A few days ago, one of my colleagues in San Diego shared some insights that were released in June from a recent California Association of REALTORS® (CAR) report on understanding home buyers for REALTORS®.
Here are some of the findings on how the buyers responded:
- 94% of buyers used an agent (So, 6% ended up representing themselves in the transaction.)
- 58% of buyers found their agent on-line (That's probably double the number of agents that even use websites.)
- 56% of buyers interviewed at least 2 agents
- 51% "Googled" their agent
- 93% were receptive to receiving information via "social media"
- 54% would work with the same agent again.
That's pretty interesting. Here are some more insights:
Question: What was the single most important reason for selecting the agent that you used in your recent home purchase?
- They were the most responsive 28%
- Worked with that REALTOR® before 18% - (That's incredibly low, based on my experience)
- First to respond 17% - (This is really pretty scary!)
- Most aggressive 16% - (Really, you'd pick someone that is aggressive? Do you like being bullied?)
- Most knowledgeable - (Isn't this the best answer?)
Question: What was your preferred method of communicating with your agent? And how did your agent actually communicate with you?
- 73% preferred email (70% of the time this is how the communication was handled.)
- 37% preferred telephone (50% - I've seen the consumer preference dropping for years. Voicemail keeps it this high.)
- 32% preferred text messages (Only 1% of the time did their agent communicate through texts.)
- 21% preferred Twitter (0% - None of those agents used Twitter to communicate. Probably because they don't know how to send DMs - i.e. direct messages.)
- 14% preferred Facebook (0% - Same as above.)
- 6% preferred communicating in person (Only 3% for how the communication was handled. This one seems surprisingly low. We agents tend to do so many face-to-face meetings.)
The lesson here is: if your agent, or prospective agent, doesn't ask you how you wish to be communicated with, tell them! If you're an agent, ask your client or prospect.
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