Buyer Agency and the Internet
Posted Jan 20, 2008 @ 11:05 am, Viewed by 392 Visitors, Read 400 Times.I recently read on another blog that the jobs of listing agents may get harder as a result of increased activity among home-buyers using the internet as the starting point of the search. The rationale was that buyers will be going directly to the listing agent's lsting advertised on an online site and bypass the buyer agent -- in other words, there will be more unrepresented buyers. According to the blog, this will increase dual agency and place more burden on the listing agent.
I agree that present trends will likely create this result; however, I also see an online opportunity for buyer agents to place themselves in a position to capture online buyers before they click on one of the gazillion listings advertised online. One way is through SEM and positioning "services" so that search results are favorable for the buyer agent. Individual websites can be optimized and structured so that the buyer agent message is seen before the glitz of photos and videos.
Another way is to advertise on large, national RE sites for buyer agency, with a focus on service and links to good buyer agency information. Most large sites are geared toward listings, so it is difficult to get the buyer agent message through. The future may depend on large RE sites welcoming the buyer agent message and giving it exposure and a voice.
I envision a mega-RE site that partners with local agents who are service-minded and buyer agent focused in order to solve the national/local conundrum many large RE sites are weakened by now. Local professionals offing quality services to home-buyers could help these sites with accurate information and the large sites could help local agents with exposure.
There is a huge opportunity unfolding online for agents who enjoy buyer agency, and have made it a business model, to have a voice and get the attention of homebuyers flitting from listing site to listing site. It would be a shame if the power of the internet results in less representation for buyers -- that seems like a backwards move.
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Tampa, yes, 2007 was a turn around year for me with attracting buyers from the internet. Some of my stories are similar - the buyer got frustrated and wanted one agent to guide them through the maize of being out-of-town buyers.
relo and out of town buyers, almost always will use a real estate agent.
The only problem I see is that more and more large RE sites that mostly advertise the listings of listings agents will get better placement with search engines because they will have the IT people local agents can't afford and local agents will pushed further and further down on the SE placement. So, unless local buyer agents can somehow find visibility on these sites, more people will go directly to listing agents who may not provide buyer representation. I suppose the dissatisfied buyers will eventually find the buyer agents, but it would be better for buyer agency to get higher visibility on the internet.
That sounds more like a scary problem for listing agents. Technology is getting to where listing agents may become obsolete. Why do sellers have to pay an agent 3% to list their house when they can themselves input their listings online. 50% of the info needed is in the public records anyway. Quite honestly, most listing agents do nothing after they list the house. Some of them don't even take a photo of the house, puts lousy driving directions, and don't fill in a lot of the detailed info about the house. I've seen FSBOs do nicer presentation and marketing than most listing agents. It's just a matter of time before some hip website becomes the mainstream for posting your for sale property. With the way our society behaves, that can even happen overnight. In the short run, an intermediator is needed for the transaction (i.e., buyer's agent). Specially for out of state buyers who don't know the area, this intermediator will be the one showing them all the available properties featured in this hip website. In the very long run, even this intermediator may not be needed. - Lesson learned from Travel Agencies. We have to constantly re-invent ourselves and provide better service and hopefully we can find a new niche if and when technology crosses our path.
That's what I'm bettng on! I think you are right. I have changed my whole business model this last year.
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My name is Mike Farmer and I am owner/broker of Mike Farmer Realty. Savannah is a beautiful city on the Georgia coast. My office is in downtown Savannah. Read More
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Hello Mike. Good post. It's already happening, ie., Yahoo - Prudential. Buyers will be shopping online for homes, whether represented or not. Some of the buyers who eventually call us have been driving around for months going from house to house. Open house to open house. If they find a house they like, they call the listing agent's # on the sign to make an appointment. Phone calls are not returned promptly, days pass, when they eventually see the inside of the house, they realize they don't like it. Then they're back to driving around again. They eventually call us to see a few houses at a time because it's just so frustrating and time consuming to do all this on your own. We show them not only the houses they want to see but a few more that we pull up based on their criteria. The process that took them months to do, we we're able to do in a few hours.