Every week, we ask a real estate professional for thoughts on the top trends in real estate.
This week, we talked with Jorge Guerra Jr., a broker with Real Estate Sales Force.
Miami Agent (MA): How has technology changed how brokerages do business today?
Jorge Guerra Jr. (JG): Technology has helped us in many ways, from showing to tracking, as well as figuring out where our business is coming from, if leveraged accordingly. South Florida has become a world city. The whole world is looking at our real estate. By curating new ways to approach technology, we allow buyers from all over the world to take video tours, right from their Iphone, Ipad or computer. One of the biggest things about video technology is that you can get phenomenal analytical information from them. This tells you how well your video is performing and where people are seeing it. This type of information is crucial when reporting to your clients, as well as getting information as to where your buyers are at, and what is working best.
The internet has made our business larger. Now we’re able to compete with any broker on any level, worldwide, due to how listings are distributed. It’s not just about curb appeal, it’s about web appeal, too. The quality of your web presentation can determine whether someone picks up the phone and makes an appointment, or whether they click next and go to the next listing.
MA: How do you use video to distinguish yourself from your competition?
JG: When people talk about real estate technology, a lot of people think back-end, or email campaigns and CRM. Those are all great, but as real estate agents, we need to remember that the most important duty for us is how we showcase our property and how we maximize our marketing power in order to get the best price. We believe that the best way to approach our industry is through front-end video. We record all of our listings with HD cameras, and try to give them that MTV Cribs experience. This has cut our showing time by 90 percent. We can send a link to both agents and clients.
Additionally, I think we’re the only brokerage that does our videos inhouse for our agents. Most brokerages outsource that. When we make a listing, we put the reason why we use video and how we distribute it. That message has really struck a chord with our clients, which has led to us getting more listings, selling them in a shorter amount of time, and for a higher price.
MA: What advice would you give to brokers who trying to adapt video into their marketing?
JG: The sooner you adapt video, the better. From an agent growth perspective, there is no more valuable tool for an agent than getting the metadata from a video. There’s 41,000 agents in south Florida. I can’t think of a better value proposition than including video in your business.
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