Inman News published an article by Steve Kropper today which discusses the future of real estate and how the web will have a part in it. He talks quite a bit about "junk" leads. These junk leads only have a conversion rate of about 1-2% and take a lot of time to maintain. He mentions the need for a call center to make the web effective and a good supply of virtual agents to handle the leads. Although he does mention Lending Tree a couple of times because they do sell leads to the industry, and he does say that one solution might be opening brokerages as Lending Tree did, he never mentions RealEstate.com!!! Wow, it made me realize how new we are and that we really are front runners in this technology. Our state of the art call center really does capture the buyers right when they need help and warm transfers them to us skillfully and politely. We are doing just what he says the industry needs. Let me be clear on one thing, this is PART of a successful practice. We all still network like crazy, develop our own leads and know that there is nothing like a referral! In this market, and always, we need to work every angle and find our niches, what works for us! Here is a
link to the article.