During the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses fully embraced the digital world, and used only the internet to promote their brand or product in order to survive these unprecedented times. Professionals also made the most of this time to further advance their knowledge, learn new online marketing strategies, as well as discover new tools.
Brokers and real estate agents haven’t shied away either from discovering new ways to keep the momentum going in their professional lives. Turning to social media to market their business, attending real estate classes and doing virtual tours are just a few activities real estate pros embraced during these tough times.
A couple of weeks ago, we partnered with Charter Real Estate School to compile a survey and ask brokers and agents specific questions on what they were up to during this period. Here’s what we found.
93% of real estate professionals attended CE classes during the pandemic
According to our survey, 92.6% of the respondents have taken real estate continuing education classes via video conferencing using Zoom or other similar services since the shelter-in began. With such a large percentage of participants choosing to attend online classes, it shows how involved real estate agents were in their work and professional development, even in times of crisis.
Before the lockdown, 59.3% of participants said that they regularly attended read-only online classes, while 40.7% haven’t attended at all.
Over 90% of participants prefer video conferencing to read-only classes
This doesn’t come as a surprise. Online interactive classes are far more interesting and engaging than just reading. Only 7.4% of the agents who participated in the survey claimed they prefer read-only classes.
55.6% of agents and brokers have greater interest in video conference classes than in-person courses. Even though it’s almost a 50-50 tie, there’s a slight edge over online classes, with more people preferring the comforts of their home office to human interaction in classrooms.
More than 50% of respondents held one or more virtual tours during lockdown
Virtual home tours were around long before quarantine set in, however, the technology wasn’t nearly as used as it was now. 48.1% of participants arranged one or more virtual tours for their clients, and 59.3% said they never created a virtual home tour prior to the coronavirus situation. 88.9% claimed they will continue to use, or will start to use, virtual tours after the shelter-in passes.
56% of brokers and agents focused more on client interaction in the past few months
More than half of the participants claimed they focused more on client interaction with their website since the shelter-in began. Moreover, 81.5% said they will be actively focusing on increasing the visibility of their website after the shelter-in. 63% of respondents also claimed they increased social media marketing during the pandemic.
We also asked questions involving digital signatures. When asked if brokers had a positive experience with their clients using digital signatures, 33.3% said they did, but almost 60% declined to answer. Furthermore, 55.6% said they’d much rather use digital signatures than traditional signatures moving forward.
If you are interested in real estate CE learning classes, or if you need help optimizing your website for search engines and want to improve your rankings, reach out to our team of digital marketing experts and boost your real estate business.
