See how William Raveis arms agents with skills, training, and a powerful new cash buyer program
By Inman Content Studio
By now, every agent in the industry that is doing any business has been in a situation with multiple bids. Buyer’s agents in particular have their work cut out for them, coaching their clients and creating competitive offers.
However, the buyer’s agents at William Raveis Real Estate are uniquely positioned to win more and more of these bidding wars for their clients. We wanted to learn more so we sat down with Ryan Raveis, co-president of William Raveis Inc., the parent company of William Raveis Real Estate, William Raveis Mortgage, and William Raveis Insurance.
Ryan, well before inventory slowed and competition became incredibly fierce, agents at William Raveis were well-positioned at the negotiation table. What systems did you already have in place to help them?
Extensive training and coaching are already baked into the DNA of William Raveis Real Estate. We have an internal Career Development department and each office manager is a certified Strategic Growth Manager and coach. And we bring in world-renowned coaches like Tom Ferry and Mike Staver to help us make sure that our agents are the best trained and best armed when it comes to helping our clients.
We also host regular networking events to stay sharp and exchange ideas.
Describe the approach or philosophy your agents follow when it comes to negotiation.
We believe each negotiation is unique. And the buyer agent’s job is to understand the desires of the seller. Many times, price is not the top factor the seller is looking at. Sometimes it’s inspections or appraisals. Sometimes it’s the timeline, or speed-to-close. So we make sure our agents have the right levers and resources to position their clients with the strongest offer that best reflects what the seller wants.
And that’s why we developed the brand new Raveis CashBid and Raveis CashBid Plus programs.
How do the Raveis CashBid programs work and how do they differ from other iBuyer programs?
These programs represent two ways that William Raveis Real Estate empowers our agents to deliver the strongest offer in this uber-competitive housing market.
The first is the Raveis CashBid program. When our buyer is certified and pre-approved for a mortgage with William Raveis Mortgage, we can show proof of funds and position our client as an all-cash buyer. Our lenders will even reach out to the seller’s agent for verification.
The Raveis CashBid Plus program goes a step further. We buy the house on behalf of our client using our own cash. And we can move fast. So if the seller wants to close in a week, we can do it. Then we help our buyer secure a competitive mortgage and transfer title to them once their lending is processed.
This is the silver bullet needed to win a bidding war. As soon as the listing agent understands that they now have an offer from a large, privately held company that’s prepared to buy the house at the price and terms their clients want, they know the deal is done. And our agents win, simply knowing that they have this powerful tool in their pocket.
It’s one thing to say you have all these tools. It’s another to make sure your agents are fluent in using them and effectively advising their clients. How do you do that?
Sometimes I feel like we are a university as well as a real estate business. We have a very rigorous training program to make sure our agents understand every tool they have access to. And it’s all reinforced through the coaching and mentoring that our managers provide to our agents.
All of our agents are incredibly busy. So it’s our job to help them lift their eyes up for just a second in between deals to recognize that these tools are at their disposal. These are high-performing agents, and they know they need to continually reinvest in their learning and development to stay at the top of their game.