Can you imagine having 6,500 buyers waiting for you to find them a home? Welcome to Scott Freerksen’s life, where he carved out a real estate specialty on the lakes of New England.
Name: Scott Freerksen
Company: Lakefront Living Realty, LLC
What is your real estate niche? Direct lakefront homes in New England
Experience with this specialty: 11 Years
How did you get started in the lakefront living niche? I was born and raised on Bungay Lake in Massachusetts and have always had a passion for lakefront living.
Where did you learn the ropes of lakefront living? Uniting buyers and sellers of direct lakefront homes is all we do, all day, every day. We have categorized over 1,500 area lakes with all the relevant details on our website, including water quality, invasive weed count, fish type, allowed recreation, swimming restrictions, and more. We also display over $1.4 billion in lakefront inventory in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Connecticut.
What purpose does your specialization have in the industry? Our website and business solves 3 major buyer problems. First, because we only display direct lakefront homes, we have taken the consumer average search times from 3.4 hours to just 15 seconds. Second, complete information on the lakes are displayed on our website (buyers are not only buying a home, they are buying a lake). Lastly, we provide a local lakefront specialist to coach buyers with their purchase. For sellers, we have captured the buyer market and can offer them 30,000 views per month on our website. We also sell our own listings to one of our 6,500 registered buyers 80% of the time.
How much business do you generate from your lakefront niche? 98% of our business comes via our lakefront niche. 2% is the occasional non-lakefront referral.
How do you market your specialization? We are essentially an internet-based business. Therefore, most of our marketing efforts are web-based: web content, blog posts, social media, etc. We also send direct mail to lakefront homeowners on specific lakes.
Why do you enjoy selling lakefront properties? We strongly believe that lakefront living truly changes people’s lives. Our mission statement sums this up nicely: “We believe every human being that strives to enrich their lives and the lives of those around them should have the opportunity to experience, enjoy, and live the lakefront lifestyle – a purposeful step toward true happiness.”
What are the biggest challenges facing lakefront properties? One challenge is not having enough inventory for the thousands of buyers we work with. In the four states we cover, there are just over 1,800 direct lakefront homes. We have 6,500 lakefront buyers anxiously waiting for their dream home.
What are the benefits of having a specialization vs. being an agent that is everything to everyone? Simply put, by narrowing our focus, we expand our appeal. We’re not trying to be all things to all people, we are simply the best at all things lakefront.
What are some resources you use to stay up to date on lakefront living? Each day, we screen every new lakefront listing from the entire MLS in four states to stay in tune with the inventory. We regularly attend area lake association annual meeting and events. We are active in the lake management communities such as North American Lake Management Society (NALMS) and Congress of Lakes & Ponds (COLAP). We test the latest aquatic plant management techniques. Our weekly blog posts cover a wide variety of lakefront topics. Our weekly e-newsletter highlights great new listings to our 6,500 buyers. We receive constant feedback on the usefulness of our site via regular meetings with power-users. We’ve also developed a 37-point checklist for buyers that will red-flag any potential issue with a waterfront home prior to making an offer.
On the hunt for a specialty? Enroll in Niche Marketing: Narrow Your Focus. In this course you will:
- Learn the history and fundamentals of the real estate marketing industry
- Get tools to learn how to identify your niche market
- Learn how to implement your niche marketing plan
