When I think of the term ‘marketplace,’ the first mental image that comes to mind is of a local farmer’s stand or of one of those community farmers’ markets where you get the old-fashioned experience of picking through the offerings of local farmers and bakers. The goods may not be as inexpensive as you’d wish, but the experience is worth it. It’s the kind of ‘marketplace’ our great grandparents would have recognized immediately.
As an Austin Realtor®, a good part of the success I offer my home selling and buying clients comes from staying abreast of today’s very different kind of marketplace. Thirty years ago, that would have been a much easier assignment: a Realtor in Austin had merely to keep an eye on local newspaper readership (to know which papers and which “throwaway” marketing mailers brought the best results); then do all the other things that the real estate pros had been doing for decades.
It’s barely exaggerating to say that an Austin Realtor in 1980 was following the nearly same playbook as an Austin Realtor in 1950. The marketplace was almost entirely here in Austin. Prospective home buyers had little choice but to travel here in order to check the ads, visit a real estate office, or (the least efficient method) drive through the streets looking for ‘For Sale’ signs. That made the Realtor’s outreach area simple and well-defined. Intensely local.
Then came the Internet! Today’s most successful Austin Realtors know that the potential home buying ‘marketplace’ is literally everywhere on the planet. Statistics from the NAR show that international buyers purchased more than $68,200,000,000 (yes: those are billions!) in U.S. property between 2012 and 2013. At least part of what amounts to that huge increase is due to video-sharing platforms that have empowered Realtors to market properties in innovative ways. Hugely popular YouTube is an example of one new media tool that enables Realtors to reach audiences who would have been impossible to find in the past. Search engines like Google have replaced the role of the local throw-away—but today, it’s a “throw-away” that can land on any porch in any corner of the globe.
To be sure, some elements of the marketplace remain the same. The vast majority of buyers will still show up right here—but today, they’ve traveled here only after having ‘visited’ a wide sampling of the current crop of Austin homes for sale via their computer or laptop or cell phone screens. And have no doubt: today’s Austin home seller is that much more sophisticated, too. Features and asking prices of neighboring properties for sale are, after all, now just a mouse click away…
It’s knowing today’s marketplace and keeping in tune with the quickening pace of innovations that keeps this Realtor excited and active. Call me anytime to chat about what’s new—and how we can put all of it to work for you!
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