An Idea to Better Understand Real Estate Agent Markets8870
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Group7Studios private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Hi I'm new here but I'm noticing that a lot of us seem to be struggling to understand/convince Real Estate agents to utilize our services, especially Matterport. Between them either not understanding what the tech is or understanding its potential value in saving them time, money and more - somethings not getting across to the industry it seems. What if we were as a community to all pitch in a little $ and collectively (think internal crowd-fund) run a few questionnaire/quizzes on Facebook aimed at RE agents asking them specific questions so that we can see how we can better meet their concerns/needs/etc. In return one (or more) of the participants could win something of value - gift card/free scan/etc. Think of it as a way to get a big picture to learn what these global roadblocks are to our industry. For example, a 10 question questionnaire that asked simple questions like, "Do you seek out new technology to expand your business? If not, why?" etc. We could come up with a better list of questions via the community here. But I'm sure we'd want to know their location (state-wise) their age and their years of experience in the business so we can get a background idea too. Perhaps there are regional/age roadblocks that need to be specifically addressed. This occurred to me that instead of each of us trying to individually figure out what's going on, we could leverage the collective community power here to help all of us to do better to at least understand one of our potential markets. Thoughts/suggestions? |
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 WGANStandard Member Bon Secour, Alabama |
Chemistrydoc private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Great idea - I think you would find very large regional differences in the responses, however. That would probably be interesting, in and of itself. | ||
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 FounderNail Soup Media Sarasota, Florida |
GlennTremain private msg quote post Address this user | |
| FB ads are cheap so why not try yourself? To get people to chip in you would need to have someone head up the project that knew what they were doing. Sort of like companies that do this for a living for people like you. | ||
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BrokerBruce private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Being a Realtor® myself I can tell you it's all about the money. Not that it's a great tool for their clients to help sell their home. I decided I would do Matterport on all my listings and bought the Pro 2 lite so I wouldn't have to pay anybody to do it. The only photographers I pay right now are for drone services when needed. I use the snapshots from the highlight reel for the MLS pics. If I need them touched up I can have that done dirt cheap overnight by TourDrop or BoxBrownie. Realtors® wallets are getting hit from all sides. Bad splits with the broker, website expenses, cell phone and internet service, office expenses not to mention marketing and advertising expense, board dues, MLS dues etc, etc. Avg price of a home in our area is about 240K. Do a 60/40 split on that with all the other expenses and you need to sell about 2 - 3 homes a year just to break even. That's the reason I moved to a true 100% brokerage the first of the year. All I pay is a $225. transaction fee period and we pass that on to the client. So they say to themselves it will sell sooner or later without me putting out that expense. Now then apply that to an area where homes are much lower priced. I use this when presenting to a seller. If your agent isn't willing to spend a couple hundred dollars on quality photos just how vested are they in getting your home sold? I'm sure the number of agents hiring Matterport in our area with about 6,000 agents is in the low single digits. |
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Group7Studios private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by GlennTremain  because I’ve run some fb ads in the past with less than great results and I know I’m far from an expert on it. The idea is to pool together our various expertise in the forum to maximize the best possible results. And to share in that gained knowledge.Yeah, I could run the ads/questionnaire myself but would that be any different than what we’ve all been already doing, each trying to find our way around this issue by ourselves and in the dark? |
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Group7Studios private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by BrokerBruce This is the kind of great insight we need from a larger cross-section of agents. Thank you Bruce! |
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immersivespaces private msg quote post Address this user | |
| We conduct an annual survey of realtors in our service areas to gather specifically that type of information. We adjust our marketing and product offerings based on the result. I can tell you from the South Florida perspective, the results vary greatly depending on which area of the market we are surveying. There are just far too many regional considerations for a broader survey to be beneficial. There are surveys done by NAR that cover many of the questions you mentioned above, but we have found that locally, the answers will often conflict with the broader result. Your best bet would be to partner with your local realtor board on a survey of your actual customers. | ||
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Founder Nail Soup Media Sarasota, Florida |
GlennTremain private msg quote post Address this user | |
| So put money into something that amateurs will run? Not going to get any takers. There are professionals out there that have already gone through the learning curve. Don’t see yo getting much traction to put money into a group that don’t know what they are doing | ||
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Founder Nail Soup Media Sarasota, Florida |
GlennTremain private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Bruce. The only reason people would stay with a brokerage with a 60/40 split was if they relied on the broker for name recognition or leads they provide. However you have me a great marketing hook of getting the agents branding and exposure up enough to where they don’t need to rely on their broker. Moving to a 90/10 by having your marketing above the rest by using 3D Vr drone etc will get you closer to firing your 60/40 broker and paying yourself more ... reach out to us at ABC3D marketing to learn more. Thanks me Bruce |
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WGAN Standard Member Bon Secour, Alabama |
Chemistrydoc private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @Immersivespaces That's exactly what I suspected the case would be. I know that here on the Northern Gulf Coast, agents are cheaper than most, but the ones who "get it" are more loyal than most! |
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 WGAN FanClub Member Queensland, Australia |
Wingman private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I do not mind to chip in for a questionnaire but I can see at least two problems: What country is it going to be targeted? You know that all countries and even regions within one country will have different reasons for using/not using virtual tours. How are you going to reach real estate agents with this questionnaire? For me(in Australia, Queensland) the best way to reach RE agents is to advertise on major property listings website. However I am not allowed there unless I have $5000 advertisement budget. So it is a brick wall for me to reach agents. I can buy a list of real estate agents in my area very cheap but by the law I am not allowed to contact them without their consent. That's another brick wall. I am trying all kind of advertisement but unfortunately there is a very small amount of people searching for property virtual tours on Google/Bing. The only way is Facebook and may be Linked in. I am trying facebook(post boost) now but got only 18 clicks from 900 impression and no contact for more than 5 days. So I would love to hear some opinions on how to sell this service to Real Estate because I am out of ideas. I would sell the camera but I am preparing for offering tours to businesses so there is still some hope. |
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Founder Nail Soup Media Sarasota, Florida |
GlennTremain private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @Wingman so you cant target FB ads to the real estate companies they work for? | ||
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Group7Studios private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Wingman That's why I thought I'd toss this out there. There are a lot of variables out there - ones like these that I wasn't even aware of. If we did this as a community effort, there may be a need to run separate campaigns for major countries/regions. But the more we discuss it as a community, the more we may find a solution to helping us break down some of these barriers the RE industry seems to be presenting to a lot of us. Facebook ads to find the roadblocks, may be one solution, it may not. But if we put our collective minds to the problem, surely we can figure out what's going on. The trick is to figure out the best way to understand the source of the problems breaking into the RE industry. And who knows, we may be able to find out that pursuing the RE industry in our particular area may be a waste of our particular time. This may also be an opportunity for us to develop a workflow for members to replicate more refined testing in their particular area/markets. |
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 WGAN ForumFounder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host Atlanta, Georgia |
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @Group7Studios Many-Many-Many Members of the WGAN Forum Community are real estate agents/brokers that bought a Matterport camera to create 3D Tours of their listings and then start a separate business - a side hustle offering Matterport - to others. I encourage you to start new discussions in the WGAN Forum - single topics each - asking real estate agents your questions (again, single topic for each new discussion that you start). Best, Dan |
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WGAN Fan Club Member Queensland, Australia |
Wingman private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by GlennTremain I guess you can if their facebook pages have been setup properly but I have checked some of them and there is a lot of quite big REAs and their facebook pages are just one empty space. May be it can be targeted to pages registered in Real Estate industry but then you cannot be sure what opinion comes from a real estate agent and what comes just from a person doing something for real estate or generally interested in it. However what region it is going to run in is more complicated problem with the OP's idea. I believe there may be a different situation for real estate market in different countries and even different regions within one country. If real estate is booming somewhere I do not think a lot of agents would be looking for virtual tours. It may go as "Why do I need to give anything extra in media to a buyer if there is almost nothing to choose from and even if someone won't buy it another will". However if RE is dropping or prices are frozen for a long time there should be plenty of properties on the market. It becomes a buyer's market and REAs should go an extra mile to bring a buyer to their properties. |
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WGAN Fan Club Member Queensland, Australia |
Wingman private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Group7Studios I know there will be some responses even from people related to marketing that you will have no idea how to deal with them. Just right now my friend has come to visit me. He runs a corporate rental with serviced apartments. He was my first client with two tours ordered and his idea to have them was to stop complaints from customers who did not like(for different reasons) the apartment they rented from him. After he did the tours he started sending a tour via email to any potential client before they make booking. He said that he did not get any complaint after that. However when he came today he mentioned that he talked to his main office(his business is a franchise) to a person who is responsible for marketing. They said they do not like virtual tours because they show all details and people can see every problem in a apartment. So they refused to put his tours on a corporate website. Just like that killing his business because he was already thinking about quitting it. Try to object it as this so called marketing person(not even a real estate agent) talking nonsense in my opinion. You would think they want to make a customer happy but in fact it seems they only care of a customer booking something without seeing it in every detail. |
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Kumar private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Wingman This is ground reality - hosts are never 100% prepared and they expect to fix/negotiate those shortcomings in person. Their take is that the detailed tours snatch that option and reduce the conversion rate. Spend on tour and lose handful visitors? As much I wish to argue on other side, we have no real case in such circumstances. |
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Kumar private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Group7Studios I believe the questions should address the pain points at first than the technology.... ex. 1. What is the hit rate - how many book a visit and turn up, how many look at listing (as per the filter) but don't even book? How many re-visit with other family member? How much time the guest spend on clicking photographs during the visit? How often guest asks for more pictures? 2. How many complain on expectations from listing being drastically different in real? 3. How much time/money an agent spends in travel in a conversion? How much could have been saved? 4. How often can they really do web session of the tour if availed? 5. How much do they currently spend on listing a property? etc... |
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WGAN Fan Club Member Queensland, Australia |
Wingman private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Kumar They have a lot of huge clients(big corps) who are renting from them on a regular basis. It can be even a few months of rent. So they may get away with one unhappy customer from Shell Europe(for example) and but most of them can and will complain within their company. Too many complaints and this client will be lost for this business. Plus they have more than one apartment to choose from and they can rent even more anytime from owners who are invested in their owns for renting them out. Why not offer a tool to choose what a client likes. My wife is in marketing(almost 12 years) and she agrees that this marketing person is more focused on profiting now without thinking about what happens with their business model in the future. Without these clients their business will collect only young blocks renting for one night for a party and it will be dead very fast. |
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Kumar private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @wingman, As said, as much I wish to argue on other side I fail most cases. I try to counter like, one can reach more visitors in shortest possible time as against number of people visiting in the same time. Probability of selling quicker is higher. Getting contacts of visitors - this can be managed for all tours at extra cost but totally worth. Analytics are missing big time - the amount of time spent by visitor, their age group, job profile etc.... This is very critical to make a strong report to bring visibility of worth of VR tours. Frequent/more articles on how influential the VR tours we're for a deal - both from seller and buyer's point should get published. |
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WGAN Fan Club Member Queensland, Australia |
Wingman private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Full analytics is not a problem if you have your website. I have made a special page just to keep my customers viewing tours on my website. It is just at some point I realised that if I post some tour on our facebook page and people click on it to view only Matterport gets a visit. However with my hidden on the website page people stay on it if they click on some facebook tour or a tour link sent through email. So I can do it with any tour as it just opens in IFRAME. This way I can use google analytics to get all customer data for each tour by checking this page data and the tour id. Here is an example of how it works https://www.wingmanmedia.com.au/view?m=gCq5iFJrJXG I have sent this link to my council as we have a planetarium in Brisbane and it belongs to our council. A guy we talked at our planetarium liked the idea of the tour for our planetarium(we offered to do it for free just for promoting our name and get more jobs from the council). However he is not allowed to make the decision to order it and has asked us to run it through our council. So this was just an example of similar job done by someone else and sent in our partnership email to the council. |
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Kumar private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @wingman, will you be able to interpret the results of analytics? As an agent you can afford to limit the visibility of the spaces within your website only. Full analytics is not easy, it’s not enough to have had the numbers but you ought to interpret and derive off them. This has to be done over significant time and significant number of properties - with tour vs without tour. I am no expert by any means in this but all I know is it is an intense job to come with a study report. |
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WGAN Forum Founder & WGAN-TV Podcast Host Atlanta, Georgia |
DanSmigrod private msg quote post Address this user | |
@Wingman Quote:Originally Posted by @Wingman Excellent Matterport 3D Tour of the Planetarium. I  how the dome looks in the dollhouse view.Did you know that if you use WP3D Models Wordpress Plugin links, you get all the SEO? This means you get credit if the tour shows up: ✓ in a Multiple Listing Service (MLS) ✓ the client shares the link ✓ in social media ✓ everywhere! While it's nice to direct traffic to your website, I could image that clients would prefer a link that launches the Matterport 3D Tour. Special Offer for WGAN Standard and Premium Members ✓ free use of WP3D Models WordPress Plugin ✓ free use of WordPress powered by Ionblade ✓ free WP3D Models installation, configuration and light training (via WGAN Rebate) Best, Dan Video: WGAN-TV: WP3D Models for Newbies with WP3D Models Founder Ross Peterson. --    |
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