Tech Savvy Buyers Might Be Missing Out
It used to be that real estate agents were the holders of the keys, the information, and everything else related to what was on the realty market.
A potential buyer would go to an agent, tell them what they wanted, and then the agent would try to find something that would meet all of the buyer's needs.
But, along came the internet. More and more information was being loaded onto the internet. One could find the tax records, who had liens on the property and for how much, aerial photos, neighborhood information, interior and exterior photos galore, and so on.
A buyer would call an agent to give them a list of houses that they wanted to see. The role of the agent was changing. The buyer could find the house, they just wanted the agent to walk them through the deal.
This sounds like a winning scenario for buyers and agents. So how may these tech savvy buyers be missing out?
Have you ever had a buyer tell you about a property that they would like to see and then you suggested another similar house in the same area to which they responded that they already knew about that one but were not interested? Their disinterest was related to what they saw on the internet about the house and not on personally seeing the house. What if the agent who listed the house was not tech savvy and had few pictures, that were all poorly taken? How often have you seen more than one picture on a bank owned property? It could be that a very nice house is not being displayed very well if at all on the internet.
Have you ever had a buyer tell you that they knew the value of a house and when questioned as to how they came up with the value they mentioned a website like zillow? Do they think that agents use zillow to perform CMAs or BPOs, or that appraisers use such a site? All too frequently, these automated evaluation sites give misleading numbers, sometimes high and sometimes low.
Have you ever had a buyer tell you that they were already preapproved? Oh yes! When asked what type of loan they typically did not know. Did they understand the implications of any particular type of loan? Usually not. They were approved for FHA (were not aware of the 203k) and were planning to purchase a fixer upper or perhaps they were planning to buy a condo in the complex where they rented, but too many rentals would preclude the use of the FHA loan.
Real estate agents have this knowledge in their heads, or those of their brokers, or office managers and most of their knowledge has not been loaded onto the internet.
Indeed, the internet is a valuable tool for finding information, but people are fooling themselves if they believe that they can find sufficient information by using it alone.
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