Four or five homes are on the market. Who's talking to the other 45 who'll list this year?
The whole system, every step, free.
Why it works
"Very few in the industry do it, yet it is so effective."
Ask yourself honestly. Who has the better chance of being invited to appraise: the agent who gave every owner real value all year, or the agent who stayed out of sight?
Do your numbers
| 1,000 | homes in your farm area |
| ÷ 20 | 1 in 20 lists each year. That's 50 sales. |
| ÷ 3 | 3 agents are asked to appraise each one. Win 1 in 3. |
| 16.7 | listings a year, if you're invited to every single appraisal |
Only 4 or 5 of those 50 are on the market at any one time. Most agents chase those few, and forget the rest. Nobody knows which of the other 45 owners will sell, so you give value to all of them. That's how you outwork your competition.
Which numbers can you control? Two: how many owners you look after, and how often you give them something useful.
Put in your own farm →The six steps
Define your farm area
Start focused. Fan out once your core area is established and you have the resources to expand.
Build your database
Work each street, systematically.
Connect with your owners
Schools, clubs, parks, local businesses. Get to know what's going on: what concerns them, what interests them, what the council is doing near them.
Build a catalogue of touchpoints
Ways you can be useful, drawn from what you've learned about their concerns and interests.
Keep in touch
Give value as often as you can without being intrusive. Personalise it. Make it a policy never to ask for anything in return.
Expect it to take about 10
That's how many times you need to give them something useful before an owner sees you as someone they can trust. Trust is getting harder to earn, so expect that number to rise.
The two levers
Grow your farm
- Know your numbers. Work backwards from the listings you want.
- Map where you want to focus
- Audit your past listings
- Wind down areas that don't work, and understand why
- Become the expert on supply and demand
- Be ready for the extra work. It's genuinely more people to look after.
Win more of your farm
- Deliver more value
- Build trust
- Give unexpectedly
- Do things differently
- Be visible in the community
- Show how hard you work
- Be empathetic. Be helpful.
- Know your area, share insights
- Add value to their home, give advice
- Let your results do the talking
The rule over both: build systems around value that matters and won't break the bank.
What a good touchpoint looks like
The planning application up the street
You let an owner know about a planning application nearby that might affect them, maybe badly. You've asked for nothing. You've just shown them you thought of them. It cost you nothing and it could be worth a great deal to them, even to their property value.
When it still goes to someone else
Do all of this and some owners will still list with another agent. You won't win every one. But you've left no stone unturned. And if you truly expected nothing in return, it's a lot easier to take.
Great agents expect nothing. The rest Expect. Nothing.
A thousand owners, each sent something personal and useful about 10 times a year. That's about 190 a week.
Do it yourself
Everything on this page is yours.
We can do it for you
Every owner, one to one, about 10 times a year, nothing asked. That's what Archer runs. See how it works