by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Innovations in the Northeast Florida Multiple Listing Service will give the Realtors a crystal ball into what their customers really want.
“We have some more system upgrades coming,” said Ron Stephan, NEFMLS executive director. “Most revolve around improved mapping and aerials. It’s called Web 2.0 technology.
“It allows for more interaction between the customers and the agents. The customers can actually partake in commenting about the properties that they see and choose the properties that they want to see. They can do their own searches. The agent will be able to monitor what their customer is looking for.”
An agent will be able to give a client exactly what they’re looking for, if it’s available. For instance, if a client wants a three bedroom, two bath, 1,800 square foot home, the agent will be able to let them search the NEFMLS through his or her portal and track what else they may look at.
“The agent will send them an email with a link into the NEFMLS,” said Stephan. “They click on it and it puts them right into the agent’s Web presence. So now they have a portal available to them so they can do their own searches.
“They might say they only want one story, but all of a sudden searches start coming back with two stories and four bedrooms. Now, the customer is doing their own search and telling the agent without verbally communicating what they are really looking for.”
The agents will get a clearer picture as to what their clients really want, even if they don’t know yet, said Stephan: “Now the agent can start doing the research on their end and say ‘I see what you are looking for’ and present other properties that may be a better match for them.”
The agent will provide the customer with a login and password to a portal that the agent creates for that customer.
“They are not in the MLS. They are in a portal that the agent created to be able to interact more aggressively with their customer,” said Stephan. “Customers will tell you one thing, but they are not quite sure what they are looking for initially. But the longer they spend looking at houses, they can narrow it down and it starts to come into focus what they are actually looking for.”
Another innovation: in addition to the virtual tours that NEFMLS offers, they are now allowing videos and RSS feeds on the system.
Technology has definitely impacted the NEFMLS.
Stephan said products such as Twitter (a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send ‘updates’ to the Twitter web site,) short message service (SMS), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook is very useful in keeping groups connected.
“I can tell everyone in my group at once the same message,” he said. “It’s a way to keep a group of people in communication with each other. These are all technologies that this generation is starting to use.”
Listing data is showing up on sites.
“In the next few months, more listing data is going to be showing up on these type of social networks,” said Stephan. “That’s what the customer portal stuff is all about. It allows me to build a rapport with my customer. If I have several customers, they can go to my Facebook, if they are all Facebook users and we are all there communicating with each other. Twitter is another one. They are all ways of social networking that makes it easier to communicate listing information in this market. This is the market that has the money. They also have a need that they don’t even realize yet. That need is to buy a house.”
He said if you get your name on Facebook, then you will be the Realtor they look for on Facebook or LinkIn or whatever social Internet networking site you belong to.
Another product they will introduce soon is called Listing Book .
“It is a more robust version of the customer portal,” said Stephan. “It’s going to allow that interaction between buyers and sellers. They won’t talk directly to each other. The agent will be able to control the comments the buyers and sellers are making.
“If the agent has an open house and there were five buyers, the agent can say, ‘Send me your thoughts about what you saw at the house.’ That information can then be sent to the listing broker so they can tell their seller, ‘Hey, you need to get the dog out of the house.’ It’s better coming from the buyer than the agent.”