As we tread further into the brave new world of digital marketing, we try new ways of reaching and serving our clients all the time. This week, we have begun offering "live time chat" on our Pearce website. People who log onto our site between 8 AM and 1 AM will see a pop-up box after they begin browsing, that will offer them the chance to talk to a person immediately. While that person is not an agent, and will ultimately be referring certain questions to our offices during business hours, it represents our latest attempt to give buyers and sellers what they want, when they want it.
It's certainly been a long journey since the days when buyers had to come into a physical real estate office, and sit down with an agent to go through "the book". That was the MLS compendium of currently listed real estate properties, and it came out every two weeks, with the latest in inventory available twice a month. Twice a year, we could buy a book that had the sales for the past six months chronicled for our use. We didn't give out maps or addresses of listed properties, and most information we did give out was only available on little cards, that we kept in a little box that looked like something in which you would store recipes. It seems strange now, but it was what we had, and it seemed normal to us!
We've gone all the way in the other direction now, and you can find out almost anything about a property, currently listed or not, with the flick of a finger on a mouse. It may not all be accurate, but it is readily available. Real estate agents, on the other hand, have morphed too; they've become consultants and counselors. They no longer control the information, but they are adept at interpreting it, as well as in streamlining the process of buying or selling.
So, if you are scrolling the internet at midnight, and you happen to talk to our live receptionist, think for a moment of how much things have changed! And how much they still remain the same--we're still here to help you in any way we can, to make the very best real estate decisions for you, your families, and your firms.
