OMG, these California wildfires are terrible!  Feeling for the people that have to evacuate and for all of us having to deal with terrible air quality.  I was just talking to my main hardwood floor contractor and his family home in Napa burned to the ground.  So sad.

And speaking of contractors, we have to take every opportunity to listen to our contractors that we use on our listings to get NEW listings.

How many of us have painters, contractors, handymen, gardeners, window washers, etc, that are doing jobs for us on listings and doing jobs for other owners, maybe in anticipation of selling?

I have a painter who is working for me on 2 other listings I am bringing on the market and he just gave me the name of a couple he is doing some work for that are thinking of selling.

I am going to be all over this couple this week to see if I can get an appointment to list their home for sale.

So it’s not just past clients, friends and family that you should be training to be your bird-dog to help you get listings. 

Get your stable of contractors to help you identify others that may be selling as well.

One way to facilitate this is to treat your contractors like gold.

I can’t tell you how many contractors tell me how poorly other listing agents treat them, just like dirt.

I joke around with my contractors, bring them gifts, tell them what a great job they are doing, refer them to others.  They’re like my family.

Because of this, they like me a lot, they make things happen for me in tight timeframes, they do great work AND they give me referrals to listings.

It’s no great surprise, that the nicer you treat them, they treat you better (oh, and they tell which listing agents are class A jerks).

So make sure you develop your stable of contractors, coddle them, treat them well and you could soon find yourself getting some very cool Unleashed listing referrals.