I had a very interesting conversation with a couple who’s home I’ll be listing in a couple weeks. Obviously we had the customary conversations about price, how long it will be listed, where their home will be advertised etc.
But then we started to talk about the MLS. No doubt if you’ve had your home listed in the past few years your agent touted the advantages of the MLS heavily.
It’s great, don’t get me wrong. But I see one inherent problem that no one wants to talk about…
Which reminded me of a post I wrote in June 2009. The post had 2 takeaways:
- Statistics on who will probably buy your home.
- How the MLS is like a grocery store.
The article is below. Enjoy!
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Have you met yet? Probably not…
But first, why should you care who will buy your home? As long as a buyer offers a price you can live with…what does it matter?
In the past not much because their was only so much a Wisconsin Rapids home buyer could do when purchasing their first or next home.
In the old days, you know 2004 , a home buyer would usually:
- check the Daily Tribune and Buyers’ Guide
- look through the local MLS on the internet
- find some homes that looked promising
- contact an agent
- walk through 15 homes before purchasing
Through the entire process the real estate agent was in control. How? The buyer was always given bits and pieces of information. Newspaper and Buyers’ Guide? A picture and a few lines of text, always ending with “call so and so at 423-call-now.” MLS? A few more pictures, but your listing would still contain a limited number of words. Then buyers did the only thing they could – they called an agent (You remember 2004, email still wasn’t huge, and besides an agent always wanted to get a person on the phone – remember we used to be called a “Real Estate Salesperson). I shudder just thinking about that…
And once you made contact, the agent shuffled you around from house to house showing you homes they picked out… And 15 homes later, plus more time than you could imagine, you purchased a home. But those days are long gone.
Enter 2010 and Generation Y
Lets now meet the next owner of your home.
The average home buyer is 31 years old. (Odds are, you’re around 41 and and your typical agent is in his/her 50’s) These new buyers are technology driven. The internet has empowered this new generation. This has caused these new home buyer’s to become confident and self-reliant in their decision making.
If they have questions, they “Google it.” If they want to buy something, they go online (giants EBay and Amazon to name only two). If they rent movies, they have a membership with Netflix. If it’s time to buy a new car, they go to Auto Trader to find the best deal. Are we (I’m generation Y) concerned about 1100+ auto dealerships closing? No. We’ll find the car we like online, drive to the dealership, drive it around a little, haggle and then buy it. We already knew we were going to buy it before we got there. Why? We compared multiple cars together online–mileage, amenities etc. and found the one that suited us best. Does it matter if we had to drive to Appleton to get it? Nope.
This ability to find information easily and quickly has caused buyers to need real estate agents less. There’s very little your agent can control outside of marketing it aggressively and making sure your home is where this new buyer hangs out, the internet. (When it comes to selling a home, I believe my main job is as a marketer. The real estate stuff is easy, I earn my money by marketing your home 5x better than older agents.)
Does that mean your MLS listing is enough to reach this new buyer? That’s the internet… Right?
Yes, the buyer will probably see your home. But will they REALLY see it? You know, enough to make contact to walk through your home? Does a few pictures and a 500 character description do your home justice?
Lets picture a trip to the grocery store. You only need milk, bread and some cereal for breakfast. So you head to the back of the store for milk–oh yeah, eggs too–next the cereal aisle–Kellogs is on sale so you buy two–next on to the bakery–but wait–roasts are on sale, that’ll be good in the crock pot tomorrow–ugh, you don’t want to have to make dinner tonight–good Tombstone pizzas are on sale–almost to the bakery department–made it, finally–might as well buy a couple loaves of bread. Time to check out–your total comes to 28.83. You wanted three things–bread, cereal and milk. But you ended up with those plus meat, pizza, and eggs.
The MLS is the same way. Too many choices. When your home is alongside hundreds of other homes what are the odds that a buyer will choose your home? If an agent promises internet marketing, and that marketing sets your home alongside every other home, how is he/she marketing YOUR home?
This is why I create a single property website for your home. When I’m marketing your home I funnel all advertising to your home’s website. You know, because you want your home sold…
Originally published June 4, 2009
PHONE: (608) 542-0178
My name is Adam Holberg and I’m a Realtor with First Weber of Wisconsin Rapids. This website is designed to inform and help bring conversation to a topic I love, real estate.