Realtors turn to Web
The influence of the Internet continues to grow in real estate deals, and to get a piece of it one local company is working nearly around the clock.
Edward Surovell Realtors redesigned its website in late 2005, forming an "Internet Rapid Response" team at the same time. It's an innovation in strategy that positions the company to convert the ever-growing number of Internet leads into customers.
"This is how people are looking for homes," said Amy Pierce, Internet lead coordinator for Surovell. "The Web has evolved in that direction. Because of that, it became more and more essential to our company that we take care of those customers." The "rapid response" format is new to the local real estate market, Pierce said, but it's a model that's gaining prominence in other states.
A study by the National Association of Realtors released in January said that 77 percent of homebuyers used the Internet for information on properties, up from 74 percent the previous year. Data from NAR shows that Internet research even eclipses a staple of the industry yard signs as a source of listing information. Research showed that 71 percent of buyers in 2005 gained information from a yard sign. Now Realtors are looking for even more ways to convert Internet leads into listings and sales. Tools include company and individual agent websites; services that boost likelihood to show up on search engines; websites that are tied to traditional print products; and evolving Web sales formats like Craigslist.
Locally, most real estate firms are also adapting aspects of the model to the overwhelming changes that the Internet brings to the industry.
Dennis Pearsall of Real Estate One said his staff also has a team set up to monitor Internet inquiries, which were up 36 percent at the end of 2005. "We're projecting 2006 to be up substantially over that," said Pearsall, who has tracked the increase over several years. "We've had thousands of referrals per year and closed hundreds of them."
The Surovell Internet team started in November, as the company launched it sretooled website. Internal tracking at the end of January showed one closing, four listings and two sales contracts, with more in the works.
Pierce said comparable data on Internet leads hadn't been tracked until the new team started, but the results so far exceed expectations.
"At first it seems like a new way of doing things," Pierce said. "The more you think about it, it's the only way to do things now."
The Internet lets buyers do their own research before they contact an agent.
"They'll still contact an agent, but they'll already have educated themselves," Pierce said. "They want answers and they want them quickly." Pierce's role is to make the first contact, which typically occurs within an hour of the inquiry if it's made between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. But Pierce also checks e-mail outside of those hours. She'll work with the buyers through preliminary questions about the entire process, eventually referring them to one of 90 agents who have joined the Internet team. "They're professionals who are tech-savvy, and in-tune with online customer needs," Pierce said. Internet customers bring their own characteristics to the deal, brokers said.
For example, they expect an immediate response, they also tend to buy houses priced above the median selling price, Pierce said. "We see them buying faster," Pearsall adding, noting that the Internet research lets them cull non-pertinent information from their search.
Sharon Snyder got a boost in her Internet-related business when she bought a Prudential franchise, gaining that company's alignment with Yahoo. Visitors to that search engine who look for real estate get the chance to enter the Prudential portal. Now her office in Ann Arbor gets 20-30 Internet leads a day.
"About one in 40 will end up an immediate sale," she said. The rest require someone on staff to stay in touch, which Snyder calls incubation. Working Internet leads can be very time-consuming, brokers andagents agreed.
"It's an industry-wide problem. When you have that many leads to cultivate in a short period of time, it's hard to manage them," Snyder said. "Still it is imperative that every broker look at technology as the way to do business."
While the Internet isn't making yard signs obsolete, the Web is changing one aspect of them. Linda Lombardini, co-owner of Trillium Real Estate in Ann Arbor, said the Internet has prompted agents at her company to limit use of brochure boxes in front of listed homes.
Like many brokers, Lombardini said she's also reduced some of her print advertising to reflect how her customers do their research.
It remains a branding tool, but the Web is used for research and for the many buyers who seek to enter this market.
"You have to have it (print advertising) for people to know you," Lombardini said. "But people out of the area go to the Internet first."
Scott Griffith of ERA Griffith Realty in Brighton is vice chair of the NAR committee that completed the recent Internet study.
Griffith said he enhanced his company's Web presence in 2005, making it a IDX site that has all of the multiple listing service data available, and not just the company's listings. It's a tool that's becoming more prominent in the industry.
"You can come to our web site and not leave it," Griffith said.
That appears to be the key to growing sales and listings on the Internet.
People like to be empowered. The Internet is very empowering you can search an entire database, do 360-degree tours, do sophisticated calculations on-line. These are all great things for real estate.
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