Every few weeks i receive a newsletter from the US from a group called Classified Intelligence. It is a great read and full of useful information about what is happening in the online classifieds world.
In the June 8 edition, there is a great article about the most recent Californian Association of Realtors (CAR) survey - note there are 185,000 (yes that many) real estate agents in California!
Apart from the normal stats that they produce, one really stood out - 94% of buyers who primarily use the internet (internet buyers) were very satisfied with the home buying process while only 25% of traditional buyers were satisfied. The report then goes on to identify that 68% of internet buyers were very satisfied with their agents versus only 24% of traditional buyers.
So what was driving this? Perhaps it is the instant communication. 23% of internet buyers expected instant communication from the agent while 21% wanted a reply in 30 minutes. Only 16% were happy with a 24 hour turn around.
Internet buyers reported greater satisfaction with gathering information on neighbourhoods and schools, how well their agent kept them informed and their overall understanding of the buying process.
Internet buyers were quicker to buy - spending only 2.2 weeks searching an average of 6.7 homes vs 7.1 weeks for traditional buyers searching an average 15.4 homes.
What was very interesting is that internet buyers (and it is an buyers agent market) interviewed an average of 1.5 agents before selecting one while traditional buyers interviewed over 3 agents. An important note was that 69% of internet buyers said that agent response time was extremely important in the selection process.
Internet buyers love to communicate with their agents via email with 83% preferring email.
In short - if you are targeting the internet buyer then you really need to be on your game.
