In September of 2005 we contacted Opinion Resources Incorporated, which is headquartered in Park City, Utah, to do an independent study on the referrals we were giving to real estate agents. Opinion Resources is an upstanding data collection service, founded in 2004. The management team we worked with on this project has over 80 years of experience in data collection, so all precautions were taken to create the most straightforward and truthful results possible.
Please note that not all of these closings took place with the agent that we referred to the prospect. It is up to you as a real estate professional to establish a solid relationship with the clients that are referred to you, so that you can increase your odds of being the agent that they choose to list or buy their home from. Since most prospects lean toward listing or buying from the first agent who contacts them, and because you have exclusive ownership of your desired territory when you become a member of Real Estate Client Referrals, your chances are pushed farther ahead than 90% of your competitors. However, it is up to you to act.
Here is what our survey found:
We asked them to contact 100 of our buyer referrals and 100 of our seller referrals, which were 12 months old, and ask them a series of questions. The first question was "Have you purchased or sold a home in the last 12 months?" If they answered yes to this question we asked the "Did you use a real estate agent?" Here is what we found:
Buyer Stats:
21.4% of the people who signed up bought a home in the last year.
63.6% of those people used a real estate agent.
Seller Stats:
20.8% of people who signed up sold a home in the last year.
71.4% of those people used a real estate agent
As you can see, even within such a small sample size as 100 referrals, prospects who complete our buyer or seller offers are ready to act and serious about buying or selling a home. Couple that with our detailed referral quality verification process and you have a highly receptive customer who is ready work with an agent on getting the real estate help they need.
