Take back the information advantage

Real estate professionals historically have held a clear information advantage. Listing and neighborhood information was locked up in 3-ring binders or dumb terminals tucked away in brick-and-mortar real estate offices. Buyers and sellers needed to work with real estate pros to get the information, or fly blind.

In the 1990s, the tide began to turn – eventually into a tidal wave of real estate information across the Internet. Neighborhood demographics, sales trends and robust listing information appeared on thousands of websites. As the information advantage shifted toward consumers, some traditional realtors were caught by surprise, and many thought that advantage would never be regained.

Today, agents are less frequently recognized as a valuable source of information. A 2008 study by the California Association of REALTORS® showed 10 percent of respondents found the Internet a more useful source of real estate information than agents. The percentage of respondents who found Internet information less useful than agent-provided information has declined sharply since 2004.

How can you differentiate the information and expertise you’ve built throughout your career from some­thing your clients can pull up on Google? Follow the guidelines in this special report to give your clients information they need and can’t get on their own, marking you as the true Neighborhood Expert.

Download this free ebook: Stand Out and Sell More: Using Real Estate Knowledge to Build Your Business http://www.eneighborhoods.com/report.html