We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dayna Hennigan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Dayna, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Over the course of your career, have you seen or experienced your industry completely flip-flop or change course on something?

Just like the world has endured changes and has become accustomed to many new “normals,” we as Realtors at Hennigan Realty Group have experienced twists, turns, and some ebbs and flows in our industry in the past 3 years.

During the height of the Covid pandemic, the real estate world was in a frenzy with people taking advantage of the extreme drop-in interest rates and getting pre-approved to purchase a home. Long lines of potential buyers awaiting to view a home, multiple offers within minutes of a home hitting the market, and buyers offering tens of thousands of dollars above asking price, all to be the chosen home buyer was the current real estate normal in 2021 and 2022. At Hennigan Realty Group, we had to quickly become adjusted to the changing appraisal prices, negotiating techniques, and the art of explaining the quickly changing buying process during this pandemic induced seller’s market.

We were booked and busy. Our clients were getting pre-approved and buying their dream homes. While our other clients were selling their homes and receiving offers well above their listed amount. There were no complaints about how business was running.

However, as entrepreneurs, we understand, what goes up must come down. Or in this case what is down, eventually, must come up. So, when the pandemic real estate market began to subside, we went from interest rates at 2% to a hike in rates to as high as 7% and business slowed down, but it didn’t stop because we didn’t stop. We continued to market ourselves, educate people on the change in the market, and partner with lenders that provided financing options to combat the market change. We stayed abreast to what was going on in the market and the possibilities of what was to come.

The same mindset and tactics we took when our business was bustling with weekly “under contract” and “sold” announcements was the same mindset and tactics we maintained…market, market, market all while educating ourselves and potential clients.

Hennigan Realty Group understands the importance of knowing who our audience is and being able to understand how the change in interest rates, financing, pricing, etc. can affect our audience in any real estate market situation. As a result, we can easily be tactical Realtors when assisting our clients with the purchase or sell of their home despite the real estate climate.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

The Hennigan Realty Group is a husband-and-wife team that truly has a passion for educating homeowners about the process of homeownership and the financial possibilities of real estate using their acquired property. We service all types of home buyers and sellers: first-timers, relocators, investors, and even those who would like to lease to own. We believe that everyone can own a home; it is just achieved in different ways which is why we have created a FREE Home Buying Workshop (hosted every 3rd Saturday at 3815 Live Oak from 12-2PM) that allows the participants to come and speak directly with a Realtor, lender, and credit specialist about their specific home buying needs in order to walk away with a personalized plan towards their home buying goal.

We are proud of the work that we do daily to educate, motivate, and empower people to understand their home buying options. It is always gratifying and encouraging to continue in the work that we do especially when we get to the closing table with a client that originally called us and stated that they were nervous about the home buying process, didn’t believe they could buy a home, or had been told “No” prior to reaching out to Hennigan Realty Group.
We are well versed in the area of down payment assistance programs with some programs providing up to $150,000 to assist with buying a home. However, we are not limited to working with clients needing financial assistance. We have worked with an array of clients in various income brackets and look forward to the opportunity to continue in this direction.

Despite if you are looking to relocate, want to purchase investment properties, buy your first home, or sell your current property, we aim to be your preferred Realtor who takes pride in upholding our fiduciary responsibility of always putting the client first. Many times, in the industry of real estate, we hear stories of people interacting with realtors that have convinced them to enter into a transaction solely in the best interest of the Realtor and not the client. That is not who Hennigan Realty Group is as realtors and overall, as people. We at Hennigan Realty Group embody our motto of “We’re invested in your investment!”

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Marketing and referrals! When it comes to marketing, it is essential to identify who your audience is on and offline. At Hennigan Realty Group, we have drilled the understanding of our audience down in order to create a work smart and not hard marketing plan. In any business, the cost of marketing should be at the top of your expenditures, but it should be viewed in an effective way, so that you are not spending just to say you are marketing but putting your money in the places that will yield back a high return. For example, if our intended audience is luxury real estate but we are posting daily about homes that are priced under $250,000, we will not get the attention of my luxury clients. Instead, we will get the attention of those who can purchase homes within the range of what we are marketing.

Regarding referrals, it’s self-explanatory. When people are pleased with your service, they tell a friend and/or family member and it keeps going from there. But, to drill that topic further, you have to put into practice offering top-notch service that is worth referring. Just because our client closed on their home doesn’t mean that we provided great customer service, it just means we closed. However, at Hennigan Realty Group, we do believe in going above and beyond for our clients to make the transaction as pleasing as possible. We aim to be problem solvers, thought partners, forward thinking, etc. to relieve some of the stressors of the real estate transaction. Also, during and after our interactions with clients, we practice self-observation to determine what went well and what areas of growth we need to concentrate on to do better with the next client.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

When we started out, we knew we had to build our social media presence, so we just started sending friend requests and accepting requests from just about everyone who was in and around the Houston area. The beauty of social media is how it can quickly connect you with people that you wouldn’t naturally or easily meet. From there, we made it a mission to post daily about business and ourselves. Even though we are advertising our business, the truth is that people don’t just buy your service they buy “you!” Realtors come a dime a dozen, but by posting ourselves outside of real estate it allows potential clients to see who the person(s) that they will engage in business with. Hennigan Realty Group is a husband-wife team, but outside of work, we are a real couple, parents, friend, etc. and people like to see those “real” moments.

Social media posting is a real job and can be very time consuming, so we made a schedule to know what we were posting daily and we utilized the scheduling feature of a Facebook business page. This allowed us to automatically post on Facebook and Instagram daily to remain in the face of potential clients and to free up some time. Also, when it came to the posts of our daily lives, it made it more authentic and not so systematic. From time to time, we boosted ads to get in front of intended audience members and to drive people to our page and/or events we were hosting.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.henniganrealty.com
• Instagram: @hennigan_realty
• Facebook: @HenniganRealtyGroupTX
• Youtube: @henniganrealty
• Other: TikTok: @henniganrealtygroup

Image Credits
Pic1: Client Review about Hennigan Realty Group Pic2: Flyer about our FREE monthly home buying workshop Pic3: Happy client sold their home Pic4: Every closing that we have from the workshop, we donate a portion of our commission to the SHAPE Community Center. (l-r: Natasha Living, Deloyd T. Parker, Jr., Roland Hennigan, Dayna Hennigan, Trey Legall) Pic5: Client closing on their home