2001 Annual Scholarship Award—The DeWolfe Companies

Today, more people than ever own computers and increasingly rely on the internet for information and services. This trend is already drastically changing the way the business of real estate is being conducted, much to the benefit of the agent.

Traditionally, buyers use a real estate agent to assist them in finding a home. In the past this always meant the agent needed to physically spend time with every prospective buyer as they drove to each location, showing home after home with the hopes of eventually helping them find exactly what they want. This is a very lengthy, costly and stressful screening process because time is wasted on viewing properties that are not closely matched to the buyers’ needs. The agent must also spend time educating the buyer on the intricate process of buying a home. Multiplying this amount of time by the number of clients that one agent serves, shows the large quantity of administrative and physical work the agent must do to sell a home.

Today, internet websites such as Dewolfe.com, Homes.com and Realtor.com, provide the public with an unprecedented amount of information related to the home buying and selling process. These websites include listing agents and offices, property specs, town and school information, location maps, photos and even full motion videos of the property. With the aid of specialized search engines, the buyer can effectively screen out undesirable properties and focus on what they want themselves before contacting an agent. This will cut down the agent’s actual number of physical showings, saving the buyer and the agent valuable time as the website does the work.

In addition to supplying thousands of home listings nationwide, these sites also provides the buyer with a valuable education of the process of buying a home with very detailed articles relevant to financing, insurance, legal issues, inspections and closing, along with various forms of very helpful advice. Also, many sites have mortgage calculators that can help the buyer figure out, based on the information they enter, how much home they can afford and what they need to do to qualify for a mortgage. In effect, an informative website can also “screen out” and keep away unqualified buyers until they are ready. The public is now much better prepared than in the past to call on an agent. An educated buyer streamlines the entire process by sparing an agent the time spent on educating their clients themselves and ultimately leads to a much more productive and understanding client/agent relationship.

Contrary to doomsayer’s predictions, the internet will not eliminate the real estate agent. Current and future buyers will always need the personal assistance and guidance that only an agent can provide. With access to millions of people, real estate websites must be looked at as 24-hour a day marketing tools that are working constantly to draw more and more prepared customers to the agent. They are tools that cost relatively little to maintain and have high yields in the way of commission free leads and “referrals”.

There now remains a challenge to today’s real estate agent. In light of the industry’s new web presence and the increasing competition that has resulted, it is the agent’s mission to excel in providing a greater range and higher level of service to meet the demands of an ever increasing number of competent and discriminating buyers that the internet will send their way.

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©2007 Chris Costello. All rights reserved.