Not sure you need a Realtor? Read this…
Dear Buyer, If you’re wondering exactly how a Realtor can help you find a home, you’ll probably enjoy this whitepaper.
I was wondering the exact same thing when I bought a home in 2001 (before I was a Realtor) from Pulte. What I found was that most Realtors were generally clueless and were just trying to get me into a home so they could get paid their commission. Furthermore, I had no idea how they were even paid. Needless to say, I didn’t have the most positive experience, so I decided to start a real estate company to change the way buyers purchase homes.
The first thing I did was apply my background (in technology) to make the search process as easy & transparent as possible for buyers. Most Realtors try to restrict access to the MLS, not enable it, because they want control over the process. Our approach is entirely different.
We give you access to as much information as possible. We created a Google Maps based home search tool, BirdsEyeSearch.com (all links open in new windows) that searches the MLS, and we include the address of the homes, so you can drive by yourself. In fact, we’ll even help you help yourself, with our free GPS loaner so you don’t get lost. Our philosophy is this: If we let you do your own research at your own pace, then we believe you’ll contact us when you’re ready for an expert.
Everyone wants some hand holding at a different part of their search process. That’s why we’re always available, 24×7, for phone calls. In fact you can call me, the owner, at 202-250-3846 anytime you have a question (and yes, I take midnight phone calls all the time, so feel free). Some buyers want us to show them homes at the beginning of their search, and other buyers want to drive themselves around until they’ve narrowed their choices to a few homes or a few neighborhoods. The point is, we’re here when you need us, and we won’t bother you until you’re ready for us to help.
We think that most Realtors have a fundamental misunderstanding of what their role should be in the home buying process. Most Realtors think they have to “control” the process, and they think that by driving you around to certain homes, you’ll buy one of the ones they show you. We call this the “taxi driving syndrome.” But we don’t think our value lies in being a taxi driver. Our agents are expert negotiators and don’t mind making lowball offers, all of it with the goal of serving your best interests. We’d rather enable you with the ability to see homes, with addresses, through our search tools, and let you take your time, and then be the expert to guide you through the process when you’re ready. To that end, we have a series of buyer tutorials, including “How to make a lowball offer” and “How to buy a home as a Realtor would”, which you can access, for free, at 
DROdio.com/video. We even work more efficiently than any other firm I know of, allowing you to digitally sign documents instead of running around looking for fax machines.
But that’s not all. In our quest to empower you with information, we’ve even automated some of the more tedious parts of the home search process. By signing up at ListingNotice.com, you can have our servers check the MLS for you, once an hour, for any homes that match your criteria. If you want to be alerted when a 4 BR home in a certain neighborhood is for sale, no problem, we’ll email you the second any homes that match come on the market. And yes, we give you the street address so you can drive by yourself to see if you’re interested.
We’ve also had many buyers wondering if they could search for certain keywords, like “backs to woods” or “close to Metro” so we created a search tool for that too, called TheBestHomeSearchEver.com, which lets you do exactly that, and much more, like searching for homes that have dropped by a certain amount in price, or have been listed for a certain number of days or more. Even Realtors don’t have the ability to search by keywords in their super-duper MLS search tool, so they use our site too!
Many people ask me if I’m worried that people will just use our free tools but never contact us. I know a certain percentage of buyers will do that, but I figure that by putting the tools out there, buyers will recognize that our approach is a better one, and for every buyer that takes advantage of these tools without contacting us, there will be several other buyers that do want our help. And that’s just fine with us, because we really do think we’ve come up with a better way to help you buy a home.
Best regards, and good house hunting. We’re here when you need us.
Daniel R. Odio
Owner & Managing Broker
DROdio Real Estate, Inc.
P.S. - if you’d like to learn more about me and my philosophies, I invite you to visit my blog, at DanielOdio.com/blog.
P.P.S. - Others must think what we’re doing is pretty neat too, as we’ve been featured in multiple publications for our progressive use of technology in the real estate world, including The Discovery Channel, CNN, CNBC, The Washington Business Journal, Forbes.com, CNN Money, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and many others.
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