Through an entertaining mix of humor and insight, Buffini & Company Founder and Chairman Brian Buffini offered viewers a detailed roadmap to success this year during his session, “Don’t Drop the Ball in 2021,” broadcast at RISMedia’s inaugural new year kickoff event held virtually this past Thursday, Jan. 7.
The event, “Real Estate’s Rocking in the New Year,” co-presented by RISMedia and the National Association of REALTORS®, was attended by more than 16,000 real estate professionals and offered more than 20 educational sessions delivered by more than 80 speakers participating in a general session and two separate breakout tracks for brokers and agents, during the day-long event.
Missed the event? Click here to purchase a ticket to view the session replays.
To prepare for the year ahead, Buffini said agents should focus on three areas: reviewing the past year, understanding the changing market and continuing their personal and professional development.
“It’s very important that every year, we analyze the year, journal what we’ve learned from the year and use it as a stepping stone to go forward,” Buffini said. “Make sure you take a day, a couple of hours, over the course of a week, to review 2020. Go through your calendar; go through the highs, go through some of the lows, and take what you’ve learned and bring it forward. That’s critical.”
Buffini also advised agents to build networks, from the local level to regional to national, in order to win business in the current state of the market, where specific skills are needed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“The market has changed. It’s not just changing—it’s changed, ” he said. “The first thing we see here is decentralization. We see people leaving the big cities and moving to the suburbs, moving out of state. One of the early indicators of where we can see where change is coming is in renters, because renters only have to give a 30-day notice. You can see in some of the big cities there was some decentralization going on, and that trend is going to continue.”
Buffini predicts that for top-producing agents, business through these networks will comprise up to 25 percent of their total income this year.
“There’s huge pent-up demand to put properties on the market, and once we reach some form of herd immunity when we get the vaccines in to a high percentage of people, there’s a whole bunch of people who are looking to move,” he said. “So you are going to have an opportunity to create some inventory, but you’ve got to have data, training and tools to get the job done.”
Additional topics Buffini discussed included the coming housing demand from Millennials, a breakdown of the current state of relocation and how agents can take advantage of related trends in the in-office/work-from-home combo taking place right now, and the importance of maintaining skillsets, training and personal and professional development. He also shared details about his just-announced new training program, delivered in partnership with the National Association of REALTORSⓇ, “100 Days to Greatness,” designed to help increase business for everyone, from agents just starting out to long-time and luxury agents at the highest levels of income.
If you missed this informative session, you can visit https://rerny21.rismedia.com/tickets/?coupon=ucucJUgs to purchase a replays ticket. In his session, Buffini also provides viewers with “Brian Buffini’s Real Estate Report,” a 7-page, detailed profile of buyers and sellers and market dynamics for agents to give to their clients, as a thank-you gift to viewers.
Be sure to mark your calendars for April 8, 2021, when RISMedia and the National Association of REALTORS® present ‘Spring Into Action,’ a full-day virtual event packed with strategies to help you maximize the spring and summer markets.
RISMedia’s ‘Real Estate Rocking in the New Year’ was sponsored by:
Diamond
National Association of REALTORS® Center for REALTOR DevelopmentÂ
Real Estate Webmasters
Platinum
MoxiWorks
Master
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices
Century 21 Real Estate
Lone Wolf Technologies
Realtors Property Resource, LLC
RE/MAX Holdings, Inc.
Host
American Home Shield
Home Security of America
Leading Real Estate Companies of the World®
Colibri Real Estate
Rocket Mortgage
eXp Realty
Inside Real Estate
Brokermint
Event
Buyside
Chime Technologies
David Knox Productions, Inc.
dynaConnectionsÂ
Institute for Luxury Home Marketing
Sherri Johnson Coaching
Wise Agent
HomeTeam Inspection Service
Beth McGuire is RISMedia’s online managing editor. Email her your real estate news ideas at beth@rismedia.com.