Real Agents do Real Marketing

Growing up in central Indiana and starting my real estate career there some 10 years ago I decided that I needed some unwind time and took a road trip back "home". During my stay I met with my ex-broker and some past real estate friends. As always, conversation turns to real estate at some point and the amazement begins to set in. Anderson, a city of about 50,000 and located roughly 25 miles north of Indianapolis is a market that has been hit hard by the shutting down of automobile plants in the last 5 years. A market that has seen virtually no appreciation in home values over the last 20 years is now suffering from price declines and foreclosure rates around 40%. Some of the blame lies with the people who live and run this community, as their mentality is so entrenched in the manufacturing industry that they can't think outside the box on how to replace all the jobs lost and just wallow in pity. What I was struck by most though was the lack of modern marketing in real estate. All the agents seem to have been in the business forever and just have not advanced with modern times. Talking with agents I was in awe to hear agents had no web presence, did not use realtor.com, no virtual tours, no lead generation techniques, nothing. It was put a sign in the yard, put the home in the mls, and sit floor duty and wait for a call. Not only are these agents not doing anything to change their marketing strategies, they are doing a total dis-service to their clients by not exposing their properties to all the potential buyers in the market. When I asked why they were not marketing on the very in-expensive Internet, I heard people in Anderson don't use the Internet. Now I may be wrong on the exact number but I am fairly certain statistics show about 83% of consumers are doing research on the web and to be so backward thinking to say the people in your market don't use the web makes absolutely no sense to me. Indianapolis a thriving city of around 1 million is just 25 miles south and creeping further north everyday, I would bet money that the population there is using the Internet when looking for homes and would certainly consider homes in Anderson if they were exposed to them. I'm not knocking these realtors since they are my friends, but they would be run out of business in my market. I say if you are going to call yourself a Realtor, keep up with modern times or get into a different line of work. It is no wonder the average time on the market in Anderson is almost a year.