Working with foreigners is an opportunity that comes with obstacles

Let's face it, we know that being a real estate agent in the times we are now living in, can be very stressful. People are changing every day. Consumer behaviors are different, and there are lot's of technological tools that we have to learn how to manage every day. Nowadays we have more and more people that work from home, we have people moving abroad to work and study, and the notion of "home" is too broad to apply the image we had when we were young: a huge family around the table with our grandma cooking some delicious pie.

Undoubtably, this is not a profession where the perks come for free, and we do face several obstacles in our daily activity. But embracing a challenge and overcoming obstacles is the path we all have to go through if we want to be successful, right? 

If you are one of those agents that already thought working with international buyers can be a pain, you have just reached the right spot to start changing your opinion. Don't want to be "fashionably" late to these new trends. Let's unveil and face the industry obstacles together.

Real estate agent obstacles while working with foreign buyers

Between April and June 2018, we asked real estate agents what were their main obstacles while working with foreign buyers. We inquired 126 real estate agents worldwide and their answers were pretty interesting. We were able to get to the conclusion that language is the main obstacle agents face (37%), followed by building a trustful relationship with your customers and financing issues (13% each). Note that this question had an open response option, so real estate agents could reply as per their feeling and knowledge. Let's have a better look.

These results change a little bit if we consider only the answer we got from real estate agents in the USA, France, Spain and Portugal. Let's understand it better.

Language is a big deal for most countries, excluding Portugal. For Portuguese agents the main obstacle is the cultural differences and lifestyle (23%), followed by beureaucracy and laws (19%) and finally we have the language barriers (15%). This might be explained by the fact that Portuguese people are keen to speak several languages. It's not a coincidence that Portugal is a growing market when we talk about call center services. One example is Airbnb customer service that is based in Lisbon.

On the other hand we have Spain where the language barriers is mentioned as the main obstacle they face (45%). In France the same obstacle has a weight of 44% and in the USA the value is 43%.

After analyzing these results we can see that language barriers (36%), build a trustful relationship with the client and financing issues (13% each), bureaucracy and laws (12%), and cultural differences (9%), are the main obstacles real estate agents face worldwide.

How to tackle these obstacles

This is a fast-moving world and a fast-moving sector. Like technology, marketing, medicine and others, things change quickly. In order to face those changes the best advice is to keep yourself updated and how can you do it?

Language

Even though it is quite obvious why Language is an obstacle for real estate agents that work with international buyers, this is a factor that can really discourage several professionals. But to overcome this, we have a few ideas to help you get through it.

Let's start with the basics. Include a translate button in your website (being Google Translate the most popular option), or translate your website with a professional translator. Nowadays there are several portals like Upwork.com where you can easily find a freelancer to do this for you. Note that this second option is the best because native language pages are better to pick up keywords. Search engines will work better and this will help your website to be noticed by your targeted audience.

Our second tip is optimise your translation for SEO. Start by optimizing the translation that is related to a specific country you want to target. This will be a small step that will make all the difference to boost your business.

Build a trustful relationship with the client

Now you have your international buyers attention, and now those foreigners are relying on you, it's up to you to conquer them.  Start by assuming they don’t know anything about the market (hospitals, cost of life, social life, etc) and try to schedule a skype call to get to know them and to run a diagnosis on their needs.

In order to establish a trustful relationship with your client you must provide a fast answer. If providing a fast answer to your local leads is important, imagine someone that is abroad. If taxes and residence status can be complicate to understand in your own country as a national, imagine someone that has to learn it all. International transactions are significantly more complex than local deals, so don’t keep them waiting. Don't forget that it is important to get good referrals to grab more perks later on.

Financing issues

When a buyer comes to you willing to buy, it's not only it's will that counts. You are always concerned about understanding what is the available budget and what is their residential status in the country in order to organise yourself before presenting solutions. Some of the foreign buyers that are reaching out already know what they want but there are others that need to ask for a mortgage. For these cases, I bet you agree with me on this one... Gosh this is really an hassle! And if they don't get it? Will the deal fall apart?

The best way to run away from this deal killer is to give preference to all-cash offer. but this will be the perfect solution in a perfect world, right? To avoid wasting time, why not screen your potential buyers from the beginning and see if they are illegible to a mortgage and up to which amount. Find a bank account manager, go grab a coffee with him/her. Make some friends and use that contact in case of need.

If you are still struggling with how to do this, check out our 5 tips on how to respond to international leads.

Bureaucracy and laws

The most important in here is to manage the laws and the bureaucratic work required for your customer as much as you can. The key message is "simplify, simplify, simplify". This is a hard subject and everyone hates it, but if you manage to put this in a simple way to your potential buyers, they will feel dazzled and they will be more likely to buy a property with you. And how will you simplify that for your customers?

1. Make a list of all the benefits that exist on the market for foreign buyers.
2. Check-out what are their legal obligations and taxes to pay.
3. Confirm what are the documents needed.
4. Define a simple process and develop marketing material to provide to your customers when needed.

By preparing yourself in advance and showing your potential customers you are a real estate guru, you will more easily close your sale. Remember that laws and bureaucracy should be handled and manage by you if you want to provide an excellent service. Check out what your customers need to know before buying a property abroad here.

Cultural differences

There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Every country and culture are different, but that is also the beauty of living in a place called Earth. The existing variety is an obstacle but it is also an opportunity if you tackle that carefully. By having a strong sense of targeted audience, buying habits, likes and dislikes you are more likely to succeed.

The good news is that it all starts with you. Do the following exercise:

1. Find, In your market, where are the hotspots and the most interesting attributes.
2. Find Which countries are more likely to be interested by that.
3. What are the leading gurus in those markets and start following them on social networks or blogs.
4. Get to know the your potential buyers in that country: what kind of properties they seek, prices, etc.
5. Get to know your peers in the market and establish a strong relationship with them. They will bring you some customers.
6. Start gathering all the data and build little brochures/marketing material that is fully adapted to them and translate it.

Now that you know wit all, advertise on global platforms and blogs. Why not using ListGlobally for that?

ListGlobally helps you overcome the obstacles you face while working with foreign buyers

Guess what? Dog days are over. Let's find out why.

• At ListGlobally we translate all our agents listings into their customers native language. This translation is made automatically, and each time you perform an update on one of your listings the translation is also updated.
• To help you overcome the cultural and lifestyle constraints we often publish articles and studies about international buyers and their differences per country.
• We have several articles about tax benefits for international buyers in several countries like Spain (in Spanish) and Portugal (in Portuguese).
• We help you learn from the best by publishing interviews with several real estate agents that share their experience with you, like Frank Arias from ServMor in Panama (check out the interview here)
• Participate in our webinars: webinar on chinese buyers in the USA,  Webinar about international buyers in Spain - Spanish content.
• We provide you several tips and tricks, and how to guides to help you lead and boost your business: 5 tips to answer international buyer leads; how to prepare a property visit for a foreign buyer; how to sell a property to a chinese buyer; how to get more mandates; and many others

Am I forgetting something? Share your tips

Thanks for reading this article. However if you face other obstacles while working with international buyers of if you want to share any idea just reach out. We want to talk. Contact us.