Nearly half of advertising queries do not receive an answer from an agent: DelPrete
As an academic and consultant, Mike DelPrete wears many hats. He can now add ‘sting agent’ to his resume.
DelPrete led a team of undercover “secret home buyers” to test real estate agents’ responsiveness to online inquiries about home listings. His team ran 100 such tests and found significant flaws in the way agents handled contact with potential buyers.
The average time for a response to online contact was 8 hours and 17 minutes, but the median time was 39 minutes. However, he found that 47% of questions didn’t even get an answer because brokers left many opportunities on the table to cultivate a new edge.
To standardize the test sample, DelPrete initiated studies in markets across the country. The houses inquired about were average priced and individual estate agent websites were contacted, meaning this was not the case Zillow. The questions were asked on weekdays during office hours.
Over 25 different brokers were contacted, including giants like Redfin, RE/MAX, Berkshire Hathaway, eXp, Douglas Elliman, And Compass. Everyone was questioned two or three times.
DelPrete didn’t find any pattern in the responses, saying, “It was a roll of the dice every time.” According to DelPrete, this illustrates real estate’s last mile problem, where agents can invest in systems and technology to support the process, but still need effective agents to close the deal.
The experiment also included trips to open houses, but the agents didn’t do much better there either. About 42% of attendees were not asked for their contact information. Although 58% of agents asked for contact information, a third of these people received no follow-up. Overall, 62% of in-person and open-home shoppers received no follow-up after a home tour.
