What Works, What Doesn’t – What Agents Really Need

RISMEDIA, August 1, 2008-The process of home buying and selling begins with Internet research. Homebuyers demand instant access to current listings, neighborhood information and school data.

During the home searching stage consumer want access to the best bloggers, tech savvy agents, agents with most complete websites offering relevant local content and of course fast and reliable searches.

Many will agree that the upcoming generation of home buyers want to approach real estate agents or brokerages in a very different way than prior generations, but they still want to buy in the old traditional way.

In this era when classified advertising is dead, brokers and agents who are implementing a focused and sticky Internet presence are successfully practicing the ‘one to many’ marketing technique and are build their brand identity.

The tech-savvy agent can improve their ROI by replacing costly print advertising with iMARKETING, direct response marketing, SEO and SEM, thereby reducing their marketing costs and generating more leads.

“We have found that for many PropertyMinder customers with AccelerAgent websites, prospecting is nothing more than an easy way to promote tools for home ownership research”, said Aric Kazarnovsky, executive vice president and founder of PropertyMinder.

Agents who are equipped to facilitate home purchase research should also implement a client relationship management program (CRM) to automatically keep in contact with the generated leads. This program should be active and diligent and go way beyond post cards and drip e-mail campaigns.

As home buyers want to approach real estate agents or brokerages in a very different way, home sellers demand even more.

Sellers know that new buyers are looking for pictures and videos as well as fast and reliable Web technology. Research shows that 85.5% of buyers want to view photos and virtual tours.

The new emerging Millennial Generation, a.k.a Generation Y is comprised of people from 13 to 35 years old and is the largest generation after the baby boomer group. According to the company, 53% of these people are mobile Internet users and have grown up with social networking like Facebook, MySpace, blogging and instant messaging actively in their lives. In recognizing this new generation’s embrace on an online shopping model, the demand for cutting edge technology is going to be more pressing.

In simple terms, broker and agent websites, just like cars, have to be fully loaded, reliable and comfortable. Just like the driver of a car, the “website driver” should focus on the business ahead of them and let all manual work be automated and handled by their website.

According to PropertyMinder, the company strongly believes that only a truly all-encompassing website can provide real estate agents with the convenience and price advantage they need to succeed with the new generation.

For more information, visit www.PropertyMinder.com.