Most real estate professionals find it challenging to applaud the impact Zillow, Trulia and Redfin have had on the industry. One thing these companies have done exceptionally well is create an effortless way for consumers to monitor real estate activity in their neighborhoods.
Where Challenge Meets Want
Getting a Zestimate (regardless of how accurate) on an existing home, or on homes in an area of interest, has become one of America’s favorite pastimes. Zillow had over 196 million unique visitors to the site last year alone, confirming the desire for consumers to follow home prices, monitor market activity and compare home features. This desire is an opportunity for real estate agents to further relationships with past clients and their sphere of influence while identifying potential deals.
Here is where challenge meets want. Nurturing relationships with past clients or sphere-of-influence contacts is one of the real estate industry’s biggest challenges. But the solution seems straightforward. We know consumers want localized and personalized information about home values, home price trends, interest rates and any financial metric associated with their neighborhood. Agents who provide reliable financial and market information can lock-in their position as the area’s go-to real estate resource and potentially influence when someone decides it’s time to make a move.
Lead Generation Irony
Real estate professionals have different tools to help them implement customer engagement campaigns that include the financial and market data consumers appreciate. Homebot is an example of a tool designed to help loan officers and real estate agents share relevant, current data on home values and home finances. Soon to be launched, Your Home Hub, the newest offering from MooveGuru, will also provide financial property data, tax assessments and home financing details through a personalized dashboard for the homeowner. The dashboard includes a renovation calculator, provides agents the ability to share their list of preferred local service professionals and helps identify contacts who may be considering a move.
In these examples, the platform does all the work. The process is automated, and the communications are personalized from the agent. The irony of it is the fact that Zillow cultivated the consumer’s desire to get regular “Zestimates” on their home and monitor the ups and downs of their local market. This desire has created an opportunity for agents to generate leads from their sphere of influence before they lose that client to the Zillow lead generation machine. While it hasn’t slowed them down, one would assume it’s an unintended consequence on the part of Zillow.
Kathleen Kuhn is the president of MooveGuru. For more information, please visit MooveGuru.com.
