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One of the biggest names in Australian real estate has warned agents they're wasting time and losing a potential listing by not picking up the phone following an internet-sourced lead.
Prominent trainer Tom Panos told Real Estate Business that in many ways the lead creation process that comes from online portals has deskilled the role of the sales agent.
His call comes following the release of a white paper from Realtor magazine in the US, analysing web-based leads in real estate.
"What we’re seeing from real estate agents is what I call 'ping pong’ emails,” said Mr Panos.
“An email comes in from a portal and the sales agent responds to it by email, then the client then responds back to the agent, and then they email back again.
“So much time and energy is being spent and nothing comes of it because trying to diagnose a problem that a client has and then prescribing a solution is very hard to be done in this way."
Mr Panos said what good real agents are doing is when they get an internet lead, instead of replying back with an email they’re picking up the phone immediately.
"The best agents are doing this, they’re essentially using technology leads to create more buying and seller conversations, which is really difficult to do by email ping pong because when you have a conversation you’re actually picking up the things they’re saying and the things they're not saying,” he said.
Mr Panos said the internet lead of the future is going to be something that a search engine can't currently provide.
"I think portals are currently excellent at finding buyer leads; in the future they’re going to be able to provide seller leads," he said, adding that the portals will do this by making it very attractive for clients to actually contact them to get info associated with the value of their home.
