Buyer Search Info

by Kris Cone | Feb 5, 2010 | Real Estate Info, Real Estate News

I was looking through the 2009 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers research report published by the National Association of Realtors, and I thought I would share some interesting information.

1. What website features buyers value. 97% of buyers thought photos and detailed property information were helpful (not sure what the other 3% are thinking here…?).   89% thought virtual tours were helpful.  I would like to think if they all saw a FloorPlanOnline tour, that number would be close to 100%!   I would also like to point out that other companies have done research around online content, and several studies have indicated that Photos score the highest in terms of essential content and floor plans score #2!  So, if your listing does not have its Floor Plan Online….it should.

2. More and more Buyers are Online to search. The first step taken by far in the home buying process was go online to look for properties for sale – 36% listed this as the first step taken.  This was double the next highest action, which was contact a real estate agent (18%).

In addition, 90% of all buyers used the Internet to search, while 93% of first time buyers used the Internet. Again more than any other source.  In the key buying group of 25 to 44 year olds, 96% of the respondents used the Internet to search.

3. Websites used in the Home Search process. The most used site by far was the multiple listing service (MLS) website.  This could be a factor that agents typically email listing info to their buyers, so it is pushed to them.  Some MLSs have their own consumer oriented search site…but I know some do not.  The total list of websites used by Buyers (percentages are for All Buyers surveyed):

• MLS – 60%
• Real Estate Company website – 46%
• Realtor.com – 46%
• Real estate agent website – 45%
• Other websites with real estate listings (Trulia, Zillow, etc) – 30%
• For Sale by Owner websites – 17%
• Newspaper website – 9%
• Real Estate Magazine website – 4%
• Social media websites (Facebook, MySpace, etc) – 1%
• YouTube – <1%

It is interesting to note that the types of sites used by different age brackets did not differ much at all. The top site for all groups was the MLS, followed by the company site and Realtor.com.  Also, there is a lot of hype about social media and YouTube…but this is not necessarily translating into buyers using these sites for searching.   For example, between the age groups of 18 to 24 and 25 to 44, only 1% said they used social media websites.  The 45 and over crowd said less than 1%.  Surprisingly, 2% over 65 said they used YouTube, while all the other age groups responded with less than 1%.  Now, this does not mean there is no value to social media or YouTube…these outlets just need to be used in the right way and for the right reason.  I also think there is some search engine benefit to posting content on these sites.  Note…we will address the YouTube video posting issue in 2010. 🙂

4. The Internet is getting results. 36% of respondents FIRST found the home they purchased via the Internet search.  This was the same as through a real estate agent, and up from 32% last year.  No other source was higher. Print newspaper was down to 2% now….ouch.  Also, 77% of buyers drove by or viewed a home after finding it online, while 61% walked through the home.  Another interesting stat – 28% found the agent they used to buy the home online.  There was also a high correlation in people that used the Internet to search and those that used an agent to buy – 79% used an agent to buy.

Implications – I think  what all of these stats boils down to is YOU need to be online and you need to have the best online content for your listings, because chances are, if you make an impression online, you are going to get a buyer to call you, drive by or tour your listing.  The first step is getting the right content. People want to see photos and floor plans.  All the other fancy stuff like spinning 360s, deep zoom, property videos with voice over has actually scored lower on the desirability scale.  In some cases, like voice over and music playing when you first open a tour scores negative.  People want to see the essentials quickly and easily.

The second step is get this content distributed to the KEY places people search. Your virtual tours need to be linked to your MLS (use the unbranded link – in many markets we do this for you automatically), on Realtor.com (we link the tour for you automatically….and it is FREE if you are a Realtor.com Showcase member), your company website and your website/blog.  This will get you 95% or more there. You can then use our tools to link the tour to your Facebook site, Twitter, and more.  Realtor.com has a nice Facebook widget to add your listings to your Facebook profile.  We also are posting listings to Google Base now.  We will be working to add more sites like Zillow, Trulia, Craigslist, etc. in  the coming months (however you can do this now manually).

In addition, talk to your company IT people about posting the company tours to Zillow, Trulia and others.  As part of this make sure your virtual tour links come through with the data feed. Most if not all of these sites can include the virtual tour link…but the company needs to send it along.  As I stated in a previous post, your company should really be posting tours to these other websites….There is a hierarchy Zillow and others use, and companies like us are the last on the list.  So if we link a tour to Zillow, for example, and your company pushes the listing there, it will push our link off…and if the company info does not include the tour link, your tour will not get exposure on Zillow. So, push your company to post listings to these other website portals and make sure the virtual tour links are included. You paid good money for the content and you deserve the most exposure!

All for now…time for the weekend.  Thanks for reading

-Kris Cone

As always, please feel free to contact me.