As a real estate agent, your brand is your business, and having a marketing team is vital when creating content that correlates with your brand. But what do you do when you don’t have a marketing team?

Not every real estate agent has a full marketing team to help with their branding and marketing materials, so here are four free Canva templates to help you build and create content for your audience.

Social Posts

Canva offers templates for multiple social channels, such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest. You can even create Facebook or Instagram Stories. Want to make creative Reels for your Instagram account? Canva has a template for that, too – and it’s FREE.

You’ll never have to worry about whether your content will display correctly on any social platform. Canva takes care of the dimensions so that all you do is click and customize your post with beautiful graphics, pictures, and text. Users can also choose between animated or static images when creating content.

Video Edits

Video posts on social media get 48% more views than posts without video included. However, it can be intimidating to figure out how to shoot and edit videos. With Canva, you can easily upload a video shot from your phone and make edits using any of Canva’s video templates. You can customize your video to any social platform and any size dimension. The best part is you don’t need graphic design skills. Anyone can create an aesthetically pleasing video for a social media feed. Canva has graphics, shapes, and text that you can plugin to create the perfect video for you and your brand.

Marketing Materials

Canva has every real estate agent covered with marketing material. They have free templates for brochures, business cards, and flyers, as well as digital assets like email banners and social media ad templates. There’s even an option to print your designs out. Canva takes the hassle out of making sure your flyers and other marketing assets are the proper size for printing, emailing, or posting.

Presentations

Gone are the days of boring PowerPoint presentations. With Canva, you can create sleek and colorful presentations to showcase your business. Canva’s presentation templates are customizable with graphics, pictures, and video to fit your needs.

As an entrepreneur, you wear multiple hats most days. That includes taking on the role of Marketing Director. We know how important it is having resources and tools in your back pocket. That’s why we offer our own free resources and Apps for real estate agents. For more information, view our available resources now.

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”

In some ways, Charles Dickens opening salvo to his book A Tale of Two Cities feels just about right for 2022.

Fresh off two straight years of historic origination volume and waves of title profits, most title businesses knew that the refinance train was likely to slow this year. However, the promise of a strong purchase market meant (and still means) there would be plenty of opportunities for those prepared.

As we approach the end of the second quarter, we’ve had some unexpected economic variables enter the equation. But that doesn’t mean that it’s time to hunker down for title agents. Far from it. Instead, it’s time for the best to separate from the pack. That means leadership and planning.

Do Your Research

When you created your business plan for 2022, you probably researched what the economists were projecting for the year and plugged into the outlook for your specific geographic area.

Update your research at least once a quarter, taking into account updated economic factors, interest rate projections, and – with an ear to the ground – what your customers are telling you is happening on the front lines.

Follow the Numbers

An experienced executive of one of the top title insurance underwriters once pointed out in his presentation at an industry conference that it does you no good to track statistics if you don’t make decisions based on them.

Numbers don’t lie and business plans must be adjusted to account for fluctuations in the marketplace. This could mean having a defined strategy to add staff if the market gets hot or having a plan for getting all tasks accomplished if you are working with a lean staff.

The Backup Plan

Don’t wait for the crisis to hit. Always have a backup plan on paper. This is why you don’t want to “cross that bridge when you come to it.” Most of us have an immediate emotional reaction to a shift in circumstances. It’s difficult to make calm, thoughtful decisions when we are reeling from an unplanned event.

It is much easier to make decisions quickly if you have thought through potential scenarios to begin with. If A happens, I will immediately put plan B into action. If the projected numbers are X for Q2, I will immediately shift to plan C.

Communicate with your Staff

Be honest and upfront with your staff about what is happening, explain why you are heading in a new direction, and share the data upon which you are making those decisions.

Your staff knows what is happening in the marketplace. They know when they are buried under a mountain of work and desperately need help and they know when things are slowing down. Acknowledging the truth of the situation and enlisting their help and support builds trust and loyalty over time.

Customers First

No matter what challenges you are facing, always keep your customers’ experience at the forefront of any plan.  Although you may be scrambling behind the scenes, you always want to make sure your customers experience a calm, orderly and seamless process. Centralized processes, effective technology—both at the point of consumer contact as well as behind the scenes—and professional customer service will never hurt any title agency. In fact, they become critical competitive advantages in markets like this. Just because 2022 isn’t likely to look like 2021 on paper doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities for success. It just means you’ll have to seize your opportunities.
 

Origination Predictions Got You Down? Here’s a Way to Come Out on Top in 2022.

Facing a decline in refinance mortgages after two incredible boom years may be making some lenders a little uneasy. Yes, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) is also calling for perhaps a record purchase mortgage volume, but it won’t offset the decline in refinancing. It will also be competitive.

But for savvy lenders who can pivot and actively serve the borrowers who are out there, there is still plenty of opportunity. Let’s look at the numbers, and the opportunities that can be tapped for a strong origination year for your company. For those willing to invest in marketing, get creative with their product mix and increase efficiencies, 2022 could still be a very successful year.

Home Mortgage

The MBA reported a whopping $4.1 trillion in 2021 originations and has predicted a decline to $2.61 trillion for 2022. While this is a considerable drop in overall originations, thanks to plunging refinance originations, the anticipated $1.74 trillion in home purchase originations in 2022 represents yet another record.

Lenders actively and effectively marketing to their current mortgage holders who may be contemplating moving up to a new home or creating an active outreach to new homebuyers could do very well in this robust purchase market.

Home Refinance

“Therein lies the rub,” with credit to Shakespeare. Refinance activity is expected to drop by over 62% to $870 billion.

This is where a lender needs to get creative. Yes, there’s a smaller pool, but making sure you are getting a share of that pool is critical this year.

Across the country, in every city, the tide of regentrification is pouring money into old neighborhoods. And “what the Joneses got, I want,” is inspiring homeowners to invest in their own home to make it worth the same as other properties in their area. This is a niche market well worth mining for new refinance opportunities.

Home Equity Line of Credit

Black Knight is reporting that homeowners have more than $9 trillion of untapped equity in their homes, above and beyond the protected 20% equity. In 2021 Q4, lenders were already seeing an uptick in HELOC borrowing.

The aim of that borrowing, usually, is to pour money back into the home, as noted above in the case of regentrification. As interest rates rise, homeowners are far more likely to finance a smaller loan through a HELOC, than to sacrifice a 3% interest rate by refinancing their entire mortgage at 4.5%.

However, lenders should be wary of borrowers who are tapping equity for credit card consolidation, vacations, cars, and speculative real estate investments. Make sure you are assessing your borrowers’ motivation appropriately.

Commercial Lending

And finally, make sure you are tapping into the commercial lending market, especially multi-family opportunities. While WFH may have set some segments of the commercial lending market back, multi-family has carried the day as home prices have continued to soar. National Mortgage News is reporting that the commercial lending is expected to top $1 trillion in 2022. So this might be a great year to strengthen your commercial lending department.

Hire Efficient Service Providers

Let’s state the obvious. When borrowers are tripping over each other to get in your door, you pay a little less attention to ensuring your processes are at peak productivity or that your service providers are giving you the most efficient and cost-effective service for your clients.

In a purchase market, it’s important to make sure you are using providers, like title agents who are members of the Florida Agency Network, who have access to a host of shared services, closing options and technology resources ensuring the most efficient title and closing services for your clients. Remember, your title and settlement partners are among the last to interact with your borrowers at the end of the transaction. A quality closing and smooth process don’t just help the margins. They can also pave the way for that refinancing or home equity loan down the road!

Our friends at Housing Wire recently did our own Aaron Davis the honor of publishing his thoughts on M&A in the title industry. As you likely know, the market remains hot, both for agents seeking to retire or “cash out” after a long, successful run, as well as for agents that believe the slight decline in volume will make an opportune time to grow their own footprints via acquisition.

We urge you to check out the entire piece. However, among the highlights of Aaron’s recommendations for those considering buying or selling are the following.

• Make a plan. Sounds basic enough, right? However, you’d be amazed at how many bright, knowledgeable agents, after years of solid decision-making, decide to “wing it” on their planning. The results, more often than not, include leaving money on the table, and sometimes, lots of it.
• Know thyself (and your market). Another simple concept and also, another common mistake. It’s important for sellers especially to keep in mind that private equity will evaluate your agency very differently than, say, a national underwriter. Knowing what they value can make all the difference in your planning.
• Finally, don’t go it alone. Even owners and agents with experience in M&A can stand to have a second set of eyes (and set of experiences) to help with planning, evaluation and due diligence. There are qualified consultants out there, including, quite naturally, Aaron and the team at AMD Enterprises’ Closing Suite!

To connect with Aaron Davis, visit https://amd-1.com/.

Our own Aaron Davis was approached recently by National Mortgage News for his thoughts about business disruption plans—a very timely topic. (Subscription required). It’s a great read, and you should check it out if you can. It’s a great reminder that business disasters can come in many forms. Cybersecurity is only half of the battle. Sometimes, even the most secure systems get breached by persistent and sophisticated criminals determined to get in. If you don’t have a flexible, updated, and robust business continuity/disaster plan, your cybersecurity plan could go for naught.

You may recall that, just a few years ago, our industry had a fairly robust conversation about cyber-security and business continuity planning when ALTA unveiled its Best Practices. For the title industry, SOC 2 and/or Best Practices certification became not only a security need, but a way of differentiating to lenders. Of course, not everyone went the distance with their planning, and the Best Practices, while welcome, did not get extremely specific. At the time, hacking, hurricanes, fires, and the like were considered the primary threats. Over the next few years, wire fraud became the dominant topic—something that, while definitely a threat that requires cybersecurity planning, really doesn’t dovetail with disaster planning or business continuity. And so, it’s quite possible that some of those who put together great plans then, but haven’t regularly reviewed and updated them since, have some weaknesses in their system today.

If you jump ahead of that original conversation five or six years to 2021, one pandemic and one massive ransomware attack now behind us, things have changed. Ransomware is now a widespread threat. Cybercriminals have evolved along with the systems designed to thwart them. Clearly, it’s time to revisit, dust off or, if you didn’t have one already, build a solid disaster recovery and cybersecurity plan.

You may not know this, but FAN had one of our offices damaged in a fire not long ago. You wouldn’t know it unless you were there or told by someone. That’s because we had a business continuity plan—updated regularly—in place. And our data was securely cloud based. So we followed our plan: leveraging alternate technology from an alternate location and resumed the work week seamlessly. Now, a cyberattack is a very different thing than a fire. But remember this as well: the most successful cybercriminals go for the easiest targets most of the time. Odds are, if you’re up to date with a professional security system and effective business continuity plan, you’ll be in good shape.