Hello Forum,
e-Agent, Inc. has just completed its first study of 2008 for both consumers and agents in relation to their perception of the market, what is important to both parties right now and how they wish to be in contact or not in contact with one another. We conducted the study with just our e-Agents on the b2b side (since you guys are paying, we absolutely know you are who you say you are) and with consumer leads generated over the past 6 months.
The good news
-80% of the survey responses for both consumer and agent placed emphasis on the same action items a majority of the time. For example, our first question asked what was the primary reason to purchase a home and both agent and consumer said the list price as well as finding the perfect house were the primary reasons.
-Well over 75% of consumers (83% to be exact) still prefer to work with a real estate agent or broker.
-Overall agents matched consumers perception and market requirements roughly 80% of the time.
The bad news
20% of the survey shows the widening gap between consumer patterns and agent patterns as far as contacting the consumer. 90% of the e-Agents believed that they contacted consumers between 76-100% of the time. On the flip side, consumers stated that they only wanted to contact an agent 35% of the time on average. That is at the very least a 40% differential. We highlight this one question in particular because it is the reason we believe in the long run that using out-dated strategies online will not work. Or if you do, expect a diminishing return each day you attempt to trade data for contact information. The other telling item we drew from the surveys was that consumers and agents both thought that auto-responders were a significant impediment to getting in contact with one another.
Please stay tuned for our next blast message in relation to this as well as information on a free conference call with Real Estate coach Bernice Ross in the coming weeks.
*Below you can see all the screen shots and results from both studies conducted. Please keep in mind that we structured the survey so that it jumbled the answers for each person, so no two people saw the answers in the same order and also assume a normal margin of error which could be +/- 4%.
CONSUMER RESPONSE
AGENT RESPONSE
