Real estate buyer’s guides are excellent resources for real estate investors. They showcase an agent’s expertise and provide valuable information for potential and existing clientele. Buyer’s guides may also offer a helpful boost in SEO value when published to an agent’s website.
What Is a Real Estate Buyer’s Guide?
In short, a real estate buyer’s guide is exactly what it sounds like: a guide to purchasing real estate. Buyer’s guides often provide an overview of who the agent is, describe how the agent operates, and detail the real estate buying process.
Buyer’s guides can also cover a variety of specialized topics, including:
- What is better: buying a home or buying land on which to build a home
- How to choose the right real estate agent
- The benefits and risks of purchasing a fixer-upper
- Strategies to win a bidding war
- How to transform a home into a rental property
Agents who offer guides on specialized topics in addition to the general property buying process stand out from the crowd, as they are able to highlight their deep knowledge base. Additionally, when multiple guides are published to the agent’s website, the plethora of fresh and quality content aid in increasing the site’s SEO value.
The Purpose of a Real Estate Buyer’s Guide
Real estate buyer’s guides introduce a buyer to the agent, explain the real estate purchasing process, and answer important questions. These documents:
- Educate the buyer by detailing the proper steps in purchasing real estate and outlining the order in which the steps should be taken
- Define real estate terminology (foreclosure, short sale, etc.)
- Go over the agent’s terms and conditions
- Remove a level of stress by uncomplicating the process and providing valuable information
- Transform stress into excitement through content that encourages the buyer
Another important purpose of a buyer’s guide is to highlight the agent. These guides should convince potential clientele to hire the agent and reassure existing clients that they have chosen the right person to help them on their buying journey.
- A buyer’s guide may highlight an agent by emphasizing the agent’s:
- Knowledge, accreditation, area of focus, and expertise
- Ability to negotiate on the buyer’s behalf
- Knack in discovering properties that meet the buyer’s wants and needs
- Network, particularly with lawyers and mortgage brokers
- Skill in ensuring that nothing is overlooked in the purchasing process
- Ability to ensure that the buyer gets a fair price
- Dedication to representing and protecting the buyer’s best interests
What Is Included in a Real Estate Buyer’s Guide?
As previously mentioned, buyer’s guides outline each step in the real estate purchasing process. An example of steps that should be included in a buyer’s guide includes:
- Convince the buyer to hire the agent
- Determine a financial plan
- Connect with a mortgage broker and obtain preapproval
- Connect with a lawyer to review rules and financial details (ex. HOA regulations and requirements)
- Determine the location
- Consider the neighborhood; proximity to schools, shopping, hospitals, and other resources; the school district; property taxes; risk of natural disasters; commute times; noise levels; average home prices in the area
- Embark on the house or property hunt
- Make an offer
- Order an inspection
- Come to an agreement on terms with the seller
- Sign the purchase and sales agreement
- Put down a deposit
- Complete the loan application process
- Order a final inspection
- Closing day—sign all necessary paperwork and obtain the keys
Why Include a Real Estate Buyer’s Guide on Your Website
When a real estate agent publishes a buyer’s guide on their website, they will likely reap a bountiful reward. This reward includes:
- Helping the agent stand out from the crowd
- Reinforcing the agent’s value and expertise by highlighting their knowledge, skillset, and experience
- Providing a rich resource for existing clientele, prospective buyers, and the general public
- Improving the agent’s website’s SEO value
- Drawing more traffic to the agent’s website
- Expanding the agent’s clientele base
Best Practices When Drafting a Real Estate Buyer’s Guide
When it comes to writing a buyer’s guide, agents should keep in mind the following:
The Proper Tone
Real estate buyer’s guides feature a professional tone that creates a level of trust in the reader. In addition, a tasteful layer of friendliness and warmth can further establish trust, instill a sense of confidence and calm, and keep the reader engaged.
Creating the ideal tone can be similar to walking a tightrope at times, as it is easy to lean too much on one side or the other. For example, buyer’s guides that feature a chatty or overly-friendly tone may cause the reader to pull back in distrust, while a cut-and-dry tone may cause the reader to lose interest. These guides should include a refined blend of both.
What to Include in the Content
A real estate agent can unleash their expertise when crafting the guide’s content. Now is a great time to show expertise: walk the buyer through each step, detail what they can expect, clarify the meaning of various terminology, and include bits of helpful advice. Buyers will no doubt appreciate learning why they shouldn’t accrue any new debts, why they should not wait if they find a property they like, or why they should not call a listing agent themselves.
When writing the content for the buyer’s guide, it is important to include the following:
Quality Material
Ensure a level of professionalism and quality by including content that is free from spelling and grammatical errors.
Inspiring Content
There is no better way to secure a client and encourage them to start their homebuying journey than with inspirational content. Include material that stirs the reader to hire the agent and begin the process.
Cold Hard Facts
Trustworthy material avoids fictional content. Include concrete facts, as well as valuable examples of instances that the agent has found to be true based on experience.
Keywords
Draw more traffic (and more clients) by including researched keywords into the buyer’s guide. When published on the agent’s website, this guide will without a doubt improve the site’s SEO value.
Easily Digestible Format
Scannable, easy-to-read content is a joy for readers—especially on the web. An easily digestible format features concise sentences, short paragraphs, and only information that is important and relevant.
Images
Include images to break up the monotony of text and make the guide more client-friendly. Images are also a great way to reinforce a point, provide added insight, and create a sense of pleasure.
Mobile-Friendly
After publishing the buyer’s guide online, it is beneficial to ensure the webpage is optimized for mobile users. More and more people are using their phones over computers—in fact, mobile traffic has increased 222% over the last seven years alone.
Downloadable
Consider adding a PDF file to the buyer’s guide, so that clients and other readers can download and save the information for later. While certainly not required, making the guide a downloadable file is an added convenience that clientele will enjoy.
When followed, these best practices will no doubt provide a quality resource that benefits clientele, the general public, and the agent alike. From allowing readers to enjoy a pleasant viewing experience via their mobile device to including SEO-friendly factors such as researched keywords, following these guidelines will help any agent draft a quality buying guide.
