Within the next few days, a group of us from Century 21 Arizona Foothills - Arrowhead office will begin a long-term journey into serving the real estate needs of the residents of Westbrook Village, an active adult community in Peoria Arizona. Why? Because it's there, of course. (Hopefully, none of the five of us will be found 75 years from now in a bunker on the Westbrook Village Country Club's back nine.)

Choosing an area in which to work seems simple enough on the surface - place map on wall, throw dart, send postcards, list homes, make money, retire to Westbrook. But in truth, a lot of preparation goes into launching an effective marketing campaign. And that's the topic both of this post and some future posts - building a large presence in a community where only a small presence currently exists.

First off, we needed to know more about our competition. In the Valley as a whole, it doesn't make sense to worry too much about who else is out there because there are far too many agents and far too many homes for there to be any discernable market share. Not so in an area such as Westbrook Village, which has a history. Once upon a time, Westbrook Realty was the dominant player in the area - the reasons are both obvious and peculiar to active adult communities - residents rely heavily on word of mouth and stay with what they know.

Russ Lyon bought out Westbrook Realty and now they are the major brokerage in the area - to the tune of 23% of the current listings and successful sales in Westbrook Village. West USA agents have carved out another 14% of the market. From there, the numbers quickly drop into the single digits. It's in these single-digit areas that we've set our sights; add together enough of the single digits and soon you have double-digit market share. Let Russ Lyon have theirs, we'll take the rest, essentially.

Later this week the real work begins. Residents in Westbrook Village's Phase II - 83rd Avenue to 91st Avenue, Union Hills to Beardsley - will be receiving an introductory letter from me and the other five agents involved in this effort within the next week. And by Halloween I will have WestbrookVillage.com up and running - trust me, you'll see an announcement here when it's ready. In addition to the real estate, we will be providing a lot of useful information for residents and prospective residents on the site's pages.

Direct mail will start in December with notices of homes sold in the area, both by C21 Arizona Foothills and others. Some of us may even be showing up on people's doorsteps in the next couple of months as well, either delivering candy or demanding eggnog - whatever it seems the situation demands.

And last but not least is the work from within - among our ranks we have a member of the bridge club and a member at the Westbrook Village Country Club. Word of mouth is a truly wonderful thing.

You'll see more in this space as we move along. In the interim, please allow this as an explanation of why we've been a little more quiet the last week or two. Tobey's not much of a multi-tasker.

(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes