As we move into the next phase of online buyer customers we (as agents and brokers) may need to readjust our approach slightly. Over the past 5 years expectations have been changing for buyers searching for real estate online. In the beginning, they felt it customary to give their email address in exchange for the ability to search for home online. As time progressed, certain websites allowed users to search using an IDX solution that gave them the ability to search for listings without giving an email address. As most of you know, IDX does not allow users to search as many listings as a VOW search, but not having to sign-in immediately is appreciated by many customers.
Competing systems like IDX has changed expectations. Now, many customers expect to be able to search for listings without logging in. The drawback that many of these customers overlook is that they loose the digital ability to keep track of the listings they like. The benefit is they can search quickly.
I do not have access to enough data to know what is the most popular system being used in today's market so I put this question to those agents and brokers who are reading this post: what do your customers seem to prefer and why?
The second question (and depending on your interests, the most important), given an equal number of customers being driven to the respective landing pages, which MLS search solution produces the most appointment requests. In the end, appointment requests turn a web visitor into a potential client and therefore this is the highest and best use of any MLS search portal (from the broker's perspective).
Thanks for reading!
John Marlow
Real Living Helios Realty
www.NeighborhoodDirectoryChicago.com
jmar@heliosresidential.com
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