How the real estate industry can benefit from texting
The real estate market can be competitive. Depending on where you live, a home can be listed and have an offer on it in a matter or days (or even hours). As a real estate agent or broker, being able to communicate with your clients is critical, especially in a hot market.
Which is why if you’re not using text messaging, you’re missing out on a great way to better serve your clients and yourself. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the benefits of texting for the real estate industry.
Tracking & Accountability
Let’s start with keeping track of your communications with your clients. Texting is great for keeping track of communications because (as the name would imply) there’s a written record of every communication. Companies have even worked to integrate SMS communications into their CRM, providing better insight into response rates and a centralized record of all communications.
Preferred Communications
Let’s be honest — we all prefer texting. It’s fast, it’s easy, and you don’t worry about getting stuck in a text chain with your mom the same way you do a phone call (sorry Mom). Odds are good that your clients prefer it too. Whether they’re at work or at home, it’s a lot easier to respond a text message than a phone call.
Of course, none of that matters if your messages aren’t getting delivered. Using a text channel that aligns with your use case, and that aligns with the CTIA guidelines, is key to ensuring message deliverability.
Faster Responses
We all ignore phone calls, especially from numbers we don’t recognize. But we always open up a text message. Texts have a 90% open rate within the first 3 minutes of receipt, and that rate only goes up as time goes on. In a hot market, where every minute counts, knowing that your clients will see, and respond to, your messages could be the difference in whether they get their dream home or not.
Nothing to Download
We’ve talked about this in the past, but there’s a bit of notification fatigue going on, so much so that nearly 50% of people download zero apps in a given month. Asking your clients to download an app just to keep in touch about showings can be frustrating for them. Relying on text messaging means one less thing they have to worry about, and you can send text-based and image messages (perfect for showings).
Ready to Learn More?
These are just a few reasons that the real estate industry can benefit from using text messaging. Ready to see how you can integrate texting into your real estate brokerage? Give us a shout, and let one of our experts walk you through how your real estate business could be benefiting from text messaging.
