Buying or Selling Real Estate in the 21st Century

One of the things I learned very soon after I started in the real estate business was that if I wanted to be a successful Realtor, I had to give the customers what they wanted. Consumers in my areas of Berkeley Heights, Cranford, Westfield, and surrounding areas want to get ALL of the information they can, and most of them were searching online. The days of a consumer relying on just the newspaper or traditional print media for information are gone. I realized that the internet was going to be not the future of real estate, but the PRESENT of real estate. In fact, I found that many customers searching for real estate services did not neccessarily want to talk with an agent until they were ready, because they feared those unwanted follow up phone calls which inevitably pressured the customer.

So, rather than withhold information about listings in my ads, or try to convince the customer to buy with me before giving them the information they want, I tried to do things differently. I pledged to myself that I needed to hold myself to the same professional standards that I held for anyone I hired.

For that reason, I immediately bought a blackberry so I could quickly respond to e-mails, started several websites strictly for informational purposes, and promoted my services as heavily as I could on the internet. The results have been incredible. Most of my business comes from past referrals, and new online customers that I would have never had before.
One of the things I hated about more traditional real estate sales was throwing myself at people, or self-promoting ALL the time. I found that the best way to get business was twofold:

1. Promote my services, rather than just myself.
2. Keep my promises and actually PROVIDE the service I advertised.
Without fail, the more that I did these two things, (especially number 2), the more referrals I got, and the more new business was hitting my website every day!

Living in Cranford, NJ and having an office in Berkeley Heights, NJ gives me the ability to not only serve my neighbors here in Cranford, but also stay on the cutting edge of marketing and help my friends and customers in Berkeley Heights, New Providence, and Summit. Before the internet, this type of service would have been quite difficult, if not impossible,