RISMEDIA, August 8, 2011—According to eight-year veteran real estate agent Justin Thayer, many of today’s agents are still hoping to find a time machine that will take them back to 2007. Until such an invention is created, however, succeeding in the current marketplace means competitive pricing. “This is a market of price reductions,” says Thayer, a sales associate with Keller Williams in Eugene, Oregon. “Whoever can get the price reduction is going to win. You’re going to be out of business if you can’t convince sellers that their homes need to be priced competitively.”
In order to keep clients grounded in reality, Thayer utilizes the HomeFeedback® program from ShowingSuite, a Web-based software that provides sellers with independent, first-hand feedback from potential buyers who have viewed their home.
HomeFeedback can be used by individual REALTORS®, real estate teams, or real estate brokerages. The program provides automatic feedback for home sellers after their home has been shown. The feedback is entered into the web-based system by agents who have shown the home to their prospective buyers and is then sent to the seller with the buyer’s comments and reactions. According to Thayer, once sellers see this direct feedback, they are more apt to make the necessary changes—price or otherwise—to make their home sell faster.
“The ability to email other agents who have shown the property and get their feedback directly to my clients is huge,” says Thayer, “along with the fact that the feedback gets emailed directly to the seller.”
The HomeFeedback system works very simply. When an agent’s listing is shown, the showing agent’s contact information is entered into the HomeFeedback program. Showing information can be manually entered into the system or automatically pulled from electronic lockboxes via Showing Sync®. The HomeFeedback system immediately sends an email to the showing agent requesting feedback. Once feedback is provided, it is automatically distributed to both Thayer and the home seller. Sellers are also able to log into a private seller console to see the list of registered showings, review feedback gathered, statistical reports, comments from their agent, and more.
When and if a property’s price is reduced, Thayer then sends an email blast from HomeFeedback to all showing agents so that they can alert buyers who may have liked the property, but been on the fence in terms of price.
According to Thayer, an agent for eight years, HomeFeedback gives him an important competitive edge against other agents in the area. “People who don’t have HomeFeedback are missing out; there’s a huge hole in their game.”
“For today’s particular market, HomeFeedback is an essential tool for doing business,” says Thayer. “Direct feedback from other agents is much better than you saying to sellers, ‘I think your price is too high.’ In the end, people are grateful to get their house sold.”
