes<\/a> and local commercial building requirements<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I spent a number of years working in planning, zoning, and building for my city, and I regularly encountered experienced real estate agents who know nothing about taxes, building codes, and permitting in their markets.\u00a0 This recurrent theme cost customers a lot of money in fees, which ultimately led to the agent losing business.<\/p>\n

Small businesses such as rural real estate offices cannot afford to lose customers because of these kinds of oversights.\u00a0 Broaden your horizons into real estate taxes or renovation services in order to stay competitive in the digital world.<\/p>\n

Your office may have a corner on the rural real estate market, but that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ll always have it.\u00a0 Stand out from the crowd by offering digital listings, a high level of customer personalization, and an abundance of services.<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By H. E. James, MBA Rural businesses occupy a unique place in their communities.\u00a0 If you own one, you know that you have a corner on your market while possibly having a market on the corner.\u00a0 This is especially the case for niche businesses like real estate agents. In small towns, there is unlikely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":11092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,8],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Empty-Building-Ardmore-Oklahoma-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11085"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11085"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11094,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11085\/revisions\/11094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}