Author: Laynie Thomas

This year’s real estate market has been strong, with high interest in housing across all regions of the country. The strengthening economy and a demographic shift are fueling this growth — and millennials reaching their peak homebuying years have led to increased demand for homes nationwide.

However, there’s another major trend in today’s market: housing inventory is at an all-time low. Simply put — there aren’t enough homes for everyone, so housing prices are skyrocketing and competition is fierce. 

Low mortgage rates combined with an increase in work-from-home opportunities due to the Pandemic have fueled greater demand for suburban houses — and buyers are buying up these properties quickly as they come onto the market. Some buyers make offers without even seeing the property in person or including contingencies in their bids, just to win a bidding war with other eager homebuyers. 

There’s also an increase in demand among millennials due to the historically low mortgage rates; however, many of them can’t find what they need within their budget. The drastically rising home prices are making affordable housing scarce. 

Despite the increasing number of sellers due to increasing home prices and low-interest rates, limited construction activity earlier due to COVID-19 and high lumber prices, and pent-up demand for housing, housing demand is still drastically outpacing supply. So competition continues to be fierce for new homes hitting the market (or being sold off-market) making retail seller leads more elusive — and more valuable — than ever.

Overview of the Real Estate Market

• Today, there are approximately 3 million active real estate agents — to put that in perspective, that’s one real estate agent for every 121 people in the U.S.
• There’s a shortage of housing inventory — 42% fewer homes are for sale now than were for sale pre-Covid.
• New home for sale listings are down 17% vs. pre-Covid.
• 6.5 million homes sold in 2020 — that’s only 2 opportunities per real estate agent per year. 

These numbers are, of course, offset by the looseness of the definition of “active,” as well as the fact that some real estate agents help to sell homes, while many are purely focused on buyers or simply have an active, but unused, license.

Additionally, we could potentially see over a million evictions in the coming months, while at the same time giving millions of people the means to get into a home. This is fueled by:

• The ending of the mortgage moratorium.
• The passing of President Biden’s first-time homebuyer credit. This first down payment tax credit “will help families offset the costs of home buying and help millions of families lay down roots for the first time,” according to President Biden’s campaign website.

What does this mean for real estate agents today? 

It means that every lead and listing counts and the real estate agents who succeed are the ones that consistently market, generate leads, follow-up, and build high-flying reputations in the area(s) where they operate.

Don’t get us wrong. Today, inventory is low and competition is high. But the market has been through many similar fluctuations in the past and there are no indications that the market won’t balance back out. In other words, you’re in a good industry.  

Here’s how, at Carrot, we’re helping real estate agents stand out in their markets and snag listings.

The Carrot Solution

Since CEO Trevor Mauch started Carrot, we’ve made it our mission to always innovate and evolve our software to stay ahead of the real estate market and anticipate our members’ future needs to help Carrot members see success.

It’s the foundation of our company vision — to “inspire and empower real estate professionals to gain true freedom and make a greater impact with their businesses.”

That means building awesome software that helps real estate professionals build authority online today while always staying a step ahead of your online lead generation needs in the future.

One recent innovation inspired by current market trends that we are super excited to launch is our all-new Carrot Agent Seller Site Template that’s designed to help today’s agents attract and convert more retail seller leads.

Our new site features fresh seller-focused content built from top-performing Carrot Agent sites, a modern design to help you stand out online, and — of course — Carrot’s proven SEO and conversion methodologies to attract and convert more seller leads in today’s highly competitive, low inventory real estate market. 

How do we know it works? 

Because the all-new content strategy is cultivated directly from our highest performing Agent members’ websites…

• These sites received astronomically more traffic than the average agent site — across all channel groupings. The average agent site received 664 visitors in Q2. The top-performing Agent sites had 10X more visitors.
• These sites converted all traffic between 2X to 5X better than the average agent site.
• These sites converted organic traffic 215% better than the average agent site. 

And we ensured the new design put you as the Agent at the forefront to help you strengthen your personal brand in your local market and build credibility with more social proof and happy client testimonials.

So we figured… If it works for them, it could work for you!

Check out a screenshot of the image below!

How does it work? Sellers opt-in, you get notified, you call them and do what you do best… voila!

Cool, right? 

But that’s just one example of how we’re making it easier for agents to find listings. 

Carrot members also get…

• Tons of other tools that will help you drive traffic and generate leads in your specific market — UTM builder, SEO Keyword Rank Tracker, SEO Checker, and more!
• Access to industry-leading trainings, support, and strategy from our team of product and real estate experts!

But you don’t have to take our word for it!

Check out some of the testimonials below from real estate agents using our software…