Cyber Match-Up of Home Buyers, REALTORS, and New Home Communities - 5/24/2000 - Real Estate Products Services

A Cyber Match-Up of Home Buyers, REALTORS, and New Home Communities

by Dena Amoruso

A new concept for homebuyers using their own keyboards to shop for their next home is being introduced by a Florida-based company called REALMATCH HOMES.COM, INC. This new dot-com phenomenon has more than a few brokers in the Florida/Texas area shouting its praises, even with its focus being primarily new home communities. Why is this unusual? Because many Realtors find themselves left out of the "loop" when buyers shop for new homes, unless they take it upon themselves to engage the services of a Realtor to be shown both new and re-sale homes as possibilities to cover all bases. Homebuilders throughout the country have stepped up to the plate by establishing their own web sites for homebuyers to take detailed looks at their offerings, and now the top homebuilders are even combining forces to show off their homes, communities and services (see "Nation's Five Largest Home Builders Plan Mega-Site for Consumers") Many of these builders pay a co-op commission at closing to brokers introducing their communities to homebuyers, but many rely primarily on newspaper advertising, signage, and model home marketing to procure their clientele.

The missing link here is the REALTOR® who can pick up clients when they get into town and usher them all over God's creation to dozens of new home communities. These agents are eager and ready to become household words with builder sales consultants. Through REALMATCHHOMES.com however, the buyer is not only introduced online to the builder's communities and even linked to their web site, they are also offered the services of a professional agent to make their search even easier and more complete. They can opt to use this agent or pass, continuing to hunt on their own, but the connection is made nonetheless.

Builders get the service and link-ups displayed on REALMATCHHOMES.COM for free, while Realtor/Owners pay a license fee to be the exclusive firm in their market to be plugged into the process. This added element is something new, and it seems to be working well with both Realtors and buyers. David Fletcher, founder, President and CEO of REALMATCHHOMES.COM, Inc., says this "missing link" is creating quite a stir among Florida Realtors and has been spreading without much effort to other states. "It's a win-win-win proposition," he says. "Think about it, though. Builders get free exposure, and Realtors are the ones basically referring buyers to the news home communities by participating in the REALMATCHHOMES.COM site. As an added benefit, buyers are getting the optional services of a real estate professional to give them an overview of new homes that match their specific criteria."

These specific criteria can get fairly narrow, according to Fletcher. Once a buyer begins to use the web site, he is asked a series of questions geared to spelling out exactly what type of home, what detailed amenities (as many as 40) he thinks are important both within and near the community itself, and ideal locations and price ranges as well. When the questions have been fully answered, the REALMATCH 2000 system "matches" the buyer with up to five communities that fit the profile he has requested, as well as a Realtor who specializes in homes in that area. The buyer then receives a phone call from the participating Realtor for this area who has already been e-mailed a copy of the buyer's "wish list." The buyer may at that point make an appointment to meet the Realtor and tour the homes he has been matched with, opt to see both new homes and resale for a broader sense of the market, or go it alone and visit the communities himself. No pressure, just the offer of assistance, according to Fletcher.

Two added features wowing Realtors is the built in system that allows the broker to track the client through closing, and provides buyer demographics both the Realtor and builder can use that can become a standard for both builders and Realtor in the markets to which it applies. "Once the hits on the site get into five-figures, we will have some incredible statistics that can be used and shared among real estate professionals that have never been available before," admits Fletcher.

Early surveys are revealing eye-opening information, such as the source of prospects looking for homes, the purpose of their impending moves, how they may finance their homes, and even statistics on the most popular months to shop for a home. "We can even help area builders position themselves as to what trends may be happening within the market place by using this information," says Fletcher.

"When we saw the exclusive opportunity to generate referrals from a niche market and to track them through closing, we got excited," admits Kimberly Dawes-Luther of Keller Williams Realty, who formed a corporation to furnish referrals to the entire Keller-Williams franchise system in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. "Being able to provide these builder/developers with quantified demographics is icing on the cake," she said.

Builders experiencing the first waves of buyers generated through the new site are happy to see traffic being escorted through their subdivisions by Realtors who already know so much about what their clients want. Tom Riley, V.P. of Sales for WCI Communities in Florida, relates what an exciting concept this system is becoming at their Walden Lake Golf and Country Club community in the Tampa/Orlando suburb of Plant City, FL. "When Barbara Wood, broker/owner of RE/MAX Realty Excel, calls us with a prospect from this system, our sales staff knows that our community has been objectively referred to a prospect whose requirements match everything we have to offer: price, location, type of home and amenities."

Fletcher, the author of Reston Publishing Company's Condominium Sales and Listings, says plans for RealMatchHomes.com are aggressive. The company will be represented in a booth at the National Association of Realtors convention in November , along with the traditional marketing campaigns print and cyberspace advertising. "There's just no limit on how big this can get," smiles Fletcher, "because it runs like a well-oiled machine that fits everyone needs so well." To date, the site features more than 650 Florida communities, with more being added daily. A cross-section of the national franchise and major independent real estate firms have licensed 23 Florida markets and the entire Dallas/Ft. Worth area markets for the site. "Other markets are showing an interest, but while we are anxious to grow, we want to hasten slowly," Fletcher said. "We have to carefully consider which firms we license, because we are only licensing one broker/owner per market segment."

Building bridges between builders and the people who may need new homes by introducing them to this unique concept in Internet marketing is only the latest in new ideas to place elements that may not have had an opportunity to network together on the same playing field.