By Brian Slemming
Robert Bell enjoys social media. Check on Facebook and there he is, sitting at a table laid out for a yard sale. Behind him is a rather weather-worn tent. More on the tent later.
Facebook, for Bell, is just another tool for getting his name known. Spreading his name has been an important part of his real estate strategy for all of the 25 years he has been in the business. There’s a connection here between Facebook, the yard sale and real estate.
Bell’s involvement with antiques and collectibles began before his move into real estate. “I put myself through university partly by buying and selling antiques,” he says. It was a field that he had always had an interest in, and his success stayed with him after graduation. “It was more collectibles than priceless artifacts,” he says. The interest stayed with him and was demonstrated by his love of yard sales. Either visiting them or holding his own. Yard sale junkies will understand the regular hunt for that priceless treasure or just for something that is bought because the price is so low that it cannot be left on the table.
Robert Bell (right) in his flea market stall with fellow Guide Realty sales rep James Cowan.
“Strangely enough, it was a yard sale that brought me into real estate. I had a sale in my garden and two brokers stopped by, separately, and talked to me. They both said I should be in real estate.” He thought about it, and he was realistic enough to understand that yard sales and collectibles were unlikely to amount to a permanent career, “so I joined Century 21 and later I went to Frank Real Estate.” In the early 2000s he joined his current brokerage, Guide Realty in Oshawa.
“I’m really into technology. Internet, Twitter, Facebook, it all helps, but in real estate you have to have personal contact. The technology is good, but it lacks real-time, face-to-face opportunities,” he says.
Last summer Bell decided to produce a Facebook diary. “Some friends were going camping. I didn’t want to join them but camping sounded good and it was something I could do at home. I also knew I needed something that would attract people to my page so I took an old tent that belonged to my parents, set it up in the garden, and lived in it for the next six months. I moved back into the house last Boxing Day.”
It was a Canadian Tire 1970 pup tent that “really had seen better days. The roof leaked a bit and if it rained really hard I sneaked back indoors to sleep.”
As a single man, Bell says he had no opposition to his six-month camping expedition. “I think if I was married it may have been more difficult.” Bell issued a regular diary on the Internet and also posted reports on a tree in the garden. It became quite a local attraction in Oshawa.
“It was all a lot of fun, but really I needed to do something that gave me an opportunity to meet and talk to people.” It was time to think back to university days, to buying and selling. “I thought about a kiosk in a shopping mall, but most spaces were taken and selling was not permitted anyway. It wasn’t the best environment. Then I thought about the Courtice flea market.” The market is held in a small community about 10 miles east of Oshawa. It operates year-round on Saturdays and Sundays. It was there that REM stumbled across Bell and his flea market stall.
“I wasn’t really there to sell and make profit, I was there to meet and talk to people. I had a pile of junk at home and that’s what I sell, low value stuff at very low prices. I recently sold a teapot for 10 cents.”
While the table is filled with odd cups, saucers, old books and used kitchen implements, the walls of the booth are festooned with Guide Realty signs. A pile of Bell’s cards are placed around and when people stop to look at the goods, Bell engages them in conversation. When his own supply of cheap ‘junk’ grew short, fellow staffers had their own home clear-outs and replenished his supply. “I’m very pleased with the reaction. People love to stop and some buy but they all enjoy talking.”
Bell has another incentive to get listings – he offers two hours of free labour to anyone who lists with him. “It’s something I thought about when giving suggestions to vendors. We tell them that this needs tidying up or that needs a dab of paint and then usually leave them to it. So I thought, why not help?” So he printed up some “Bonus Certificates” for labour that he has at his flea market booth. The certificate suggests help tidying up, fixing curtain rods, taking out the trash and similar small jobs. The certificate clearly states that it is only valid to clients who have listed with him.
That disclaimer didn’t faze the woman who visited his stall, didn’t buy anything, didn’t list with him, but wanted to take a handful of free labour certificates. Bell laughs when he tells the story, but who knows – if it brings him face-to-face with potential clients and it leads to listings, he may just move into free labour.
