Real Estate Farming: What is it?
Geographic farming in real estate involves focusing marketing efforts, such as direct mail campaigns, door-to-door canvassing, online advertising, and community events, on a specific neighborhood or area. The goal is to become the go-to agent for that area by consistently providing valuable information, resources, and services to residents.
Agents who engage in real estate farming aim to build brand recognition, establish credibility, and foster relationships within their chosen farm area. Over time, this consistent and targeted approach can lead to an increase in listings, referrals, and sales within the farm area. Successful real estate farming requires consistency and a deep understanding of the target market. Agents must invest time and resources into building relationships, providing valuable content, and staying top-of-mind with residents to yield long-term results.
How Do I Choose a Neighborhood to Farm?
There are a variety of factors that contribute to whether or not a given neighborhood is ideal for geographic farming. Here are some steps to help you select the right neighborhood for your real estate farming efforts:
Analyze Market Trends: Use the MLS to identify neighborhoods that produce lots of sales each year. Areas with high turnover rates are key. As a general rule of thumb, aim to find a neighborhood with 5-7% turnover each year.
Assess Competition: Research the competition in potential farming areas to determine the number of active agents and their market share. Look for neighborhoods with fewer competing agents or opportunities to differentiate yourself from the competition. Look back 12 months to see if any one agent has sold 20% or more of the homes there. If they have, move on to another area.
Review Historical Sales Data: Analyze historical sales data, including average sale prices, days on market, and sales volume, to gauge the overall health and stability of the market. Look for neighborhoods with consistent demand and steady appreciation.
Evaluate Current Inventory: Evaluate the inventory of available properties, including the mix of housing types (single-family homes, condos, townhouses) and price ranges. Are there enough homes for sale right now for your efforts to be worth it?
Conduct On-the-Ground Research: Visit potential farming neighborhoods to get a firsthand look at the area. Pay attention to details such as hilliness (for door-to-door canvassing), how far apart the houses are from each other, and factors that could prevent you from farming there altogether such as security gates and so on.
Remember that real estate farming is a long-term strategy, so choose your farming area wisely and commit to consistent effort and engagement with the community.
Helpful Tools For Geographic Farming
Once you've identified your geographic farm, it's time to get started on your marketing campaign. Creating a customized neighborhood logo for your geographic farm is a highly effective way to present yourself as the local expert. This neighborhood-specific logo should go on all marketing material that goes out to your farm. To create your own- try out this AI logo-maker as well as these other powerful tools to gain traction in your Geographic Farm:
LogoAi - Easily generate a custom neighborhood-specific logo to use on your Real Estate marketing materials.
Ultimate Geographic Farming Campaign - A strategic 6-month marketing campaign complete with custom seller letter templates, door-knock flyer templates, lead-generating events to hold in your farm, and more.
For more Real Estate Agent marketing campaigns, ideas, and templates, check out Structured Agent Elite: a Real Estate Social Network. As a member, you'll also have access to a nationwide Agent Referral Network.
Tip: Always follow marketing and advertising laws. Be sure you're in compliance to ensure your real estate business runs smoothly for years to come.
Disclosure: We may earn a commission from purchases made through referral links in this article.
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