Does a local real estate agent matter?
by Paul Foster
In today’s modern real estate world, let’s look at how important the agency location is.
The answers to a couple of questions may help with this:
Q – How many properties are sold from the agents window advertising?
A – Next to none!
Q – How important to a buyer is it where the agent is located?
A – Not very.
Let’s not confuse this with local knowledge because this is actually very important. You see if I was looking to sell a property at the moment, I wouldn’t be so concerned with where the agent was located (within reason), but I would be very concerned with what knowledge they had of the local market. They must have their finger on the pulse on a number of things including local values, local amenities/attractions, school zones, demographics, transportation, upcoming infrastructure spend, trends, desirable and not so desirable streets etc.
Studies show that less than 4% of buyers walk into an agent’s office (and we think that is very generous), while over 90% of buyers are introduced to a property from internet marketing. Why would you walk the streets and poke at an agent’s windows when you can visit the worldwide market from anywhere you like? With photos, Google maps, council websites, recent sales and other information available at the click of a button, the modern buyer can today search faster, wider and easier than ever before. Any serious buyer today would not waste their time window shopping the ‘local’ agent’s office. Today, any agency with a website is ‘local’.
The location of the agent is only really important to the extent of the service it can provide to both the buyer and seller. If, for example, the agent was based so far away that it is hard to arrange viewings of the property, this would be a problem. Likewise if they need to meet with the vendor or be onsite at short notice, this too would be important.
So, when looking at how your agent is going to find a buyer, make sure they are experts in modern marketing rather than focusing on their physical location.
All Iron Bridge salespeople are trained and tested on their marketing ability. The training is ongoing and constantly updated. For more information or to speak with one of our team get in touch with us now.
