Colleen Barry, Gibson Sotheby's International Realty Director of Productivity
Our Director of Productivity, Colleen Barry, works thoroughly with our talented team of real estate agents enhancing their services. Offering both one-to-one guidance and group coaching, Colleen significantly helps our agents to grow their business.
As a contributor to Inman News, Colleens most recent article focuses on the quality of third-party websites. She voiced a controversial opinion: In spite of the prevailing opinion, our industry is actually thriving in the age of consumer-driven, third-party real estate websites.
Although the real estate industry has been ever changing in the past 10-15 years due to third-party websites such as Trulia and Zillow, Colleen highlighted four facts of what has more importantly NOT changed. These four include:
1. Most people still select their agent through a personal connection. NAR says that 50 percent were referred, 12 percent used the agent they used in the past, 6 percent met the agent at an open house, and 3 percent were personally contacted by the agent. This is a total of 71 percent of buyers selecting an agent because of a personal connection.
2. Buyers still need the same skills from us. Though more than 90 percent of buyers are using the Internet to search for homes, 53 percent of those polled wanted help finding the right home. They are perhaps spoiled for choice, and so they are in need of expert guidance in specific areas: 23 percent of buyers wanted help with negotiating, 8 percent wanted help with determining the sale price of comparable homes, and 7 percent wanted help with paperwork.
3. They still rank our honesty, reputation and skill as important when selecting us. When polled, trustworthiness (25 percent), reputation (21 percent), personal connections (16 percent) and knowledge (8 percent) were the most important factors in choosing an agent.
4. Buyers note multiple benefits in using an agent. Those polled said the agent provided many benefits, including help with understanding the process (59 percent), pointing out unnoticed features/faults of the property (53 percent), negotiating better contract terms (44 percent) and knowledge of search areas (44 percent).
Ultimately, searching on third-party websites allows buyers to meet with a real estate agent knowing specifically what they are looking for. From there Colleen says to connect, guide, educate and maintain that relationship with the buyer after the sale leading to a possible rehire.
Click here to read the full article from our Director of Productivity, Colleen Barry.
