Back to School Season Tips for Real Estate Agents

Two things tend to cool down during the back-to-school season: the weather and the real estate market. For agents, it’s the perfect time to sharpen your skills, whether that means exploring new fall marketing strategies or catching up on online pre-licensing or continuing education courses.

What should you expect from real estate leads and sales during this time? How can you make the most of a classically slow period? 

Below, we’ll answer these questions and explore fall marketing strategies for REALTORS®, including how real estate agents can attract families during the back-to-school season, how to generate real estate leads with back-to-school events, and how to leverage fall conditions for available buyers and sellers.

How Does Back-to-School Season Affect Real Estate?

Every fall, three things happen to the real estate market:

1. Fewer buyers and sellers engage with the market. Previously active hunters may even put their efforts on hold.

2. Homes stay on the market longer through the fall and winter than they do in the spring and summer. It takes longer to sell a home.

3. Median sales prices decrease a bit. In a typical year, fall and winter sales prices are down by about 5% compared to spring and summer. 

There are a few reasons that things drop off when school starts: 

• Families with school-aged kids don’t want the hassle of closing, moving, and getting a late school enrollment during the fall, so they’d rather close by July. 

• Home buyers and sellers – even those without children – are aware of the limited supply and dipping sale prices that fall brings, so they’re reluctant to start the journey at that time of year.

• Everyone is aware that the holidays are around the corner and will show up faster than they think. They want to avoid the hassle of closing and moving in the final quarter of the year.

• Ice and snow make moving logistics miserable, and most people would rather avoid it.

These are phenomena you should expect every August and September, like clockwork. You need to take it into account when you plan your yearly marketing and budget your summer earnings. You will make less money during fall and winter, but you can make those months productive, nonetheless.

Fall Marketing Strategies for REALTORS® and Real Estate Agents

Luckily, buyers and sellers will still be searching for representation in the fall and winter, because real estate isn’t always about the best time but about the needs of now. Some people will need to relocate in the fall, and they will need your help.

Do The Opposite of Back-to-School Marketing

The fact is that most buyers and sellers from August to December will be distinctly outside the back-to-school marketing niche.

In fact, it’s probably best to shift your leads-generating and -nurturing marketing to anyone aside from families with school-aged children: DINKS, SINKS, and retirees. Target your marketing materials towards their needs and lifestyles, and reduce the emphasis on families since they’re unlikely to be looking. 

For example, try targeting your Facebook advertising for people without children. Tweak your listing descriptions to appeal more to your current demographic. Stage spaces as home offices and dens instead of playrooms and kids’ rooms. Virtual staging can make these types of strategic seasonal shifts effortless, even for houses already on the market.

Entice Buyers with Bargaining Power

Since anyone selling during the fall is probably doing so on a deadline, this gives the few buyers ready to dive into the market a bargaining power greater than the rest of the year. For hot markets, this may simply mean less chance of a bidding war, while cool markets may enable them to get an outright steal. 

Speak to the conditions in your market and emphasize this advantage of fall buying to reel in potential buyers.

Ask Potential Sellers to Take Fall Listing Photos

Presenting the full curb appeal of a house during late fall and winter is challenging, so anyone thinking about listing before spring will be best served by a photo shoot in early fall.

This means you certainly want to get photos done asap for committed sellers. 

However, you can also use it as a marketing hook. Bring up the idea of listing photos as bet-hedging. It will leave their options open and establish a real working relationship that makes you their natural first choice for a listing agreement. 

You can even consider working with a real estate photographer to offer deals as an extra incentive. After all, their work is going to slow down soon, as well.

Prepare New Buyers and Sellers for the Fall Market

This one isn’t a fall marketing strategy so much as the next step once new real estate leads are secured. It’s always important to set realistic expectations with new clients, and reading them in on the challenges of a fall/winter market is an important first step.

For sellers, this means tempering their expectations on sale price and time-on-market. This isn’t a time when they’ll sell quickly or get the most they can for their home. A very prime property can see competition simply by virtue of a smaller fall inventory, but it’s best to let that be a happy surprise. An impressed and relieved client is better than a disappointed one.

For buyers, you need to make them aware that they may not find a home with everything they’re hoping for. They may need to compromise on some points due to the smaller number of options on the market.

Back-to-School Marketing Ideas For Real Estate Agents

Although we already shared our best real estate marketing tips for local agents in need of cash flow, you shouldn’t underestimate the importance of back-to-school marketing. 

But for optimal results, you must remember that back-to-school marketing is about long-term results. You should focus these efforts on raising your profile in the community, building relationships, and laying the foundation for a more prosperous future. The real estate marketing tips below are less about attracting families during the back-to-school season and more about making connections that can be leveraged next year.

Sponsor a PTA Meeting, Teacher, and/or Sports Team

Real estate marketing tips often focus on how productive it can be to network within the community and give back – this time of year is ripe with opportunities.

Here are just a few back-to-school networking ideas for real estate agents:

• Sponsor a PTA Meeting. Choose a school district where you want to sell more houses and arrange to provide refreshments. It gives you a chance to network with the most involved (and therefore influential) parents in the area. You’ll also be able to listen in on upcoming calendar events that provide opportunities to donate or volunteer.

• Sponsor a Sports Team. Arrange to pay for team jerseys in return for a little advertising. Not only does it support kids’ ability to exercise and socialize, but it gets your name in front of parents on a regular basis for months! The beginning of the school year is a great time to talk to principals and coaches about potential opportunities for sponsorship, even if they won’t be needed until later in the year.

• Sponsor the Arts. Maybe all the sports teams are sponsored already, or maybe they’re not your style. There are plenty of other opportunities to donate in exchange for advertising in the arts! Consider theater departments, band, orchestra, choir, or visual art clubs as options. You can even expand into math teams or robotics clubs, but the arts tend to be harder up for funding.

• Sponsor Teachers. While the state of school funding can be frustrating for everyone involved, it does open up an opportunity for you. Teachers always spend some of their own money on classroom supplies, and you can endear yourselves to them by donating money, purchasing items from their Amazon Wish List, or providing branded supplies.

• Sponsor a Stuff-the-Bus Fundraiser. Speaking of the cost of school supplies, plenty of students also have trouble affording their personal supplies. In recent years, “Stuff the Bus” fundraisers in August and September have become fun, Instagram-worthy opportunities to encourage more donations. If you find this idea daunting, you can always fall back on a tried-and-true fundraising strategy like a bake sale or a dunking booth.

Promote Yourself with a Light Touch

No matter what approach to back-to-school involvement you might take, you should approach the selling yourself part with a light touch. If you get an immediate client from it, great! But in most cases, you should expect to walk away empty-handed. That’s what happens when you plant a seed. 

Market your services at these events in a relatively unobtrusive way. Ideas include:

• Goody Bags for every attendee with branded swag and a business card.

• A Newsletter Signup where you’ll keep them up-to-date on local events and homeowning tips. Of course, you can promote your services alongside this useful information.

• Mention Your Job but talk business only when asked. Anyone in need of a real estate agent will probably want to know more, but pushing too hard with people who aren’t in need of your services can destroy the goodwill you’re building with the event.

Use Back-to-School Events to Gather Intel

While you’re earning goodwill and getting your name out there, you can make the most of your time by gathering grassroots intel on schools, school districts, and childcare options. Find out what people who live and work in these areas think of the family-friendly resources available in the community.

Then, use this intel to prepare resources that will be helpful in attracting and serving clients with school-aged children throughout the rest of the year! 

Celebrate Back-to-School Time with Continuing Education!

Every state requires continuing education credits to refresh the knowledge you gained during pre-license courses and update you on new regulations. Regardless of your state’s license renewal deadline, fall can be the perfect time to knock out necessary credits. 

As the kids go back to school, so can you! You can take advantage of the slowing business to get ahead in your education.

Luckily, you don’t actually have to sit in a classroom. We offer online CE courses that are accepted in many states. They’re self-paced and mobile-friendly so you can study wherever and whenever it suits you best. Enroll today!