How “Agent-Generated Content” is the Next New Thing in Real Estate

Today’s Millenial home buyer is a different breed of consumer. Savvy agents and brokers can revise their strategies to meet this change by employing the latest in real estate data technology to create “agent-generated content.”

As anyone can see, when you have a generation raised on iPhones and iPads, the way they make a purchasing decision is going to be different.

This is a generation that can buy a gadget from Amazon on their phone in just a few seconds by hitting the 1-click button.

For this group of consumers, there is less calling friends and family for advice or recommendations and more checking what people are saying on the Internet.

This is the quick scan generation. Contacting someone on the phone and hoping to reach them takes too up too much time. This is instant-information gathering generation. They don’t like to wait. They want to know NOW.

The agents or brokers who provide them that information fast are going to be the winners with this demographic. And it’s a group that brokers and agents must pay attention to, because according to Realtor.com, Millennials now make 32% of home purchases. This group, and their particular way of doing things, is only going to grow.

What interests Millenials is content. Lots of it. They don’t want to see a front and back photo of a home – they want to see dozens and dozens of home photos. Every angle of the front yard. Every corner of the backyard. They don’t want to see just one photo of the master bedroom. They want to see every angle of the master bedroom.

And they don’t want to see just photos, they want videos too. Not just on the ground, but even videos shot overhead by a drone.

With today’s big data technology, it’s possible for the average agent or broker to provide real feeds of hyper-local information.

For example, data providers such as Home Junction, can embed a widget on a broker’s website that allows them to pull in information for their particular marketplace on:

Schools

Recent Home Sales

Home Purchase Trends

Local Businesses in the Area

Weather

Demographics

And more…

In essence, this is “agent-generated content.” The new buzzword in real estate.

For the quick scan generation, they want to find all the content they need in one place. They obviously don’t want to surf on the web to dig up that information. And they will reward the real estate company that provides all that relevant content for them in one place.

Here’s another point. Not only do Millenials want all their information fed to them on a silicon platter quickly, they want to see reviews from others. That’s how they make up their minds today.

Reviews are the new referrals. Millenials don’t want to call their friends – they want to see what people wrote in the review section. Or on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Remember, this is the Amazon generation. They look for a product. Quickly check the specifications and then head right for the reviews (we all do this).

This is a quick and efficient way for them to make a decision. This is THE modern decision-making process.

Years ago brokers and agents had to pay attention to generating solid referrals. Those are still important. But what’s really important is to get those referrals to write positive reviews on Google, Yelp, Facebook and the agent’s website.

Becoming the agent who has this plethora of hyper-local information adds one more critical block in to build a Millenial-optimized website.

In fact, a smart agent can also use this hyper-local data as agent-user generated content as a promotional tool they can promote on Facebook and Twitter.

This is the age of quick content and quick decisions. Don’t rely on the old model to generate new business. Milennials just don’t have time for that.