How real estate agents can fight zombies (foreclosures)

At my office, we can’t get through a Tuesday without a discussion about The Walking Dead.

In case you’ve lived in a cave for the past few years, The Walking Dead is a hit show on AMC about, well, zombies. (And the best way to actually fight them is with a real estate map based search tool, but more about that in a minute.)

Zombies can be fun. Unless your client’s home is located near one. We’re obviously not talking about real zombies, but zombie foreclosures where the original owners are  gone and it certainly seems for all intents and purposes as if the property really is owned by zombies.

That’s because nobody is cutting the lawn, keeping the home clean or making it look halfway attractive. This can make the rest of the neighborhood look downright frightening. And that can scare off buyers.

Amazingly, even after all these years since the Great Recession, there is still a bunch of unattended foreclosures out there.

What’s worse, the sales cycle for these monsters is incredibly long. According to RealtyTrac, on average is takes more than 1,000 days to foreclose in New Jersey, 964 in Florida and 934 in New York.

About one in four homes in foreclosure were abandoned by the owners before new owners could be found, Realty Trac reported.

What’s worse, 19 states have seen a rise is zombie foreclosures. Like The Walking Dead, it is certainly starting to seem as though the zombies are winning.

What does this have to do with the rest of the neighborhood? It can’t be good. First of all, there are no good-looking zombies. Zombie foreclosures are eyesores. They certainly put a negative spin on a street.

Secondly, they drag down surrounding home prices. How unfair is this? Everybody else on the street might be working hard to keep their lawns green, their trees trimmed and their driveways clear of clutter. Yet, you have that Frankenstein of a house down the street with the plywood over the windows and all sorts of clutter and mess surrounding the home.

This is where a real estate map-based search tool can come in handy. SpatialMatch is one such tool that is backed by an enormous database with hundreds of layers of hyper-local data covering schools, businesses, parks, hospitals, golf courses, road, airports, boundaries etc.

So, as a professional real estate marketer, you can show homeowners how you are going to use this zombie-stomping tool to help market their property.

Sure, a homebuyer is going to be affected by the site of that demon home located down the street or even God forbid, next door.

But a real estate professional can show them data indicating the number of foreclosures in an area and the rate at which they are going away. Zombie foreclosures don’t live forever.

But, Mr. and Mrs. Buyer, look at this SpatialMatch tool located on our real estate website. Speaking of location, let us show you how some of the best schools in the county are located nearby.

Or let us show you how a favorite park is only three blocks away. Or, a very popular golf course is located less than five miles away. If you are into yoga (something you never see zombies doing by the way) we will show you the best yoga studios and where they are located in relation to the property.

(Hint: Don’t bother showing them the nearest graveyard, just in case they believe zombies will appear someday. You never know who is watching that show).

The point is, yes, the home for sale is located near that monstrosity down the street. But that foreclosure is going away someday. But the great location of this property is long-lasting, for an eternity.

Sure, just like you need a wooden stake to get rid of a vampire. You need the right tools to overcome zombie foreclosures in your neighborhood.

SpatialMatch is the real estate map based search tool that can help you turn buyer objections into fantasies and bring them back to reality on the true value of a property.

To find out more about SpatialMatch real estate search.

Read the Money.com article about zombie foreclosures.