By Paige Tepping
During RISMedia's recent webinar—"Do You Need an iBuyer Offering? Pros and Cons"—panelists Erin Cestero, president – San Antonio division, JBGoodwin REALTORS®; and Brian Megliola, chief operating officer/owner, Coldwell Banker Community REALTORS®, explored the pros and cons of iBuyer offerings and what success should look like for both real estate professionals and their clients.
The webinar was sponsored by zavvie and moderated by Caysey Welton, RISMedia’s content director.
Key Takeaways:
Panelists provided a glimpse into the state of iBuying today and where they see it heading as the future unfolds—highlighting some common misconceptions.
- Simply having the iBuyer solution allows brokerages to maintain relationships with current clients while attracting new clients at the same time.
- As a broker, having a strategy to help agents unlock transactions and make it through the shifting market is incredibly valuable.
- For a segment of the market, iBuying is a great solution, and these solutions aren’t going anywhere.
Here's What Our Esteemed Group of Panelists Had to Say:
“For us, iBuying has been adopted by agents all across the board, as we’ve tried to ingrain it in our culture. From an educational standpoint, we’re talking about it at every sales meeting, sharing success stories to build agent confidence. But I also think it’s important to mention that stress is a little high with interest rates consistently in the news and hearing about crazy numbers of offers on properties, and agents are looking for ways to eliminate their own stresses as well as offering tools to their sellers when going into the market. Our sellers have access to so much information online, some of which isn’t pertinent to our local market, but they are curious as to how it applies, so it’s causing anxiety. Having this option is a big stress reducer.” -Erin Cestero, president – San Antonio division, JBGoodwin REALTORS®
“From the phone calls I’m getting, iBuying is in high demand. The opportunity is that you can be part of it. The challenge, in my case, was that I didn’t have a way to become an iBuyer until I got onto the zavvie program. The conversations I can now have with my agents in terms of recruiting and retention are a huge benefit, and I’m also able to produce leads for them as well. iBuying isn’t going anywhere. Even in a small market, there is a huge demand for people wanting to sell their homes quickly. It gives you options to adapt to what is happening in the market right now, and it has been a huge opportunity for us.” -Brian Megliola, chief operating officer/owner, Coldwell Banker Community REALTORS®
“I’ve been around the industry long enough to know that this is more of a mindset challenge than a skillset challenge. The skillset is quite easy—you type in an address and hit the go button—so we work a lot on mindset for agents as they enter this new market. It’s really important that agents shift with where the consumer is going. We have to go where the consumer is going, otherwise, we’ll be left behind. The biggest benefit here is that you protect both your sphere and your database because you are meeting them where they are going.” -Lane Hornung, co-founder, zavvie
For more information on navigating this trending shift in business, check out the full webinar here.
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