Realtors and the firms they represent are reshaping their business strategies in their turbulent, changing housing markets.
Some are turning to the Internet in hope of out-shining the creative Web pages of their competitors to attract more buyers and sellers. Others are buying expensive air time on local broadcast media. Bay East Association of Realtors is even paying TV30 to produce and show regular programs about local real estate issues to be seen by a Tri-Valley audience that watches this taxpayer and Comcast-supported community station.
Most, though, area continuing to focus their ad dollars and promotions on the print media, including this newspaper that circulates to more than 16,000 homes in Pleasanton and stays in the house longer as family members catch up on local news and advertising.
Now, there’s an added strategy, which Jahan Honardoost, owner and managing director of Windermere East Bay Realty, which Honardoost calls his holistic approach. It’s patterned after the stockbroker firms which he watched closed during 26 years in corporate sale and marketing in the Silicon Valley.
Stockbrokers saw long ago how the dynamics were changing in their business,” Honardoost said. “Investors saw that they didn’t have to pay $400 for a single transaction. Discount brokers were handling those transactions for $9.99 with much of the same service.”
To survive, grow and prosper in the fluctuating real estate market today, Realtors must do the same, Honardoost said. They have to respond to much more of the real estate needs of buyers and sellers than just the transaction of selling or buying a home.
“Windermere has become more than a real estate firm,” he explained. “Today, we’re really in the business of value creation, intensely focused on creating value for our clients. Because the market has changed, we have changed, too, providing buyers and sellers with much more than just those services, serving, in fact, as their financial planners, mortgage planners, CPA, tax analyst and even having advisors to provide them with a holistic approach to their retirement plans.”
Honardoost calls his Koll Center Parkway firm a “one-stop” value creation center, where clients first talk about and check their assets, credit ratings, long-term goals and housing interests. When Windermere’s affiliates determine it’s time for the client to sell, or to buy, Realtors one of its 20 Realtors takes over. By that time, the customer is approved financially to make a purchase, knows the interest rate that will be charged, and has a clear picture of the type of home and the cost that will serve him best.
“Because we also analyze our client’s net worth and earning potential and, depending on age, his retirement goals, we might also suggest a second home in the mountains that he and his family can enjoy or lease out,” Honardoost said. “So whether our client is 25 or 55 or older, whether he plans to buy a house or already has one, we have representatives in place that can help him and his family plan their future.”
Confident that most more buyers and sellers will find that the have unrealized asset opportunities, Honardoost and his Windermere Commercial and East Bay Realty have just opened an office in Auburn, where a number of Pleasanton homeowners maintain second homes and investment properties.
“If we’re going to suggest to some of our clients that they add to their holdings, we want to make sure they have the right real estate company to go to,” Honardoost said. “What we found is that our customers go to these locations and sometimes they do not get the right level of service. People are different in Auburn than in Pleasanton. That’s why we wanted to have a direct link and relationship with the right level of resources there.”
Honardoost said that home ownership is the largest investment many in Pleasanton will ever make, and it deserves a higher level of service and dedication. His firm offers a 2-1/2-hour wealth creation session free of charge for first-time clients, whether they’re in the market to sell or buy a home or just want to check their financial situation.
“We believe there is a different language required when you work with individuals who want to increase their net worth, so that’s why we have so many affiliates who can work with them on a variety of opportunities, including many that have nothing to do with real estate,” Honardoost explained. “Even if we don’t see them as a client who will buy or sell a home at this time, if we do our job right they will stay in touch. In fact, we ask them to come back every six months for a financial update.”
Windermere Real Estate was founded in 1972 and is now one of the largest firms in the West. In opening his Pleasanton-based franchise, Honardoost’s experience in sale and marketing on the Peninsula led him to make it a wealth creation real estate company.
“Rather than focusing on a simple transaction of determining the lowest interest or down payment, making the sale and then saying ‘goodbye,’ we saw that clients needed much more,” he said. “They need help in managing their real estate assets and all other aspects of financial planning that go with that. They need a 7-1-=year strategy to help them make sure they’re on the right track. They need experts who will meet with them right here in the same office where we always conduct our business to help them with long-range planning.”
“That’s the strategy we’re following in the changing real estate market of 2006 and beyond,” he added.
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