Dec. 2, 2006 - The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
The notion that technology in real estate is a passing fad, something that easily can be ignored as a potential for building a business, has rated in my mind somewhere between fantasy and lunacy. Otherwise sane individuals who personally use the Internet to pay bills, to shop for holiday presents, to balance their checkbook and the like still manage to say with conviction that technology serves next to no purpose in selling real estate.
Sellsius wrote about the phenomenon of buyers using the old-fashioned real estate newspaper classifieds to search for homes. The comfort of print, of the black ink staining your fingertips, seems to carry considerable weight in many people's minds. Some sellers still demand print ads, with the four lines of abbreviations virtually devoid of any creativity in lieu of the much richer, much more detailed marketing available through the Internet.
Century 21 has adopted a policy, effective the first of the year, that any listing not containing at least three photographs will not be included on Century21.com. Why? Because statistics have shown buyers viewing properties on line, when confronted with dozens of similar homes within a city, narrow their search by arbitrary factors such as the number of photographs available and/or the presence of a virtual tour. Put another way, why would an Internet buyer with an Internet attention span (roughly 1.2 milliseconds) waste their time looking at a home with one or zero photos when there are dozens of others to view?
Amazingly, this policy has been met by grumbling from agents with my company and presumably with agents throughout the rest of the state and the country. And I have to ask ... why? Why is it so impractical to provide a bare minimum of photographs to help market a property that you have listed? Three photos cover the basics that 99% of buyers want to see - front yard, back yard and kitchen. Other photographs are great, but the vast majorities of buyers I've worked with want to see the kitchen and the two years. No debate needed.
Our company's technology guru wrote in part, "rest assured people are definitely on the Internet looking for properties that meet their specific criteria" and that "every web site counts, every bit of exposure helps."
Why this is a debate in 2006 is absolutely beyond me. Why sellers continue to hire agents who don't understand the importance of technology in real estate sales also is beyond me.
This week I discussed real estate blogging in my office's weekly sales meeting. One or two agents asked questions. The rest stared blankly at the projected images as if they were 3-D art, unaware of the potential ... or the need.
Technologies currently available allow a single agent to service exponential numbers of clients than otherwise possible. For example, online property listings can be sent, allowing buyers to narrow their choices themselves and save themselves and the agent time wasted on homes without the right curb appeal, the right kitchen.
While many agents alternately cringe from and bash Zillow, I've started running Zestimates on homes I'm about to list so I can see what my client presumably is seeing. Knowing the answer allows me to counter objections in specific terms versus the nebulous "well, only an agent can truly calculate a home's value." Maybe the fine tuning, but a market average is a market average regardless of who's calculating the price.
This isn't to say real estate can exist solely on a technological basis, as the industry remains relationship-based. A human touch is needed somewhere along the lines, especially considering the dollars being spent and the nerves and egos being soothed.
But to deny the possibilities, to say nothing of the necessities, of using technology is enough to make you wonder where they find movies in BetaMax format to fill otherwise client-less days.
(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes |
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Dec. 2, 2006 - re: The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
| Posted by jay thompson |
| When that "3 picture rule" from C21 was discussed in our sales meeting, I could not believe the whining and grumbling! Come on people! What they OUGHT to be whining and grumbling about is the fact that ARMLS limits us to only 6 pictures. |
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Dec. 2, 2006 - re: The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
| Posted by JF.sellsius |
Whether newspaper ads are still relevant depends on your market. They seem to work for rentals. They also seem to work in NYC because of the considerable weight (still) of the NYT classifieds, especially the Sunday edition. They are also relevant for certain senior markets and certain locals. They are also relevant for low income areas where many people still dont own a computer. Otherwise, right on with technology and the internet. But even though YOUR market of buyers are looking online, they may not find your website . If you dont have the traffic , what good is a website for getting buyers? Maybe lawn signs and shopping carts would do better than the net or print ads in such a case.
As for Zillow, it's useful for its inaccuracy---every broker should use Z to show potential clients how AVM's are inadequate to price homes. Most consumers take zillow with a grain of salt anyway. As for market average, I never priced a home based on an average, no matter who calculated it. Fresh relevant comps and the current market pool w/ DOM analysis is a far better way to price homes than averages or median prices, |
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Dec. 3, 2006 - re: The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
| Posted by Athol Kay |
Even three photos seems too few. We're programmed here for a six photo minimum, there's serious research behind that as well. And they better good photos or the Office Assisstant comes out and spanks you. No photo means "there is something wrong with this house" to a buyer.
Joe is right though (he's changed my mind slighty with his patent restating of his view) in that all real estate advertising is local. Though I would argue that those bastions of print will likely turn into online advertising areas just as soon as the consumer gets a better taste of it. Or local real estate gets it's act together.
Like JD here, I've also started thinking more kindly of Zillow. It takes all of 10 seconds to pull a Zillow zestimate, so whats the hurt to us. It's simply one viewpoint. I link to 5 online valuation sites, and running "play comps" on all 5 takes less than 10 minutes. As long as you understand it's a just a rough tool you're fine.
The old guard who ignore the Internet will meet their fate. That sounds callous I know, but I do believe that it is true. |
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Dec. 3, 2006 - re: The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
| Posted by JF.sellsius |
Here's what's useful about zillow or any other AVM--- the public data--- provided it is fresh, accurate and complete. It may not be. Since data can't self validate, you have to confirm its accuracy to be sure. If you assume the public data is fresh accurate & complete, there is a risk of mispricing the home. Using several AVMs to cull data is a good thing of course but if the public data is inaccurate, they will all have the inaccurate data. If you really know your market, Zillow will, if accurate, just confirm what you already know. But relying on zillow blindly is not something they would even recommend. For a public data site I like see Propertyshark.com
Remember zillow markets itself as "a" starting point not the "best" or even a "good" starting point.
The zestimate, as all pros know, is merely a red herring to get consumers to come take a look. This is what got them FTC heat.
Yes, the future is online but it takes time. It's evolutionary and gradual. It may take 10 or more years & until then you may have to live with the dinosaurs. |
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Dec. 3, 2006 - re: The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
| Posted by Jonathan Dalton |
Just to clarify, I never did say I rely on Zillow. But I do pull the information so I have some idea what my clients may see if they go there. If my number's higher, great. If it's lower, then Lucy, I'm gonna have some 'splaining to do. No issues with doing it, of course, but I know ahead of time of a possible challenge.
Average price per square foot is carrying the day in the Phoenix market ... there are only a handful of upgrades that appear to influence price in the buyers' mind. Everything else is being equivocated away based on the sheer volume of property available. |
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Dec. 3, 2006 - re: The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
| Posted by Kevin Boer |
| Hey, I can understand the frustration about being required to put three pictures up! I mean, it's pretty time consuming to bring your disposable Kodak camera to the home, take some pictures, send it off to be developed, wait for the pictures to come back, give them to the office administrator, wait for him/her to forward them to the MLS. |
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Dec. 3, 2006 - re: The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
| Posted by Kevin Boer |
| P.S. As a little Dutch boy myself, I resent the anti-Dutch title of this post! :) Next you'll be talking about "Dutch treat" and "going Dutch." |
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Dec. 3, 2006 - re: The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
| Posted by Jonathan Dalton |
Hit the headline and didn't even use the line in the post, which I didn't realize until now ... the notion of trying to hold back the flood one finger at a time.
Choose your fingers wisely, of course. |
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Dec. 3, 2006 - re: The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
| Posted by JF.sellsius |
JD, Didn't mean to imply you rely on zillow. I agree it's good to be prepared for a seller whipping out a Z on ya but since you already know your market, there is no chance a seller could throw you off with a Z-ball, Cyber-ball or Crystal-ball anyway.
Good post JD. You got the conversation going and you can always count on me to be hooked by zillow talk. |
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Dec. 4, 2006 - re: The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
| Posted by Athol Kay |
I thought the Dutch already went 100% online and newspaper ads were dead in Holland.
And yes the Realtorsaurus will be with us for a while. I'm not sure this is an arguement that we can "win", we'll just out last them. I don't dislike any of the older guard in my office - honestly as a new agent I need their input from their experience. I'd rather see them change a bit and do better than wonder who moved the cheese on them.
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Dec. 4, 2006 - re: The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
| Posted by Jonathan Dalton |
| What's amazing to me, Athol, is it's not always the older guard. I've seen experience agents who have taken to the Internet and found success. It's the newer agents, the ones sitting around most days dreading knocking on doors but otherwise unsure of where to begin yet still unwilling to look into Internet advertising that truly shock me. |
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Dec. 4, 2006 - re: The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
| Posted by Loren Nason |
Great post.
Almost 75% of my customers are Real Estate Agents and Brokers. I have one broker in particular {Seven Gables) who is forcing all of their agents to use the Company email system and domain. This relatively new rule is still not be taken seriously by all the agents. This is leading to problems that the agents don't get their email.
Why are they not getting their emai? Because they are using free email from hotmail/yahoo/msn etc. or from their isp (???.rr.com). The problem comes is that they want their company email forwarded to their personal email and since the company sends out so much some ISP's are flagging it as spam.
The other reason the Broker wants them to use the corporate email system is because it is MORE Professional than using some free email service. They want their agents to stop looking like business schlubs and instead look like PRO's.
75% of my blog subscribers are customers and when i ask them to sign up 70% say "huh, whats a blog"; 29% say "heck yeah"; and 1% ask "How do i set one up". Realtors in my opinion are the slowest over all when it comes to technology adeptness.
Back to the picture thing at C21, if an agent is too lazy/busy then pay to have it done. But really people is it THAT HARD to take 3 pictures? Most buyers don't care if there not "perfect" pictures but they want to see the house and if they can't see pictures then they will move on to the next listing.
Loren Nason |
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Dec. 5, 2006 - re: The Little Dutch Boy and Real Estate Technology |
| Posted by Todd Tarson |
A 3 photo rule imposed by the corporate giant?? Oh SNAP!! Welcome to the new world fellow agents. Why give the buyers something to look at anyway?? What kind of silly notion is that?? I mean without buyers... us agents have... well we have nothing.
Technology is scary to many Realtors (I know this rather well since I just had our MLS converted to a new program and 11 local agents had their head pop off when they tried to use the newer and better system), but the tech stuff is here to stay to change practically all the traditions in this industry (if it hasn't already). |
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