Wireless tech moves to home sales

New texting system provides instant information to prospective buyers
By ERIC RUTH, The News Journal

Posted Friday, February 15, 2008

A sign in front of a Hockessin home for sale gives directions on how to text the real estate office for instant information, including interior photos. (Buy photo)

The News Journal/ROBERT CRAIG


The CellSign system sends information to a prospective customer's PDA or cell phone.
Houses might be content to sit around all day, but selling them means moving at the speed of light.

With that reality in mind, the real estate business has been pushing itself toward more high-tech marketing solutions, recognizing that today's wired buyer demands information -- and results -- fast and easy.

To accommodate those expectations, New Castle County's biggest real estate firm has stepped beyond Web-based salesmanship and put power into the buyer's hands. Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate has begun giving Delaware shoppers access to home listings via their mobile devices, allowing buyers a virtual peek into houses while idling outside at the curb.

By texting a home's identifying number to the firm, customers quickly receive a reply that includes interior pictures, price, room information and even school districts and taxes. There is no charge, and no special software setup is needed.

"I think it's an invaluable service, because it deals with a newer crop of buyers," said David Harrell, a Patterson-Schwartz associate. "A lot of the younger buyers, that's how they want to communicate, via text."

In a local market that encompasses roughly four times as many listings as a few years ago, the new system has the kind of technological edge that more real estate professionals should be embracing, said Shelby Betts, an Arkansas-based Realtor who teaches agents high-tech tips.

"There is a need for technology training" in the field, especially as demographics shift toward more electronically mobile clients, she said. "It's really been a hard thing for a lot of agents to grasp, because they think it's bothersome."

Agents have pursued a higher profile for years through personal Web sites, but they have also learned how the Internet can be an inconsistent friend. Web sites that claim to offer a quick lookup of home values can create skewed expectations among buyers and sellers, agents say. Lead-generation services hint that they'll corral those Web-surfing customers, but don't always deliver.

"I've not actually been able to capture any leads," said Delaware Realtor Mike Bartley of Prudential Fox & Roach, who has maintained a professional site for years. "People are just surfing the Internet and looking for homes."

The unending effort to connect with customers also can mean hiring consultants to optimize an agent's prominence on search-engine results, or paying for specialized software that promises to maximize marketing efforts. Patterson Schwartz's new "Home-Text" service -- based on technology developed and sold by the Exton, Pa., firm CellSigns -- is geared toward making it as simple as possible for customers to take the next step once they have seen the listing.

A single-digit reply back to Patterson-Schwartz will begin the process of making an appointment to see the home, and customer-care specialists at the company's Hockessin headquarters are in place to make a quick reply. Such speed is crucial in a market where the median age of homebuyers has fallen from 41 to 39 in just one year, said Helen O'Hara, vice president of marketing and technology at Patterson-Schwartz, which has 350 sales associates at seven area offices.

"Today's generations are more and more that kind of instant gratification," she said. "They want it now."

Research has shown that 84 percent of buyers start their searches on the Web, O'Hara said. Patterson-Schwartz works to spread its listings to an array of real estate sites, but mobile technology seems to clearly be the next big wave, she said.

"This whole medium is going to continue to grow," she said. Technological innovations like the CellSigns system aren't as expensive to implement as they once were, and pressure for advancement is coming from the top.

"The National Association of Realtors is making a big push for agents to get over their fear of technology and start learning how to embrace it," Betts said. The group has begun a new professional designation called E-Pro to signify a Realtor's expertise in modern marketing techniques, stressing to agents that high-tech savvy doesn't necessarily have to be high-cost.

CellSigns -- which charges a monthly fee to real estate firms for its service -- says the system is now in use in every state.