The Five Things I Learned in Luxury Real Estate to Win the Exclusive On Two of the Nicest Properties in Panama

Panama Equity is grateful to have been invited to become members of the Who’s Who In Luxury Real Estate back in 2013.  Over the last two years, we’ve learned so much from this group of nearly 1,500 brokers representing some of the most exclusive real estate agencies around the world.

And upon securing two of the most luxurious property listings in the history of my company, I wanted to take a moment to share a few of the things I’ve learned and applied from this group that immediately generated results.

1)   The Single Minded Proposition: Charlie Cook and the rockstars at Red Oak Realty helped me create a single minded proposition for our seller, helping the seller visualize who their buyer would be (and how WE were in the best position to find them). This may sound simple but it’s amazing how few sellers are walked through the exercise. In the case of this amazing Contadora home for sale, it’s what set our agency apart from the rest.

2)   The Beauty Of Segmentation:  Our good neighbor in Costa Rica, Todd Cutter from 2Costarica, taught me how to segment my database and speak to each market from a different perspective and with a different end-game. It is truly incredible how, when you share a sniper-targeted and intimate message (as opposed to the normal shotgun approach), how much more of an impact it has. Conversions just seem to skyrocket.

3)   Find The Music In The Property: The Legend Saul Cohen from Hammond Real Estate in Boston showed me how important the process of finding the music in the listing really is to articulating the benefits of the property to a new buyer. Walking through the property, understanding the process of what went in to design and execution during the build, and ultimately why the seller decided to purchase the property are keys to “finding the music”. In the case of our Mirage Penthouse, that process helped seal the deal.

4)   Leverage Technology To Educate The Client:  Gary Ashton, King of Nashville real estate, helped me see the beauty in video marketing. He encouraged me to create some fabulous buyer-oriented video content that actually has caught the eye of sellers as well. I even took it a step further and began implementing video email messages from a company called jiveSYSTEMS: almost immediately, I noticed that I was able to convey more information faster and in a more personalized way. This kind of technology will continue evolving and considering video was pretty much solely responsible for getting us this beauty, I’m fully invested in staying on the cutting edge.

5)   Transparency Rules: The great Jon Wade showed me that the good guys always come out ahead in the end. Using this advice, I sat down with the seller and much in the same style as Jon, explained things how they were, with no frills, no claims, and just the facts ma’am. This can be a tough argument to agents in Panama, many of whom are inclined to take shortcuts or withhold valuable information from a buyer or seller. But Jon’s advice proved worth it’s weight in gold and being transparent is now very much a pillar of our success.

Referring to my conference notes often, reaching out to my fellow LRE agents as much as possible, and instilling a best-practice mentality in our business has helped take our (still very small) agency to the next level and gain the confidence from buyers and sellers of some of the most amazing luxury properties in Panama. I am grateful for the generosity and support of all of the members and very much look forward to any additional insight they’d like to share!