If you are a realtor and you’re not using the internet to market yourself and your listings, be prepared to go the way of the dinosaur. I know, you could be one of those realtors that says “But I don’t need to market my listings, I’ve got plenty of business.” For now. But pretty soon home sellers are going to get savvy to who’s working their hardest to get their homes sold in as little time as possible.
Consider this scenario: Bob has a realtor that uses her reputation and a yard sign to sell his house. Carol down the street has a realtor that uses virtual tours to sell her house. Bob’s house has twice as many showings as Carol’s, which sounds great! Except when you consider the fact that every time someone wants to see his house, Bob and his family have to find somewhere to go kill time while the house is being shown. Not only that, but most of the prospects coming to see the house don’t know much about it beforehand. That means most of the people coming by could have easily removed it from their “tour” list and not wasted anyone’s time.
Carol on the other hand, has half of the showings Bob has, but almost every one of them has been a serious buyer. These are people who had gotten a good idea of the house through the internet and THEN decided to come see it. These are the kind of people you want to show a house to. Those people who have done their research and narrowed their choices down to about 5 houses and are ready to make an offer on one.
So do you want to be an agent that wastes hours upon hours because you want to do things the tried and true “old skool” way? Or do you want to succumb to technology and make your time a lot more valuable. It’s true what they say: Time IS money.
