UTAH 6-28-21

UTAH EDITION

By the Numbers:

5 WAYS TO

TRANSFORM RENTERS INTO OWNERS

Understanding the True Value of Square Footage

MAKE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Your Calling Card

COVER STORY

FEATURED AGENT

BLAKE CEVERING

TROY POULSEN

UTAH EDITION

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TROY POULSEN

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BLAKE CEVERING

CONTENTS 4) MAKE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING YOUR CALLING CARD

15) BY THE NUMBERS: UNDERSTANDING THE TRUE VALUE OF SQUARE FOOTAGE

6) 5 WAYS TO TRANSFORM RENTERS INTO OWNERS

22) HOW TO OVERCOME YOUR WORKPLACE FEARS

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Make Social Media Marketing Your Calling Card These days, it’s no secret that buyers begin their home search online. As the industry continues to take a digital turn, Realtors in the know must learn to utilize a whole new range of tools available to them—and for good reason. Social media is a dynamic hybrid of personal contact and targeted marketing. To make the most of this new medium, agents can’t settle for the occasional post and expect results.

Instead, let’s consider a few techniques that will make your social media presence 4

interactive, unmissable, and effective in generating business.

Your Profile is a Portal Ideally, you’ll have profiles across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and otherwise—but no matter what portal you’re utilizing, make sure your profile page is up-todate, well-curated, and easily navigated.

Consider your profile a landing page.

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Your photo, location, contact information, homepage, and a brief bio should all be readily visible so that potential clients can get an immediate sense for who you are and what your voice is. If a client wants to connect with you, it should be obvious how to do so. You might also incorporate a few savvier tools that make your profile more engaging—like hashtags. These searchable tags can help you lure potential clientele and give your audience a chance to explore deeper. #DreamHome #JustListed and #HomeInspiration are popular, existing tags to choose from, but you can cultivate your own hashtag by consistently tagging posts, which gives clients an extensive thread to comb through.

Interacting with Your Audience Posting regularly is great way to appear in feeds, but engaging with your audience is just as important—and it helps you reach a new audience in the process. It’s a positive start to like your audience’s posts, pictures, and statuses, but commenting takes your engagement a step further and separates you from typical respondents. It’s also important that you diversify your engagements. In other words, don’t center every communication around your business, propositioning your services, or trying to sell. If applicable, present your value-add, but otherwise steer your engagement towards the personal. Let your clients know that you’re there, you’re human, and Top Agent Magazine

ready to work at their pace. Which leads us to our next point...

Blending the Professional with the Personal Engaging with your audience is one thing, but what about generating original content?

How do you strike the right balance between a Call to Action, industry updates, and a personal touch? Think of it this way: any post you create should provide a point of connection for your audience.

Sometimes, you might be sharing a family photo, or commenting on some unifying current event—like the Super Bowl! Other times, you may be sharing a Coming Soon listing, or providing tips to spruce up a home for spring. Regardless, you should focus on quality. Is your copywriting engaging? Does it express your unique voice and personality, while maintaining clarity? Are you giving your audience something to connect with, even if you are sharing property photos or advertising an open house? Instill some fun and some personalization to every piece of content you make, so that clients can picture the voice and person behind the post.

Things are always changing on the social media frontier, but some rules never shift.

Adding clarity, consistency, and personality to your online presence are three surefire ways to grow your business and make social media second nature.

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5 Ways to Transform

Renters into Owners Perhaps the largest demographic of untapped business lies in the rental market. From major cities and suburbs to rural communities—renters across generations are opting to rent rather than own. The question is: why? For starters, many Americans are undereducated about the inventory and financing options available that might suit their budget and lifestyle. Secondly, many would-be homeowners have difficulty 6

visualizing the potential investment of purchasing property, and how homeownership can build wealth and security in the long-term.

As an agent, you’re always on the lookout for potential clientele. Now, to guide renters toward the real estate market, keep a few of these strategies in mind as you meet and greet this untapped demographic.

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Show renters that purchasing a home isn’t impossible

Possibly the biggest hurdle for renters is believing homeownership is possible. Beyond saving for a down payment and boosting credit scores, there are dozen more factors to consider: affording utilities, homeowner’s insurance, renovations, property taxes, and more. Besides that, assembling pay stubs, finding an agent, arranging house tours, negotiating a price, and timing the transition are all major considerations to surmount.

One way to combat this thinking is to make the process transparent and demystified. Find examples of past clients who made the leap successfully, or profile the average buyer in your marketplace and see how that renter compares. Provide evidence that it’s been done before and can be done again, then build a game plan from there.

into play. Consider making a checklist, or step-by-step road-map, that guides clients through the process from start to finish. This way, you’ll manage expectations and create a path to ownership that’s specific, instead of abstract. They won’t have to wonder what goes into buying a home when they can look at an interactive site or read a document and see the steps outlined before them, with you there to guide the way.

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Collaborate with mortgage professionals to find the right financing opportunities

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Help would-be homebuyers create a road-map to ownership

It’s no secret that buying a home can feel overwhelming. Compared to signing a yearlong lease on an apartment, taking on the house-hunting process is a daunting affair.

That’s where your expertise as an agent comes Top Agent Magazine

Many renters aren’t aware of the variety of mortgage financing options out there that cater to first-timers, offer low down payments, or down payment assistance. Most buyers believe that the standard 20% down is a hard and fast rule, when in reality, there’s far more flexibility out there to cater to renters where they are. There are even loan options catering to freelance workers, renovation options, and other unconventional routes to ownership.

Work with a mortgage pro and find the route that suits your renter best.

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pay monthly in a mortgage—while building a lasting asset.

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Compare and contrast rental rates with monthly mortgage payments One way to convince renters to make the shift is to demonstrate the savings potential of paying into a monthly mortgage, rather than throwing away rent on a property they don’t own. To do this, draw up the average rental rates in your area, then find some potential listings that would demand a similar amount in monthly mortgage payments. Sometimes placing these numbers and images sideby-side can prove to renters that what they manage to pay monthly in rent, they can

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Paint the big picture

For most, renting isn’t the most sustainable financial option when it comes to housing.

Rents rise, families grow, and retirement looms.

Building a financial future and homeownership go hand-in-hand. When planned appropriately, buying a home can create a path toward retirement and position homeowners in a better place for further investment in the future. A rental has little security or investment returns to offer, while owning a home makes a renter king or queen of the castle.

Prospecting renters as potential homebuyers may seem like a time-intensive way to cultivate new clients, but logic is on your side.

Keep these tips in mind as you broach the conversation with renters in your hometown.

All it takes is clear-cut value proposition and a listening ear.

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TROY POULSEN Top Agent Magazine

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Top Agent Troy Poulsen is the owner/broker of the Coldwell Banker Preferred Properties branch in Richfield, managing a team of ten agents serving central Utah.

Troy Poulsen’s entry into the real estate industry came as a happy surprise. “I’d purchased a duplex in Provo when I was 21 years old. The agent who sold me the property suggested that I could have saved myself money if I had my Realtor’s license, and offered to let me come work for her if I got it. I thought it was a great opportunity, so I did.”

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Troy worked with the agent for a while before moving to a Century21 office closer to where he lived in American Fork, Utah.

Now—after 23 years in the business—he’s the owner/broker of the Coldwell Banker Preferred Properties branch in Richfield, managing a team of ten agents serving central Utah. “All of us here love meeting Top Agent Magazine

and helping people, and our experience along with the many resources we have through Coldwell Banker allows us to do that well.”

Last year Troy and his team closed 210 transactions, with 50 to 60 percent of that Top Agent Magazine

business coming from repeat clients and referrals. Part of the secret to that success is the team’s proactive approach to the market. “There’s a shortage of home inventory right now, but not a shortage of land. One of the things we’re doing is developing cabin sites and recreational 11 Copyright Top Agent Magazine

Last year Troy and his team closed 210 transactions, with 50 to 60 percent of that business coming from repeat clients and referrals. areas in our nearby Tushar Mountains.

There are plenty of people in Richfield or the surrounding area who would love to sell their home and get into something newer, which also opens up opportunities for firsttime homebuyers.”

Troy and his Richfield team market their properties using Coldwell Banker’s dash system, which allows them to post listing material to hundreds of websites. And because Coldwell Banker is the longeststanding Realty brand in the nation, listings Copyright Top Agent Magazine 12

gain maximum exposure through its network.

“A lot of brokerages simply don’t have the resources that we do,” Troy explains.

When he’s not working, Troy gives lots of time to supporting his community, as Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Rotary Club, and through his church. He’s particularly excited about a recent project. “We’ve been able to utilize a local motel to help people who are in transition, whether short term because they’re closing on a home, or as a longer-term Top Agent Magazine

rental. We’ve also just received our license to begin turning it into a New Life Recovery Center for drug and alcohol recovery patients, something the area has needed for a long time.”

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Troy spends most of his leisure time with his family. “I have six children, so we’re busy with everything from drill team events to golf tournaments to football games. We also own some recreational property ourselves Copyright Top Agent Magazine 13

where we go to enjoy things like fishing or hunting or four-wheeling. We especially love exploring Utah, which has such a rich history, from Native-American ruins and petroglyphs to the Spanish gold trail that comes through the area, to sites frequented by Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch. It’s just a beautiful and interesting area.”

Going forward, Troy wants to carry on the excellent reputation for customer service he and the previous owners of the Coldwell Banker branch have built in Richfield over the last 30 years, continuing to grow with the community.

Contact Troy at 435-896-3797 or email Troypoulsen@gmail.com

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By the Numbers:

Understanding the True Value of Square Footage Measuring the square footage of a property may seem like an objective and straightforward task, but you’d be surprised at how many agents and homebuyers misunderstand this pivotal figure.

True square footage provides homebuyers a concrete understanding of their prospective domain, but here’s the problem: the rules to determine a home’s square footage are not always uniform across the board. What’s more, much of Top Agent Magazine

a home’s value is determined by its size, so accuracy is certainly important. While many real estate agents have their own systems for determining or confirming a home’s true square footage, it doesn’t hurt to update your practices and become an expert on the subject. After all, you may learn a few techniques that could add value to a listing, or better prepare you in guiding house-hunters on the lookout.

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1. Do your due diligence Most towns and cities have a local records department where floorplans and blueprints are kept on file. It’s worth noting that these records don’t typically include any subsequent additions or remodels on a property, but they still give archive hunters a legal baseline when outlining a property’s square footage. Oftentimes, a straightforward online search of a city or county’s records office can pull the information necessary, or else agents can poke around in person to uncover informative blueprints at the records office. Either way, access to original blueprints or floorplans is a great tool for determining livable square footage. As a bonus,

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original blueprints and floorplans—especially in historic properties—can be intriguing visual aids for prospective buyers, as well.

2. Know the rules While there aren’t universal standards when it comes to measuring square footage, there are general guidelines that can help determine square footage in an authentic way. Per the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), here are the official recommendations for measuring a home’s real square footage: n

Called “below grade spaces,” basements and sunrooms beyond a home’s typical

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living quarters do not count toward a home’s true square footage. According to ANSI, even big draws like finished basements don’t count toward a property’s Gross Living Area. Of course, even below grade spaces have their own desirable value and should be outlined as such on listings. n

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Did you know the space inside closets and on stairways counts toward a home’s square footage? Even if these areas are relatively small, they still add to a property’s calculable square footage.

When recording square footage, ANSI actually suggests performing measurements from a property’s exterior—though this method does not account for the

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thickness of exterior walls, which could skew square footage numbers. n

Just like below grade spaces, a garage, a pool house, or even a guest house should not be included in a property’s Gross Living Area. The rationale at work here is this: if you must go outside to access additional living areas, then they are beyond the square footage scope of the primary dwelling and should not be included in a home’s Gross Living Area.

3. Double-check by doing the dirty work Buyers and sellers have or will make a sizable investment in a property, so isn’t it fair to double-check all the relevant facts and figures

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when it comes to true square footage? If you want to take on the endeavor yourself, here are a few helpful steps to take. n

First, you’ll need a few things to get started, including a tape measure that can measure at least 100 ft., graph paper, and a pencil.

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Next, choose a room to start measuring wall-by-wall. Measure Wall 1, then proceed to assign each square on the gridded paper a corresponding measurement, rounding to the nearest tenth of a foot for the sake of clarity.

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From there, draw out the wall you measured and measure the remaining walls in the

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room. Once you’ve completed the room’s measurements, multiply the room’s length and width to determine its square footage. n

As you go measure throughout the home, using your own system to scale, you will construct a failsafe floorplan.

Mastering your craft is everything, and the real estate industry is no different. Every now and again, it’s worthwhile to update your well of information, take matters into your own hands, and continue to innovate with the industry. While square footage may not seem like the juiciest starting off point for such a venture, never forget: mastery of technical knowledge is a sure sign of expertise.

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BLAKE CEVERING

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BLAKE CEVERING

When speaking with Blake Cevering – Broker/ Owner of Blake Cevering Realty Group in Ogden, Utah – one can’t help but notice the enthusiasm he feels for the real estate industry. With nearly three decades of experience of helping buyers and sellers achieve their real estate goals, Blake has more than earned his stellar reputation as a Realtor who consistently goes above and beyond for his many grateful clients.

Blake, who began his real estate career in 1992, can trace his interest in the business back to his early teens. “I fell in love with the business when I was fourteen or fifteen,” he recalls. “Every morning, I would get up, go get the newspaper and just spend the next few hours poring over all of the open houses and looking at the homes for sale. So, real estate has really been in my blood since I was a teenager.”

Blake can make the impressive claim that almost the entirety of his business is based upon referrals and repeat customers, a true barometer of the excellent customer service he provides. “I would say that my clients appreciate the personal touch that I give them,” says Blake, when asked how he has managed to inspire so much trust and loyalty amongst those he works with. “I’m also willing to go above and beyond what is generally expected from a Realtor. I’ve been known to mow people’s

Currently overseeing an equally dedicated team of five agents, 20

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lawns when they didn’t have a chance to get that done, and I’ve also gone to make sure that driveways are snow plowed so that if other Realtors need to get inside, it’s easier for them.”

Another factor that has played a significant role in Blake’s continuing success story would be the solid, long-lasting relationships he cultivates with his customers. “It’s not my clients’ responsibility to remember me,” says Blake, paraphrasing one of his favorite quotes, “It’s my responsibility to not let them forget me.”

Additionally, Blake’s thorough and intelligent marketing strategies have made fast sales for top dollar the rule, rather than the exception.

“I’m a big believer in videography,” he explains. “I produce a very professional video for each listing, and I post it on all of the social media platforms I use. I also use professional photography exclusively. I want my clients to know that when they hire me, they’re going to get the very best. My listings are always very professional looking on the MLS.” When he’s not working, Blake enjoys spending time with his family and mountain biking. He is also an avid philanthropist who serves on the North Ogden City Council, where he is a solid supporter of a yet-to-be-constructed city park.

“I actually formed a non-profit organization,” he says, “and a percentage of each of my sales goes into it so that eventually we’ll be able to build that park.”

Blake, whose plans for the future of his business include continued growth and additional mentoring of newer agents, has some advice for those just embarking on a career as an agent. “I would tell them to never give up,” he says. “Just hang in there, work hard, and success will find you.”

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For more about Blake Cevering, please call 801-549-8202 or email Blake@bcrgut.com Copyright Top Agent Magazine 21

How To Overcome Your Workplace Fears Fear is something that can help protect us from danger, but it is also something that can be a hindrance to us in our lives, especially when it keeps us from potentially thriving and growing as a person. This is especially true in the workplace. Here’ a look at some proven ways to overcome common workplace fears.

your head, what exactly you’re feeling and why, it can help deflate the fear. Think of it as releasing some of the fear into the ether.

Yes, you’ll still be nervous about your presentation, but a lot of what was holding you back is gone. You’ll feel lighter, and hopefully have just enough butterflies to make your soar.

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Really owning the emotions that are putting you in a place of fear, is the first step.

By just naming it and then talking it out in

Nothing can make you feel more isolated than going down the path of “This is something that only happens to me.” Trust me,

ASSESS THE FEELINGS BEHIND THE FEAR

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TALK ABOUT YOUR FEARS WITH A TRUSTED CO-WORKER

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it doesn’t, and you might be surprised to find out that some people have had it even worse. Talking to someone you trust and admire, hearing their own fear horror stories and how they overcame them, will help normalize what you’re feeling. Releasing yourself from the idea that it’s something about you, will be an enormous relief.

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THINK OF THE WORST CASE SCENARIO

Although it might seem counter-productive, truly assessing what the worse outcome of the situation you’re afraid of serves two purposes. It might lead you to realize the worst case scenario isn’t that bad after all.

Of course it could also lead you to a really uncomfortable thought, you could lose your job. As bad as that is, it also gives you an opportunity to start focusing on what really matters, and how you might grow from the experience and possibly end up better off.

Countless people in their dream jobs now, were once fired and thought it was the end of the world. Hopefully, that won’t happen to you, but learning to have confidence in your abilities to always find a way, will be a great tool in overcoming fears.

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COMPARTMENTALIZE

If you’re a super-organized type, you might try actually setting aside time in your day to focus on your fears. It might seem odd, but it will let you NOT focus on your fears during the other hours of your day. Think of it as a task, you aren’t just sitting there worrying, Top Agent Magazine

Start thinking of fears as challenges.

As scary as it might seem to face them, for the most part they are things that can be fixed.

you’re taking in your fears and figuring out ways to overcome them.

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START THINKING OF YOUR FEARS AS OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH

Start thinking of fears as challenges. As scary as it might seem to face them, for the most part they are things that can be fixed.

A lot of fear is based on inexperience which leads to a lack of confidence. A common fear is workplace evaluations. Instead of looking at it as hearing everything that is wrong about you, think of it as an opportunity to see where you can improve. Going into it with a positive attitude rather than a defensive posture, will make the whole thing better for both parties.

Overcoming fears is oftentimes about a simple attitude adjustment. Like anything it takes practice, but the results of that practice will lead to a life that you’re able to thrive in both personally and professionally.

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