We recently hired a third-party research company to interview anonymous buyers and sellers who bought or sold property, worth between $300,000 to $1.5 Million, within the past 12 months. The participants were asked a series of questions over an hour-long interview to help us better understand their habits, opinions, and decision-making processes.

We were particularly interested in finding out how buyers and sellers choose their real estate agents in this digital age. Here's what we found out:

People don't choose Realtors on portal sites

One of the most interesting observations in the market research results was that buyers and sellers are actively using portal websites to explore properties, but they don't use those same portals to find real

We recently interviewed 300 active real estate agents across North America to learn more about how they conduct their business and drive success. But we wanted to take it a step further and also talk to buyers and sellers to get a stronger understanding of what they're looking for in an agent.

By understanding the mindset of buyers and sellers, real estate agents are able to better serve their clients and develop marketing solutions that will be more effective in converting leads into clients, and clients into happy referrers.

We conducted in-depth interviews with 10 randomly-selected people who had either bought or sold a home between $300,000 and $1.5 Million within the past year. These interviews took approximately an hour each and focused on

We're moving in a direction where big data is not only a big advantage but also a requirement to stay competitive. The companies that find smart ways to apply and intermingle data are going to be the most successful moving forward, because one of the best ways to improve user experience is to take complex information from numerous sources and present it in a way that's quick and easy to understand.

You've already seen countless examples of this in action. Zillow is one obvious example, where the site has managed to source data from third-party companies, listing agents and property owners to create tools--like Zestimates--that consumers want to use. But that's only just the beginning. Sites like Trivago and Kanetix mine numerous sources of data to

We don't have to tell you that sellers represent a huge opportunity for real estate agents, because you already know that. But do you know how to attract and convert sellers? Two weeks ago, we talked about how to attract and convert buyer leads using your real estate website, and this week we're going to talk about how to get seller leads!

Set yourself up to build relationships

One of the major themes you're going to see us talk about in the coming months is relationships, and that's because relationship building continues to be crucial for effective real estate sales. As digital media changes the way we interact, and agents focus on sales targets and transactions, it can be easy to overlook the people behind the real estate. But the need to build