Immediate gratification is often the key to lead generation for real estate agents. However, agents often have to slog through clogged inboxes, nagging emails and fierce competition with other agents in order to snag a client in today’s overpriced urban markets.
Voitrix, a new online portal for real estate agents, aims to offer solutions for that problem. Voitrix modifies agents’ real estate websites to include direct contact buttons and search portals for use by homebuyers without ever leaving the agent’s site (and possibly wandering to the site of a competing agent). This keeps the homebuyer into the agent’s curated environment, reinforcing their brand and promoting their real estate services.
Homebuyers on the agent’s website can:
- search for neighborhoods, specific listings and open house information associated with the agent;
- automatically add open house dates and times to their calendars with the click of a button; and
- contact the agent directly for more information.
When a curious homebuyer has a question, they simply click “Call Me” or “Text Me” to send a message directly to the agent’s phone.
The agent is then given the opportunity to promptly reply to the homebuyer’s message via call or text, instantly answering questions and displaying their top-notch customer service. However, a fast and professional response time isn’t the only benefit Voitrix provides to agents.
Email addresses are attached to all inquiries submitted by homebuyers. This allows agents to vet inquirers for legitimate leads — as opposed to casual shoppers or false leads — based on public information connected to the email address. Agents can also save the email addresses to their contact lists for further contact and referrals. Requiring an email address as a requisite to contacting an agent deters many casual (or wary) lookie-loos who otherwise might contact the agent.
Voitrix costs an agent $39 per month to use. However, a current promotion offers $10 per month for the first 50 agents who sign up in San Francisco. The discount applies in one of the wealthiest of California’s housing markets, where agents earning big on sales over asking price can likely expend the costs of promotion. Agents working in other, needier markets are left to fend for themselves.
See how the Voitrix portal works by watching the demo video below.
Voitrix and the tech-savvy agent
Technological ease has become critical for real estate services in recent years, especially as competition for increasingly scarce housing reaches new heights in several California markets (such as the Bay Area market referenced above).
Agents unable to respond quickly to inquiries from potential clients may lose out to more connected agents with better tools. This becomes increasingly critical for younger first-time buyers steeped in the technological age who are more willing to work with agents savvy and competent with modern technologies and loaded with data on a property.
User-friendly real estate websites are a simple way to increase an agent’s outreach and productivity, and Voitrix is a handy tool for improving and expediting the services an agent provides online. Agents are better able to expand their client base through diligent and efficient online access for tech-inclined homebuyers seeking immediate satisfaction.
Editor’s note —A first tuesday poll revealed only 36% of respondents have active real estate websites as of February 2016, a shocking minority in the current technological age.
Currently, Voitrix exclusively serves agents who are members of associations, such as the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors (SBAOR) and the San Francisco Association of Realtors (SFAR). MLS-only agents and brokers working independently from associations — saving themselves the expensive recurring fees for membership — are presently unable to take advantage of Voitrix’s benefits. This exclusion creates an interesting bifurcation of benefits, since most associations of realtors (AORs) are financially dependent on earning from the MLS they control.
Voitrix plans to expand service to more high-demand markets which require agents’ quick action to secure leads.
Agents: How do you make your online portal succeed? Sound off in the comments below.