Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Last month we took a look at top Memphis real estate agents through the data-driven lens of HomeLight, the leading referral company powered by proptech. Today, we look at Jacksonville, Fla. through the same lens in order to create a lineup of trusted and effective agents for buying a home there. For this list, I applied with HomeLight to see the best agents for single-family homes, within a certain price range, and for a permanent residence. Here’s the list in order of ranking.
Sarah Rocco of the Rocco Group and Keeler Williams has only been in the business a few years, but she’s already closed over 422 deals in the Jacksonville area. Sarah attributes her success to her vast marketing experience and advertising strategies, along with her extensive contact list. Sarah ranks in the top 5% of agents on HomeLight in several categories, and
Rocco Group also maintains a well-situated Facebook profile with 2,416 followers. She’s also an Elite Agent on HomeLight, which means she is in the top 1% of all agents.
CC Underwood is an agent with Keller Williams Jacksonville Realty who sells houses like cotton candy at the county fair. According to her HomeLight profile, she has 665 single-family home transactions in her 13 years as an agent. The average price point of her transactions is also high at $241k, and her team maintains a killer Facebook profile (7,000 plus fans), even though I could not find the button on their website. It’s also rumored that she can dance, and there’s evidence of this on the Facebook pages.
Shawn O’Neil ranks 3rd in HomeLight’s list of top Jacksonville agents. He has sold over 100 homes in the area, but his forte seems to be advising. Shawn is something of a TV celebrity, on top of being an author. He’s also a certified expert with the National Association of Expert Advisors. Strangely, his 15 years of experience have not helped Shawn to build a credible online presence. He’s associated with any number of the worst real estate websites I’ve seen in years. As for Facebook and other social media, I found it a bit tough to even connect Shawn with a profile (which is a real no-no for me). I am assuming the one by @ExpertHomeAdvisors is his, or that he is affiliated with the owners.
Fourth on the list is Tobin Bossola of Coldwell Banker Vanguard Realty. He has 168 transactions in Jacksonville in his 14 years in the business, and the average price of his sales is $173k. Tobin maintains a very nice Facebook profile, but unfortunately, hardly anybody subscribes to his cool shares. He seems to favor LinkedIn as a social-business platform. Tobin has also been featured on Home & Garden TV.
Christopher Ray, who is an agent for eXp Realty, has 264 single-family home transactions in his 8 years in real estate. The average price of Christopher’s transactions is $201k, and he sells 99% of his listings according to HomeLight. Like Shawn O’Neil above, his web presence is not exactly stunning. eXp’s website has some security or load issues, and this Florida Coastal Team one (top of Google SERPs) is just blurry and ugly. Apparently, people looking for houses in Jacksonville do not use the internet, let alone Facebook. Sorry, it had to be said.
I just want to share something with the Jacksonville agents who I am sure could sell a lot more by using the internet and social media properly. This blog post by Brent Barnhart for sproutsocial has some good insights for beginners. And for those who do not know anything at all about social tools, this Forbes post might also be of help. Look, digital marketing costs resources, but here's the thing. It's all about ROI. Take the case of the five agents listed above. Which ones do you think have the best chance of selling me a house in Jacksonville? Now, how many people are there like me, people who use the internet and social hours each day?
I hope I helped somebody. To be continued....
