First time home buyer Seminar?

Question

Does anyone know Agents or Buyers that have attended a first time home buyer seminar how to go about putting one on?I am an agent and want to start doing first time home buyer seminars and just need a little guidence on what to talk about the process and if I should have a My lender attend also? Thanks

Answer 1

I have attended Buyers Seminars but they have been usually put on by the lender with the agent in the wings. Now I put my own Buyer and Seller Seminars together along with For Sale by Owners to give everyone an opportunity to learn more about the process.

Do you have a place in mind where you want to hold your seminar? Are you going to offer coffee,water and maybe a snack? The reason I ask that question is you usually get people who want the food first and then they may listen to what you have to say.

Are you going to limit the amount of people for your seminar? Smaller groups are easier to handle and you can become more familiar with faces and names.

Are you going to hand out information as well? Sometimes people will want to ask a question on the phone rather than in person.

Take notice and see if there are other agents and Realtors in your audience. If there are, ask them for their business card and call them up the next day and ask if they thought you presented your information well. It doesn't matter what they say, the idea is to see if they came to get your business or to see if they can do a seminar as well as you did.

I sometimes send out a Seminar Invitation with a small survey and ask them to bring it along. I the have them place it in a tray so that I can look at it later to determine who my audience was.

Most people don't like to write their name and number down in case you use it like a telemarketer.

Answer 2

There were a few Realtors, lenders and insurance agents that got together and held FTHB seminars, but they were very poorly attended. They did a good job advertising them, held a few hoping they would catch on, but they abandoned them after a few tries.

If you are going to try, have lots of information to hand out about FTHB programs, how to shop for a home, etc., etc..

Snacks never hurt either.

Answer 3

If you want to put one on, I recommend a Lender and an Attorney. With a Realtor, that's the basic team a homebuyer needs.

Putting it on is easy. It's getting people to come to it that's hard.

You should do it in a "neutral" place, and local libraries are generally not expensive if they charge anything at all. You want some canned/bottled sodas, but you don't have to get elaborate. Just comfy.

What you want to communicate to first timers is that it is possible. You do not want to dazzle them with your brilliance. You do not want to sell them a house, you want to sell YOU.

Explain the process. "First we talk about your price range, then about how much house you need based on family size and lifestyle, then we talk about where you want it to be" etc etc. The Lender should do the same, no numbers, just "We look at your income and credit score, and look for ways to improve your score in the short term, and come up with a loan amount and see what's comfortable for you."

Be prepared to answer specific questions, but also be prepared for no one to want to say a word. They're all nervous. The idea is to get them over that nervousness and ready to make a move.