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Real
Estate Agency *New Technology Description* As a new-age real estate firm, we have realized the need for faster, more accurate, and helpful information and feedback when looking to purchase a new home. We have put together a solid group of credited real estate agents, bankers, and other employees to help better your time spent while house hunting. This realization of a society moving in to a more technological mindset has forced us to really think of something that would bring finding a new home much more exciting and revolutionary. Our idea consists primarily of presenting the customer with a virtual tour of any home we as a company, place on the market for sale. There are two major companies that have started this new wave of technology using the virtual tour, one being a company out of Virginia and Tennessee known as iPix, the other is 360house, now referred to as Obeo. Both of these firms have built a concrete start to what look like very dependable and thorough companies that offer a very similar style to what we hope to move into in the near future. A virtual tour will be offered to the customer free of charge, after they have entered information to “login” to our webpage. This will enable us to send them emails and keep them notified of new houses on the market and any other changes we would feel they deserved to see. These emails will be able to be accessed via cell phone, which gives us one more outlet to reach our customers (CellStory). An article we read on a company named CellStory, gave us the idea. They will be releasing a product that will send notifications of updated sales on your mobile phone after you notify the company of where you are looking for property. Although quite costly, it could be a very affective way to find out the most recent property releases. We plan to have the real estate agents film a walk through of the house when it is first put up for sale. Then we will be able to take the film, and place it on the web for viewers to look at. These tours will include full, in depth walkthroughs of all rooms, hallways, stairs, storage, property, garage space, and any other footage we feel is necessary for the customer to see. A company out of Virginia, iPix offers people the chance to purchase packages that help you through producing your own virtual tour. We hope to someday offer the same option. But, to start out we want our firm to conduct the tours, to assure us that we are producing solid footage, instead of shaky and uncertain tours that make our company look sub-par. We want the virtual tour to be able to answer any and all questions about the property instead of leaving out the downfalls of the house. Let’s be honest we need to present the house exactly how it is to our customer, so we need to be sure they are notified of every little part to the property itself. Questions like where is the power box for the house, or what shape the furnace room is in and other small minute questions that definitely help to be answered by physically showing the customer. We believe giving the most in depth film of the house will not only build us a strong reputation, but will help us to really prove our care we show towards our customers and clients. Alongside the virtual tour option, we hope to offer a simple, yet detailed website that offers all services, links, and other information we feel needs to be provided for our customers. Navigation will be easy, so even the most computer-illiterate will be able to find their way, and we will strive to have as up to date information as possible. Personally, we were very impressed with the set up of the century21.com website. It was simple, yet detailed enough to where it would offer you everything you needed. It included recent mortgage and interest prices at local banks, primarily stemming from US Bank, which our company hopes to form some sort of partnership with. Our company conducted a survey to try and understand our customers needs and wants to a fuller extent. The survey, which entailed various questions dealing with the purchase of a new home and what they look for when doing so, was given primarily to adults who have purchased homes and properties. When we gathered the finished surveys, we found that most importantly, people were mostly concerned with the location of a home as well as the overall shape of the house. We expect to encounter some problems after applying the new strategy to our real estate firm. Although offering the virtual tour, we feel that some families will still want to see the home for themselves, which isn’t a big problem. Therefore, we will offer hands on tours as home buying is most popularly conducted today. Also, we plan on assigning an agent with any customer who has signed up with our website and receives the emails. This allows us to build a personal relationship with the customer, while at the same time hopefully influencing them in to buying a home from our company, whether they use the virtual tour or not. Sources used include: *CellStory Launches Mobile CRM Solution for Realtors. Business Source Premier. September 2005. |