Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
A new real estate listings platform specifically for agents is making life a whole lot easier for those who have clients with specific needs. Called BuyerNeeds, the platform allows buyer agents to post their client's criteria for a home, so that other agents can contact them to suggest specific properties they have that fit the bill.
BuyerNeeds is a free, mobile friendly platform developed by Keller Williams Realty (Round Rock) agents Josh Molleur and Kasey Jorgenson, and allows agents to view other agent's “buyers needs” quickly and easily.
“We wanted to provide a way to fully represent our clients and to also give agents a valuable edge that is needed to stay ahead in the ever changing world of real estate,” said Molleur.
The platform itself is dead simple to use, Molleur said, and once a buyer's criteria have been posted online, agents are free to share them on social media with just two clicks of a mouse. In addition, buyer's needs are emailed to other agents using the platform on a weekly basis. Each shared post features unique map images, descriptions and hashtags so that the information can be easily relayed.
BuyerNeeds is a useful tool for listings agents as well, as it allows them to carry out a direct search for suitable buyers for specific properties. As such, it might be especially useful for agents who have properties that are constantly ignored by buyers.
“Whenever my team and I take a new listing, there is that inevitable ‘makeready’ period which typically lasts 12 weeks,” Jorgenson explained. “Advertising ‘Coming Soon’ listings has always been a struggle both legally, and logistically. Hence, BuyerNeeds was created. I can find the agents with the motivated buyers before putting it into the MLS.”
Perhaps the best thing about BuyerNeeds is its unique search tools:
“One huge obstacle they had to overcome is how to make a “Buyer Need” searchable. Agents have different ways to describe where their buyers wish to live. One agent might use a zip code in a post while another might reference a subdivision instead. This is a perfect scenario where a texttotext search would fail to render correct results. They wanted a solution that would include zip codes, neighborhoods, and other criteria without having the agent enter all of this information manually. The solution is a map.”
BuyerNeed's map makes dynamic searches easy. So, for example, all agents have to do is outline on the map where their buyer is looking to live. Once done, the listing automatically generates information such as county or counties, city or cities, zip code(s), neighborhood(s), school(s), addresses, etc. which are linked to that particular buyer.
“One of the reasons we haven’t seen a site like this is because, ultimately, storing what a buyer is looking for is a hard problem,” said Jesse Jorgenson, cofounder and lead engineer. “How do you search for a buyer need and how do your organize the data? Luckily for us, the timing was perfect as new geospatial technology became available right as we were building the site. This made it possible to store and search entire areas instead of single points which allowed us to solve the buyer need problem.”
