Between higher-than-normal interest rates and the repercussions of the recent NAR settlement, it’s safe to say that a lot has changed over the last two years in the real estate industry. But despite these seismic shifts, the daily concerns of working real estate professionals remain largely the same: acquiring enough listings to meet demand and ensuring personal safety while on the job.
Let’s take a look at how modern tech tools can help real estate associations and individual brokers alike with both, by empowering circle prospecting and raising the bar for agents’ personal safety.
Exploring Circle Prospecting
Circle prospecting consists of finding potential leads within your current client’s circle. They needn’t be personally acquainted; anyone who lives within the same immediate geographical area and shares similar characteristics could potentially be influenced by your client’s experience. Simply asking for referrals is a time-honored form of circle prospecting, but modern tech enables significantly more efficient ways to generate viable leads at volume.
Technology in Circle Prospecting
Real estate associations and brokerages can turn to a number of software products designed to make raw digital property data more valuable through sophisticated search and analytics capabilities. For agents keen to build their book of business through circle prospecting, many of those tools are powerful but can be limited.
While most do well at identifying properties that fit the desired profile, they’re less adept at characterizing the humans associated with those properties. Spokeo for Business is an exception to this rule. A Spokeo search of an address will return information about the property itself, and it can also provide a look at the property owner. While the information varies from one individual to another, it may include their age, history of property ownership, previous addresses, extensive insights into their public social media activity, and even a “likelihood to sell” indicator for many addresses.
In short, Spokeo can help agents understand who the owners are as people, from their current stage of life to their potential motivations for selling. For a deeper dive into how Spokeo can empower prospecting across your entire real estate association, check out our full guide to circle prospecting for real estate.
Addressing Agent Safety
The NAR’s 2023 Member Safety Report revealed that over 20 percent of agents had feared for their personal safety while carrying out their duties during the past year, and 5 percent (up from 2 percent the year before) reported being the victim of a crime.
The NAR addresses this with its members through its voluntary Member Safety Program, though its own statistics show that over 70 percent of members are not even aware of the program. Individual realtors reported taking various measures to safeguard their own safety, from downloading safety-focused apps to arming themselves by carrying pepper spray, tasers, or noisemaker-style alarms.
Using Technology to Enhance Agent Safety
Fundamentally much of the risk for agents, male or female, hinges on the simple fact that they’re meeting unknown individuals who may or may not be legitimate prospects. Yet formally vetting every caller and demanding ID would be time-consuming, and could result in lost opportunities.
Spokeo for Business neatly resolves this dilemma. A Spokeo search takes just moments, and can identify a number of red flags such as:
- A phone number that doesn’t correspond to the name you were given.
- A name that doesn’t correspond to the address you were given.
- An address that doesn’t align with the way the property was described to you, in the case of a potential listing.
- A phone number or email address that traces back to an individual who is a registered sex offender, or has a criminal history.
Pepper spray and phone apps may or may not prove useful in an emergency situation, especially in the case of an armed assailant. Allowing agents to proactively avoid those situations with a Spokeo search is decidedly preferable, especially for the female agents who make up most of the industry’s workforce.
The Best Tool Is the One You Use
This quick overview is intended as a discussion starter for associations and brokerages, rather than an in-depth discussion of the two topics at hand. Deeper dives on those subjects are readily available, here on this blog and elsewhere.
The more important discussion revolves around the availability of powerful modern tools like Spokeo for Business, and how they can be integrated into your agency’s workflow to enhance prospecting and marketing opportunities and agent safety. The best tool, after all, has no value if you aren’t using it.
For a fuller picture of how Spokeo for Business works, reach out to our team through the contact information on our Real Estate page. They’ll be happy to answer your questions and arrange a product demonstration or no-cost hands-on trial.
Disclaimer: Spokeo for Business is not a substitute for your own due diligence, especially if you have concerns about a person’s criminal history.
Sources:
National Association of Realtors: Quick Real Estate Statistics
Redfin: Redfin Reports the US Housing Market Gained Over $2 Trillion in Value Over the Last Year
Statista: Number of Home Sales In the United States from 2014 to 2023 With a Forecast to 2025
Jones Foster PA: Landmark NAR Lawsuit Settlement: A Paradigm Shift in the U.S. Real Estate Industry
National Association of Realtors: Member Safety Residential Report 2023
US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2023: Real Estate Sales Agents
The New York Times: Alone In an Empty House, Female Real Estate Agents Face Danger