While it’s too early to determine with certainty the shape the market will take for the rest of the year, early data from both our Showing Index and our daily showing activity tracker suggest that showing activity is on the rise in multiple markets. If that ends up being the case and you find yourself in such a market, we know that you may be nervous about the potential additional workload it can produce, but fear not; we have your back!
ShowingTime+ has helped agents navigate hectic market with solutions to frequent issues brought on my low inventory, ultimately facilitating millions of showings throughout the U.S. and Canada. In anticipation of a possible repeat of the low inventory conditions we’ve previously seen, here are a few ways we help real estate professionals tackle the unique conditions.
Effortlessly Handle a Flurry of Showing Requests With Appointment Center by ShowingTime
Even a listing agent with a single listing to manage can face unique challenges in low inventory markets. Add high buyer demand to the mix and you have the conditions for receiving a torrent of showing requests to manage – a recipe for long nights managing showings from eager buyer’s agents, to be sure!
Not so with the Appointment Center by ShowingTime+. Appointment Center combines an enhanced version of our industry-leading showing management technology with an appointment center staffed by appointment specialists available 24/7/365 to answer showing request calls. When demand is up and inventory down, even the agent with a single listing can find their return on investment to be significant as they let ShowingTime+ handle appointment scheduling and feedback management, allowing them to focus on growing their business.
Buyer’s Agents Gain a Valuable Ally With the Waitlist Option
There’s no two ways about it, buyer’s agents have their work cut out for them when inventory is scarce. Finding the perfect home for a client is demanding enough when inventory is plentiful, but when dwindling homes are listed on a Friday and sold by Monday as was frequently the case in hot markets in 2021, buyer’s agents are facing an uphill battle.
Fortunately for buyer’s agents, we heard their call for a solution to this frequent issue and introduced our Waitlist option. As the name suggests, the Waitlist option enables agents to be notified immediately when an appointment time becomes available. In fact, the feature is so popular that more than 53,500 appointments were successfully booked after agents joined waitlists! Agents can let their buyers know that there may still be an opportunity to take them to that listing if another buyer’s agent cancels or reschedules their appointment.
The Waitlist is an easy-to-use feature that helps buyer’s agents remain competitive in hot, low inventory markets.
For complete details on how to use the Waitlist option with your ShowingTime+ showing service, click here.
Manage All Offers Within Offer Manager by ShowingTime+
Showing management is a key element of the buying and selling process, but we know as well as you do that it’s only one of multiple steps that can present a litany of issues in any market, much less a fast-moving one. Offer management is another such element and it’s one we’ve received a lot of feedback on over the years from users of our showing management services.
That’s why we developed Offer Manager by ShowingTime, which has already been used to submit more than 120,000 offers. True to its name, Offer Manager is a feature that helps agents streamline the offer management process integrated within the familiar interface of agents’ existing ShowingTime showing management service. Offer Manager provides agents with an experience that is intuitive, presenting a ‘submit an offer’ button that can be used from any device. It reduces the number of stressful “Did you get my offer?” calls, emails and texts between agents, and instead simplifies one of the most challenging tasks real estate agents face: communicating clearly with each other about offers.
Offer Manager is included at no extra charge with Appointment Center and as an optional add-on service for users of ShowingTime for the MLS.
Offer Manager adds additional offer management functionality to the existing ShowingTime+ showing management interface, making it easy for existing ShowingTime+ users to take advantage of its time- and stress-saving features.
Michael Barbaro, broker/owner at Huntsman, Meade & Partners Comp in New Haven, Conn., recently laid out the business case for Offer Manager:
“Before Offer Manager, it was the ‘Wild West’ – agents were inundated with multiple modes of offers, including faxes, emails and even text messages with pictures of offers. Some people didn’t even follow up, so if you weren’t expecting their offer and you didn’t know to look for it, and you’re fielding another 15+ other offers, it could just be overlooked. The lack of a system was the worst possible scenario for the industry.”
Market conditions can change on a dime, so it’s impossible to predict what a given market will look like in the months to come. What we can say is that the most successful real estate professionals are those who are prepared to meet the challenges of any market ahead of time. Given the stakes, we believe it’s prudent to be ready for all possibilities and our services are scalable to be useful in any market.
Be prepared for whatever the spring market has to offer. Whether you already use a ShowingTime+ showing service through your MLS and are looking for an upgrade to your existing services, or you’re new to the ShowingTime+ ecosystem and you want to know more about how we can save you time and money, we offer solutions that are tailored to your needs. Reach out to our Sales Team by clicking the button below to learn more.
