Why Real Estate Agents in Boston Should Ditch Outdated Platforms

The beginning of the year is a popular time to set/ reinforce goals you promised yourself nearly two weeks ago such as: career advancement, greater income, fitness or personal goals. As 2022 begins, a good majority of people start introspecting their career and financial opportunities. More than ever, people are leaving their old workplaces in search of higher pay, flexible hours, and greater opportunities for growth. Real estate offers all of that, so being a real estate salesperson is a popular new career choice. With increased competition from more people entering our industry, it’s forcing seasoned real estate agents in Boston to contemplate whether they can reach their goals in their current office based on their existing technologies and business practices.

So, what’s the biggest obstacle for experienced real estate agents in Boston that can’t meet their goals?

Technology.

In some ways, the real estate industry has lagged behind other business sectors when it comes to widespread implementation and advancement of new technologies. This foot- dragging partially stems from a reluctance to adjust methods that are seemingly “working fine” when everyone can clearly see client interaction patterns are changing. It’s also the lack of confidence and technical know-how of traditional brokerages not wanting to spend money to help their agents. Finally, most brokerages simply don’t spend enough resources on custom applications specific to their real estate market to help their agents get an abundance of leads. Having a national brand supposedly “back you” but not deliver unique and innovative local systems that increase your effectiveness is a recipe for mediocrity at best.

The digitalization of business practices since the early 2000s has increased the need for transparency and accuracy in data and created a far less patient consumer base. This has, of course, been further accelerated by the COVID- 19 pandemic. Today, if consumers are on the right real estate websites, they can gain access to a wide variety of real- time tools to help them make a decision faster. When you are aligned with a modern real estate ecosystem, your showings will be seamless and your closing transactions soar.

Though few and far between, there are brokerages throughout the country that are providing their agents with modern, tech- oriented solutions. These stand out offices and their agents, are pushing ahead and continue to succeed despite our current challenging environment.

More Leads, More Deals, More Money!

Anyone that has taken a real estate class has heard of the overplayed “the sphere of influence”. Your sphere of influence includes all of your contacts as a real estate professional. In short, this is usually your friends, family, previous clients, and any referrals you can get from them. If a real estate agency keeps telling you to rely on your “sphere of influence” you need to ask yourself some serious questions.

What happens after you run out of friends and family to call in two weeks? Did your broker or manager then quickly shift you to call expired listings? Do you want to be one of one thousand agents chasing the same listings? Why does your agency keep shifting you to try things that doesn’t cost them any money? Can your brokerage deliver you enough booked appointments so you become a highly skilled closing machine? Maybe it’s time to ask yourself what your brokerage is actually doing for you.

As any real estate agent will tell you, one of the keys to massive success in real estate is a vast supply of new leads. Under traditional brokerage models, you are often left to fend for your own. This wastes a lot of time- it is extremely time consuming to acquire clients. If you are losing 30 hours of your week to marketing endeavors in an antiquated system, what other opportunities both professional and social are you missing? Time is money. Liars never figure and figures never lie. In 2022, Boston real estate agents will flock to those platforms that give them the most operational effectiveness possible.

If you are not showing places, you are not closing deals.

You’re competing with thousands of other real estate agents in Boston, and over 400 brokerages in Boston proper alone. As an individual, how do you ensure your online presence is strong enough to reach new potential clients? When you do a search on google, are you seeing your brokerage coming up anywhere? If your broker’s website is nowhere to be found on google, how is your company developing influence and impact with property owners? Do landlords give out their best listings to companies with a limited marketing presence?

You must start considering that it is easier to get more listings when you are dominant on real estate search results. Perhaps it’s time to look at the google domain authority of the brokerage you work for… Let’s keep it real, landlords are always going to do searches themselves and see who is driving the most traffic. They want to know their listings will get the most coverage. Property owners want the best results in the shortest period of time with the most qualified candidates. That begins and ends with the largest amount of quality leads.

Does your brokerage have specific and automated listing posting tools that can post your ad within 1 minute? Has your brokerage invested millions of dollars to ensure that your posts end up on the most locations on the internet with one click? If you’re at a traditional brokerage, chances are they haven’t built specific Boston/MA based syndication technologies. That means you are most likely suffering through the skull drudgery of posting ads manually.

Each property ad can take 10-15 minutes to write and post

That time is not including the effort you already took making calls and taking new photos. This limits you to 4-6 ads per hour, which is simply not enough. Real estate is, in many ways, a numbers game after all. Let’s not forget that most agents at traditional brokerages also pay per advertisement to post on various national real estate portals. Greater Boston real estate agents often end up spending a lot of their own money without seeing the results they need.
With the right technologies behind you, however, generating new leads can be the least time- consuming aspect of your job- and it doesn’t need to cost you anything.

Shown above: some of the public leads available through Padsfinder.

Introducing Padsfinder.

The Boston real- estate market is white hot, ultra- competitive, and often unforgiving. Clients tend to reach out to multiple agents about the same property. They can send 10 inquiries in the span of 5 minutes. The customer is king, as they say, and kings aren’t patient. This is where Padsfinder steps in. Padsfinder is a proprietary app created by Boston Pads- Boston’s largest real- time real estate portal. All agents working at brokerages powered by Boston Pads have access to this app. They are notified instantly when someone inquires about an available property. From there, agents can immediately contact the interested client, set up an appointment, and build rapport. Customers are thrilled to be able to talk to an agent so quickly! Here is a direct quote from a happy client’s Google review:

“I was in a pinch to find a rental in the City of Boston, and I reached out to Nicholas Pagliarulo at Jacob Realty. His response was immediate, and he made time to show me places the next morning. I inquired about 7 properties prior to this through different agencies/apps/websites and not one person responded.”

Agents Have Multiplied Their Take Home Income

Agents utilizing the Boston Pads platform and syndication technologies are always delivered the greatest amount of real time leads on a non-stop continuous basis. You can click, claim a lead, show and close the same day. With Padsfinder, the process of “claiming” those leads has been simplified. This technology prevents multiple agents from reaching out to the same client, delivering a vastly superior customer experience. The consumer is treated to optimized showing routes where they can see the most properties in the shortest period of time, accelerating their decision. This type of showing efficiency is a good route to closing and a win-win for all parties. Clients gain exceptional confidence knowing they are saving time and making the best decision possible.

Padsfinder automatically reduces the time necessary to put together an effective showing.

Agents prefer client lead organization and optimization so they are not wasting their time. In fact, within the app agents can even see other properties that client is interested in- saving them the headache of having to do tedious research. By providing a superior level of efficiency, agents can take on more clients, close more deals, and have higher levels of customer satisfaction.

One of our veteran agents with two years of experience was grossing consistent numbers of $10K-$15K a month in 2019. In 2020 and 2021, after the introduction of Padsfinder into his routine, he has been grossing between $20K-$30K monthly.

In the summer of 2021, we witnessed two agents walk away from their traditional brokerages. One agent came over from a national brand, and the other a small local office. Those offices put a strong emphasis on “sphere of influence” calling “expired listings” and over posting of tired, common listings. They decided to embrace the Bostonpads.com ecosystem married to our Padsfinder app. The results were explosive. With their new found ability to enjoy the leads and listings they were severely lacking – they both closed over 80k in gross commissions in two months. This provided them with 10x results compared to their previous offices.

It’s worth putting this into further context.

Agents are receiving massive increases in commissions thanks to the introduction of Padsfinder, despite the unprecedented rental market chaos in 2020 and 2021 due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The Real- Time Vacancy Rate (RTVR) today is 1.04% for Greater Boston and 0.91% for the City of Boston. The Real- Time Availability Rate (RTAR) is 1.84% for the Greater Boston Area and 1.89% for the City of Boston. This suggests the market has bounced back to where it was in 2019, as the figures are very similar- and, if anything, indicate a slightly stronger market now. This provides an incredible opportunity for real estate agents in Boston with access to the Padsfinder Technology to increase client satisfaction while putting even more money in their pockets than they have in the past 2 years.

Property Owners Are Impressed

Property owners with portfolios of all sizes love this new technology as well. They can feel more at ease knowing if people are interested in their rental property, those potential tenants are being instantly connected with an agent. This allows for properties to rent quickly and offers landlords peace of mind. Although property owners don’t interact with the Padsfinder technology directly, they have noticed a tremendous difference in the interest their rental properties receive as soon as they become available. It allows them to focus on other priorities without worrying about a property going vacant and losing that income.

While we are discussing property owners, we would be remiss to not address their needs. Does your brokerage have a proprietary property owner portal (POP) where they can glean real time rental prices at their fingertips? What if your landlord wants to access data on their own to update all their properties for showings but doesn’t have those tools? Is your broker a property owner that designs software that helps landlords? What specific software have they provided to make landlord’s lives more effective and productive? If your brokerage is not helping bring landlords to you, there is a very real chance they are going somewhere else. This could be a hint to see what top real estate ecosystems are doing around Boston.

It’s Time to Make a Choice

Agents now must choose whether to keep using the same systems they always have or learn a new technology. It’s worth keeping in mind that embracing new technology can potentially 10x your take home income- and help you reach your financial and professional goals much faster. If your agency isn’t giving you the leads you deserve- are they spending enough on marketing? A great agency should be able to provide you with 25 booked appointments per week. They should not ask you to spend 20- 30 valuable hours a week on marketing alone. If you feel your brokerage is not delivering everything you deserve it’s most likely time to take the leap and try something better.

Are you a real estate agent in Boston, or the Greater Boston area? Then you owe it to yourself to explore all your options. Submit your resume here and talk to one of our managers about joining an office powered by Boston Pads.