DENVER, Dec. 04, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Real estate brokers and agents recognize that above all else, consumers want neighborhood expertise. But so far, they have not adapted their marketing practices to embrace the HyperLocal movement sweeping real estate. That’s the findings of a new research study released today by zavvie, Colorado’s hottest new real estate tech startup.
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The results from real estate’s first HyperLocal Survey, commissioned by zavvie and conducted by leading real estate research and consulting firm, WAV Group, found that a stunning 95% of agents, teams and broker-owners and real estate exes say local market knowledge is either “Very Important” or “Extremely Important” to their consumer clients. Two-in-three say it is “Extremely Important.”
But as Lane Hornung, CEO and Co-founder of zavvie points out, there is a “great disconnect” that emerges from the HyperLocal study. “Agents, teams and broker-owner and execs are saying one thing, and are doing another,” said Hornung. “The survey clearly shows their marketing activities are not consistent with HyperLocal being an actual priority.”
Hornung explains that HyperLocal agents and teams focus their marketing activities specifically on a neighborhood or group of neighborhoods, which Hornung says is generally defined as 3,000 homes or about 10,000 people.
“But when we asked how many actually specialize in neighborhoods, just 12 percent raised their hand,” he said. “In fact, the study found that most real estate professionals are doing the exact opposite of HyperLocal marketing: they are casting the largest net, trying to throw draw their marketing circle as broad as possible.”
Highlights of the survey results are available at http://www.zavvie.com/hyperlocalsurveyhighlights.
Not Local Enough
More than 60% of individual agents and 65% of teams say they “specialize” in a large regional or metro area. “It’s an oxymoron to specialize in a metro area,” added Stefan Peterson, COO of zavvie, who co-founded the company with Hornung. “You can’t even specialize in a city or a town – its just too big of an area, geographically to be a ‘go-to expert’ that knows every single home in that size of a market. Yet that’s what folks were claiming,” he said.
More evidence of this disconnect between the views of agents, teams and brokerages and their behaviors is shown by how few agents and teams report using HyperLocal marketing tools that let them share their expertise, such as “Nextdoor,” a “Blog” or a “Neighborhood Website.” “All of these are core tools of a typical HyperLocal agent’s marketing system,” said Peterson. Yet the survey found only 7% have a Blog, only 15% have a Neighborhood Website, and fewer than one in five (17%) are on Nextdoor.
Yet, more than a third — 38% of all respondents — said they were “Extremely Knowledgeable” about local happenings, events, and changes that affect the real estate market, that was described in the survey as: "No one is more 'in the know' than I am.” Moreover, 42% said they were “Very Knowledgeable.”
“This begs the question, ‘If all of these agents, teams and brokerages have all this local knowledge, how is anyone going to know it if they are not sharing it in a Blog or on Nextdoor?,’” Peterson said.
HyperLocal Highly Valued
Agents, teams and broker-owners and execs place tremendous value on local customer reviews from sites such as Zillow, Yelp, Nextdoor and Google. More than 60% said reviews on these sites were “Very Important” or “Extremely Important.” Moreover, 73% said Facebook is their number one marketing tool they use to connect with customers in their local farm area.
Yet once again, there is a disconnect between agent, team and broker-owner and real estate executive beliefs and their behaviors, as evident in the survey’s social media findings. Some 44% of agents and 50% of teams said that social media is only “Somewhat Important” or “Not Important” to their business. Moreover, two social media tools landed in the bottom five marketing tools that agents use to connect with customers in their local farm area; Instagram was selected by only about 1 in 10 and Twitter was selected by only about 1 in 20.
“The truth is, for busy agents, social media and HyperLocal marketing tools and activities such as Neighborhood Websites and Blogs are hard — they typically take a considerable amount of time and resources in order to create and maintain,” said Peterson. “But for those who invest the time and the effort, the deeper data we collected, which we will release with a new HyperLocal Marketing White Paper early next year, shows that HyperLocal marketing delivers significant results for those that employ it.”
The most encouraging sign in the survey, Hornung said, was the overall positive response to interest in “an automated social media platform focused specifically on the local neighborhoods. ” More than two-thirds of respondents expressed some interest or said they are very interested, with an additional 13.5% said they are “extremely interested.”
“This suggests the great disconnect the survey identifies may be very well related to the amount of effort and discipline a HyperLocal marketing focus requires,” Hornung said. “So if brokerages and teams can deploy an “easy button” for HyperLocal marketing, it sounds like they not only want to, they will.”
About the HyperLocal Survey
The study was conducted from September 28 to October 2, 2017, with a single email invitation sent to active individual agents, teams and broker-owners and execs. More than 425 responses were received with 350 complete responses for all survey questions. There were responses from 350 real estate professionals, including individual agents (52%), broker-owners and real estate executives (33.5%), team members (10%) and other industry professionals (5.5%).
About zavvie
zavvie is the nation’s first HyperLocal marketing platform, the place where savvy, trusted local real estate agents go to tap into the most powerful way for a real estate agent to grow and maintain a successful real estate business. zavvie delivers to brokerages, teams and agents, a complete social media and HyperLocal system for top agents to build their listing business and make – or keep –them the dominant agent in their neighborhood. Discover more at zavvie.com.
Media Contact: Kevin Hawkins
WAV Group Communications
kevin@wavgroup.com
206-866-1220 Cell/Direct/Text