If you’re in real estate, these days you must also embrace technology. Virtual service is as important as putting up “For Sale” signs for most of your clients.
As the industry turns increasingly towards technology to streamline everyday operations, agents want the technology equivalent of a butler – one that can offer several functions or services, and also track and respond to changes in the technology, while freeing the agent to focus their time with their clients, rather than their computers. MLSListings has joined forces with the creators of a technology butler to put agents at any proficiency level in the technology game.
“Agents are looking for an entirely different return on the technology investment than we’ve ever seen before,” said Tim Denbo, president of VirtualTourCafe. “There’s no need to enter data in one flyer website and then re-enter data in a virtual tour website and another for a YouTube style video. Just find a vendor that understands that YouTube is the 2nd largest search site on the Internet after Google, and knows how to help the agent take advantage of that knowledge to do more for their clients and their business.”
Now available for agents and brokers from Silicon Valley-based MLSListings, Inc., VirtualTourCafe offers what they call an easy-to-use system that creates virtual tours, videos and e-flyers designed to work on the most-used platforms for real estate marketing, and syndicates to the most-accessed websites. It’s also optimized for mobile devices, the company states, including entry-point options like QR codes as well as destination considerations like device-enabled websites and videos optimized for a 4×2 inch screen. It offers sharing on social networks and analytics reporting, tracking the where and how of their leads, as the true ROI of these features becomes increasingly important.
“Companies like VirtualTourCafe are turning agents into technology powerhouses — through easy-to-use programs that can do six things for you simultaneously, put a listing in the right place at the right time, and know what’s coming tomorrow before it gets there — yet stand discreetly in the background so you can be front and center for your clients,” said Jim Harrison, President and CEO of MLSListings, Inc., which began offering VirtualTourCafe to its subscribers this month.
MLSListings has one of the most diverse menus of such butler-style products available to the market, the company reports, offering everything from document management and distribution to mobile real estate search to marketing systems and more. The program is managed by a team with decades of local market insights and business operations expertise, as well as tech backgrounds at some of the leading B2C companies in the area. They’re charged with identifying and vetting products that come into the marketplace, and partnering with those most able to suit agents’ needs now and in the years ahead.
“Agents are doing more work than ever before, but their income is dropping because the market is continuing to bounce along the bottom,” added Harrison. “When most agents are spending upwards of $1,200 per year on technology products, and only earning commission on 1-2 transactions per year, it’s important to identify those that are as efficient and cost-effective as possible. The smart agent is reevaluating their technology expenditure and turning those expenses into investments — by evaluating new technologies and services according to this new reality.”
For more information, visit www.mlslistings.com or virtualtourcafe.com.
