Forrest’s Blog

Perhaps the better question is: “Are you farming any subdivisions in the Greater Las Vegas area?”  The truth is that since the runaway 2004 market there has been a real decline in this type of target marketing.  Of course, those very seasoned veterans who were always engaged in several forms of target marketing are still doing so.  But the vast majority of agents have either stopped farming, cold calling, door knocking, mailing, or nearly any form of prospecting that could be valuable at this time. 

What’s truly amazing is that a significant number of successful agents began their careers by persisting in all of these activities when most agents were not.  That would suggest that successful agents simply do all of those tedious things that others are not willing to do.  And guess what?  This is exactly what separates success from mediocrity from failure!

The good news is that very few neighborhoods are really being farmed on a consistent basis by anyone.  Now there are some exceptions . . . but they are just that . . . exceptions!

So where is a good place to farm?  Probably anywhere that suits you.  But that means becoming a genuine expert in that area by having a serious knowledge of the inventory, what’s selling, what’s not and why, floorplans, schools, etc.  Start by previewing prospective areas, then conduct Open Houses in the same area, and perhaps even canvass or knock doors in that area.  Operate just the way a politician would that’s running for office in an effort to become visible and credible in that neighborhood.

One interesting fact as reported by the Review Journal and Las Vegas Life Magazine is that while the outer perimeter areas of Greater Las Vegas saw a cooling off of market appreciation, the more central area of town enjoyed excellent appreciation.  For example, area codes 89103 and 89130 each recorded appreciation rates of up to 18 percent.  Click here for the story and map.

That encouraged me to examine Clark County turnover rates by zipcode in order to gain additional insight into home selling patterns in our area.  Click here to download that study.  (You will need Adobe Reader to open and view)

Ok! So how is the turnover rate calculated?  For each zipcode we want to know the total number of homes in the zipcode (let’s call it “TotalZip”); then we need to know how many sold during the past year (let’s call this “SoldZip”).  The turnover rate would then be “SoldZip” divided by “TotalZip” ( SoldZip / TotalZip).  This will be the percent of the total homes in that zipcode that sold during the past year.  You can do the same exact type of study for any subdivision using the Tax Search feature contained in MLXChange.

Happy Farming!