Have suggestions for products that you’d like to see reviewed by our real estate technology expert? Email Craig Rowe.
Staying in touch with clients to earn future business remains one of the most challenging aspects of real estate.
This week, software company W+R Studios announced in a press release the launch of a new tool that might help alleviate the challenge called Homebeat.
Subscribers to the company’s Cloud Agent Suite will be eligible to use the feature, which sends recurring comparative market analyses (CMA) to members of an agent’s database.
Each recipient will have a branded Homebeat landing page that will update their home’s financial status each month, quarter or year.
While drip campaigns are a very common tactic to staying in touch post-close, they remain difficult for agents to consistently maintain, especially when self-publishing.
It’s not easy to keep up a steady stream of relevant content, and a large part of the industry’s technology stack is dedicated to helping them with that problem to different degrees of efficacy.
In an email to Inman, W+R Studios Co-Founder Greg Robertson said Homebeat data comes from local MLS feeds.
“Homebeat is getting data directly from the MLS through Cloud CMA,” He said. “All the agent needs is the client’s name, email and home address to get it working. Then they just choose how often the client is notified.”
Homebeat can live on its own without ongoing intervention from the agent.
Zillow allows consumers to sign-up for regular home value updates, as well. Encouraging clients to check Homebeat instead of their Zestimate could help mitigate the influence of Premier Agents when the time comes for a new home.
Strategically, annual updates might best serve most agents.
Quarterly upticks in home value are typically not great enough to have impact on an owner and could lead to contact overkill.
Closing anniversaries are good reasons to contact clients and could be made more effective with a lunch meeting or call to go over their “Homebeat.”
The product will be free for users for 30 days before rolling out in select markets later this month.
“Only 11 percent of consumers use the same agent again,” Robertson said in the press release. “Why? Agents are not doing a good job of keeping in touch with their past clients.”
W+R was founded in 2008 in Huntington Beach, California, by Robertson and Dan Woolley.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe