Portland Metro/Tigard Real Estate News

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Real Estate and Technology

Lead Capture Technology: First the Internet Now Cell Phones

The Internet and now mobile…Will the real estate industry adopt mobile marketing applications in the same sluggish way that internet eventually became the norm? It has only been 10 years since www.realtor.com became the starting place for anyone looking to buy, sell, rent, and list properties; in those years the same people began carrying a cell phone with them eighty-plus percent of the time. Now with text messaging growing faster than any other form of communication in the world, the opportunity to capitalize has presented itself.

XAP Realty, a Los Angeles based real estate marketing company has created a lead capture solution to utilize the fact that cell phones are now carried by all buyers. The concept is extremely simple, www.xaprealty.com provides real estate agents, individual sellers, and property management companies with interactive yard and rider signs. The signs allow prospects to request the listing information of a particular property by sending a text message. The prospect is immediately sent the listing details including: address, price, beds, baths, acreage, MLS#, agent’s contact information, and more. Simultaneously, the agent or property manager is sent an email that includes the prospects phone number and the listing that he/she is interested in viewing. The service acts like an on-site assistant, reporting full property details and taking down new lead information 24 hours a day 7 days per week.

XAP Realty benefits realtors by capturing more leads using the non-invasive communication medium of text messaging. XAP Realty saves realtors time and money by providing prospects with the relevant information they need, and reducing materials. Last of all XAP Realty simplifies the process by providing prospects with an effective means of saving the listing information they require, thus making the job easier the realtor.

The question of whether realtors will stay on the cutting edge of technology remains unknown, however, with regards to cell phones XAP Realty interactive signs are already being used in a city near you.

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2 comments:

Unknown said...

The only problem I see with this is that if consumers text in to see the property details and then get cold-called by a Realtor I dont think that would go over well.

Just because they are looking at the property does not mean they are "a lead". If that happened to me I would be very angry and turned off by the service and the agent/house. Texting should be a form of easy information access and quick communication (not an "in" to get spammed").

Putting an ad on the text when the consumer requests info is OK. But contacting a consumer without expressed permission IS NOT. This type of service is going to ruin the mobile real estate market. THere are plenty of clean/better real estate texting services out there that dont pawn off consumers as leads. Hopefully agents see that and dont abuse this great new technology.

Mr. French said...

Interesting, this will definitely appeal to a certain subset of agents that are always on the leading edge with technology.