How to Become Your Market's Hyperlocal Expert

By Virtual Properties Realty Team

Virtual Properties Realty was founded in 1999 by mother-and-son broker team Karen Burks and Steve Wagner with a simple goal: create a better real estate company for agents and the clients they serve.

If you’ve ever wondered how some agents seem to own their market, the ones who can answer any question about any neighborhood off the top of their head, it isn’t a gift. It’s a habit, and it’s one you can build.

Jessica Wilson, our Director of Coaching here at VPR, has spent the last ten years coaching agents through the same three questions, over and over: How do I get more listings? How do I build trust in my community? And how am I supposed to know every neighborhood well enough to actually market it? Her answer is always the same. Go hyper-local.

Pick one zip code and read the numbers. Start by choosing a designated day, Sunday or Monday, whatever you’ll actually stick to, and make this a weekly habit. Pull one local zip code and zero in on the price points you most want to work in, whether that’s 200 to 300 thousand, 300 to 400, or higher. Then go into the MLS and read the story the market is telling you.

How many homes are active right now? How many are pending? How many have closed in the last 30, 60, and 90 days? Look for the patterns: how long homes are taking to sell, what concessions sellers are making, like paid closing costs, what types of loans are closing, and whether the same handful of agents keep closing the same deals. You’re peeling back every layer of what’s happening in that zip code at those price points.

Then get out into the community. The numbers are only half of it. Once you’ve picked a zip code you care about, step into it. Find out what’s being developed, learn the school systems, and get to know the local businesses.

Go meet people, shake some hands, and, as Jessica likes to say, kiss some babies. The goal is to learn everything there is to know about that area, so you understand it from the street level and not just the spreadsheet.

Do it weekly, then stack. Every week, come back to that same activity and watch how the story changes. Are days on market climbing or dropping? Are prices rising across the zip code or holding steady? The numbers will tell you.

Once you’ve got one area down, you stack another, a second zip code, a county, a subdivision, whatever direction you want to grow. Before long, when you’re at a barbecue, a networking event, or a mastermind, you’re the one who can bring real, specific data to the table.

Do this consistently and you’ll know your market cold, and you’ll become the trusted resource people in that area call first. That’s the kind of coaching we build into everything we do at VPR, because when our agents grow, everything around them grows too. If you’re an agent who wants that level of training and support behind you, come see why agents across Georgia are choosing VPR. Call or text us at 678-551-0322, email us at merritt@vpradmin.com, or visit training.vprbenefits.com.