Blog / Leadership
Karl Latham, Success is not for the faint hearted
When Karl Latham decided to try his hand in real estate in Cairns in early 2008, all the soothsayers warned, “Are you crazy? Don’t do it. It’s the wrong time with the Global Financial Crisis”.
But Karl was hungry for change and prepared to put in the hard yards to realise his dream. He was working on a shark fishing boat in the Gulf of Carpentaria. He says, “If you’ve ever been on a shark fishing boat, you’ll understand want to do more than one season. It’s a hard grafting job with few career prospects other than getting your hand bitten off by a shark. So really, I was looking for something that could create a good income and a good future for myself and to build a family with.”
So Karl didn’t listen to the negative talk; he started a new career in real estate. He says, “In my first year with PRD Nationwide I made the top 40; in the second year I got to the top 10. The next year I bought on a PA - my wife Hayley - and we doubled the figures and last year we did 96 transactions with an average sale price of $319, 000". Last September, Karl had his best month ever and did 24 sales and Hayley had a baby as well...
Karl believes that the turning point was when he brought his wife into the busness. He explains, "One of the key parts of my success was bringing Hayley into the business. I needed some help. I just hasd too many things to do. There's no secret or magic when you want to be successful in real estate. It's just about being there doing it, doing the numbers. I'm not good at management. I'm good ad doing things I can do lots of things at once but I needed the management to kind of set the train tracks to success."
Karl and Hayley set themselves targets. Karl says, "We worked out this is how much money we want to earn and these are how many listings we need to sell and these are how many appraisals we need to do to get those listings and this is how many doors I need to knock on to get those appraisals. We then worked our way backwards down to a daily task list of what we need to do to achieve that end result.”
Targets drive Karl and his day. With his wife Hayley taking on the role of full time Mum, Karl now has a team of two all working towards a target of writing $1m in fees in the next year. Karl says, “We’re on target for that. To get there, in a good week I’ll do eight listing presentations to get four new listings; we’d want to get ten vendor-paid ads to create our presence in the paper; three price reductions, have ten pipeline vendor contacts, and get people into the pipeline who were looking at selling in the next three to six months. I’d do 50 CMA drop-offs, 20 door knocks, have 40 just sold and just listed calls and 300 letterbox drops!” Success does not come easily.
Karl gets the results because he understands that real estate is a numbers game and all about how much grit and sweat you are prepared to put in. Some of his most effective strategies have been:
Taking his own photos of every property in his area
Karl has taken the time to take photos of the 1200 properties in his service area. These up to date photos are included in any marketing materials. Karl has found this to be a very effective tool for softening a potential client. He says, “People really like it because they feel like you’ve gone to the extra effort. Some agents put the old RP Data photo from 1999 when the home was red brick before the client rendered it, and the client’s 1986 Toyota Corolla is out the front as well. But when the client receives an up to date photo, they can see their renovations done, they can see that it is personalised. They really like it. We get a lot of comments. Some people even ring up and say, “Can you come around and take another photo ‘cause we’ve just painted the fence out the front!”
Call lists
Karl spends a lot of time on the phone. He has a number of different types of calls that he makes. For example, the just sold calls. He explains, “When we have sold a property, we call any past appraisals that we’ve done in the area and let them know that we’ve just sold a property that was similar to theirs around the corner. I might pick up the phone and say, “Hey Mr and Mrs Smith, we appraised your property four weeks ago. Just letting you know we’ve sold 10 Smith Street and it sold for $487,000. How does that compare to yours?” Just sold calls start a conversation, and Karl and his team try to get through at least 20 of those sorts of calls per property.
Never one to be confined to the box, Karl and his team also contact vendors who are on the market with other agents and invite them to one of his open homes for them to come and have a look. Such people could be potential clients for one of his properties. Karl says, “They usually receive the call well. I’ll say, ‘Look, I’ve noticed you’re on the market with another agent. I’m not here to poach or anything. I’m just wondering if you sell the property you’re in, where are you going to buy? Are you going to buy locally?’ They might be moving away, they might be buying locally. I might say, ‘We’ve got a property that’s quite similar to yours. It could be considered competition. Why don’t you come down, have a look at the weekend? See how it compares with yours because other buyers will be looking at it. It might be interesting to know the feedback the other buyers are giving on this property as competition for yours’.”
Karl also makes expired listing calls. Karl explains, “I think they’re very important. The majority of the expired listing calls that I ring are to people who haven’t re-signed with their agent. The agent has let it expire and they haven’t re-signed to extend the agency agreement.”
Nothing comes from nothing. Success comes to those who dare and act. Karl Latham is testimony to that.
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