How to supercharge your brokerage with neighborhood data insights

Amidst economic uncertainties and a shifting landscape marked by compensation lawsuits, the real estate industry faces the challenge of adapting to changing consumer behaviors. With homebuyers placing greater emphasis on neighborhood selection, agents and brokers are under pressure to meet heightened expectations and demonstrate differentiated value. 

Today’s homebuyers seek more than just property listings; they demand access to reliable neighborhood-level insights to inform their purchasing decisions. In response, brokerages must leverage neighborhood data to enhance their offerings, whether by enriching their websites or equipping their brokers with additional knowledge. By embracing local expertise and providing comprehensive insights, brokerages can effectively compete in this evolving market and position themselves as trusted resources for discerning homebuyers.

Empower homebuyers in their purchase journey

According to a Clever Real Estate survey, 40% of homebuyers regret the location where they purchased their home, emphasizing the importance of choosing the right neighborhood. Before buying a home, people buy into a neighborhood.

While property information still stands high in importance, we’re seeing a shift in home seeker preferences towards a more neighborhood-focused search. NAR highlights that 63% of homebuyers rank neighborhood quality as the most important factor when choosing a location. On top of what’s inside the four walls of a property, people are increasingly prioritizing a good neighborhood that fits their lifestyle, when it comes to where they live.

Homebuyers can make more informed and confident decisions with access to accurate, reliable, and current neighborhood data insights, enabling them to gain a deeper understanding of a location and its impact on their day-to-day lives. For instance, Local Logic provides a suite of location intelligence solutions that can be implemented directly into real estate listings to make it easier for homebuyers to find homes that meet their needs.

“The widgets are so easy to use and provide amazing information to users shopping for a home. With this added data, Royal LePage is able to offer much more information on the area to home buyers, aiding them on the biggest purchase of their lives.”

 

— Sunny Tung, Senior Manager – Digital Product Development at Royal LePage

People often do their own research before reaching out to a realtor or broker. By enriching your listings with relevant neighborhood data, you can support and give home seekers all the tools they need right at the beginning of their home purchasing journey. Building trust from the start is the first step to a lasting relationship that will win over clients and close deals.

Position agents and brokers as local experts

While today’s consumers have greater access to information, its sheer abundance can quickly become overwhelming. Homebuyers still need someone to help them sort through the vast amount of data available online to ensure its quality and relevancy. Here’s where the agent’s role shines.

Besides identifying which information is relevant to a home seeker, agents and brokers also possess insights that most consumers would not readily have access to. In an increasingly competitive market, real estate professionals must demonstrate a depth of knowledge that goes beyond the standard listing information if they want to differentiate their services.

With neighborhood insights, agents and brokers have a way to provide unique, valuable information that homebuyers can’t easily find elsewhere. Through a deep understanding of specific areas, they can establish themselves as local experts that buyers trust as they help the latter make the right decision and find the perfect home. So while homebuyers might be able to find some level of information on their own, they still need to rely on the expertise that agents and brokers have to offer.

Local Logic’s NeighborhoodIntel reports provide 250+ industry-leading location insights that highlight the most important features around any home. These reports cover everything from neighborhood characteristics to demographics, so agents can help homeseekers find a home that’s the right fit for their lifestyle needs.

As your agents and brokers become the go-to local experts for homebuyers, you’ll strengthen your brokerage’s brand authority and distinguish your team from the competition.

Unearth hidden real estate opportunities

During Super Bowl LVIII, CoStar spent $1 billion on ads centering the neighborhood, as recent trends emerge, such as the shift to remote culture and a renewed focus on relocation. With location becoming increasingly important to homebuyers, many will need additional assistance when looking for a new house in an unfamiliar area. This is particularly true for relocating home seekers recruited by magnet companies, which often refer them to relo brokers who help them identify available neighborhoods and quickly find homes.

Brokers can also broaden their clients’ search range by leveraging location insights and tools like Local Search or NeighborhoodWrap to identify comparable properties and neighborhoods that they might not have thought of initially. Consumers can then expand their search by 20% to include areas they were unaware had the lifestyle they wanted.

Get more out of your website and listings

Your website is your most powerful tool — yet it’s often underutilized. To stay competitive, your website must offer current data that meets the needs of homebuyers. Providing useful location information can help your brokerage become a reference research tool for buyers looking to learn more about different neighborhoods.

A typical listing includes details about the property itself, such as the year of construction, type of renovation, and amenities like parking. Despite being essential, that information may not answer all of a homebuyer’s questions. Nor does it create content that stands out. Home seekers are looking for more than property listing data. When searching for a new home, consumers want comprehensive information that also gives a detailed overview of the neighborhood.

To differentiate yourself from competitors, your website must offer a best-in-class user experience. By providing relevant neighborhood content that is easy to understand, insightful, and makes people want to read more, you will encourage visitors to stay, engage, and return to your website, thus increasing its stickiness. Conversely, visitors can leave your website to find information on a competitor’s platform if context is lacking.

With Local Logic’s comprehensive location dataset, brokerages can deliver actionable insights and add meaningful context to their listings to showcase the value of their listed properties. Using Local Content, visitors can visualize different narratives based on which neighborhood characteristic is important to them as they browse through listings. As a result, users are more likely to interact with the website, resulting in longer time-on-site and higher engagement rates. And the longer a user stays on the listing page, the more likely they are to convert.

Vistoo, for example, enhanced its website’s SEO performance by integrating Local Content. Through the widget, the real estate platform generated unique content for its listing pages, increasing its rankings and visibility. Within 60 days, Vistoo more than doubled its website traffic.

In general, companies that have harnessed Local Logic’s products have seen 10-15% increases in new traffic, conversion rates as high as 36%, a 50% drop in bounce rates, and four times higher conversion rates for users who use location filters.

Relevant content also enhances brand credibility, which facilitates sales pass-offs by generating high-quality leads. Meaningful on-site interactions keep a company top of mind for when people are ready to purchase. And the more informed customers are, the easier it is for sales teams to close. So, the more time users spend on your website, the shorter your sales process will be.

Take your marketing game to the next level

Build brand authority online by curating content for your marketing channels using specific neighborhood data. First, identify where your target audience spends most of their time, whether it’s on social media or at industry events, then create educational content tailored to that channel to become a trusted resource. The goal is to brand your brokers and agents as hyperlocal experts. For example, Wahi built its own content engine using location insights to create neighborhood guides for the Greater Toronto Area, becoming the go-to source for all home buying and real estate in that market.

Moreover, agents and brokers can integrate neighborhood data and enhance existing assets, such as listing presentations. In this case, they can enhance the way they market homes by showing clients additional information that no one else has and that cannot be easily obtainable elsewhere.

In today’s rapidly changing real estate landscape, marked by economic uncertainties and a shift towards neighborhood-focused home buying, agents and brokers face the challenge of meeting increasingly discerning homebuyers’ expectations. The ability to provide comprehensive, data-driven insights into neighborhoods has become a crucial differentiator. Embracing tools that offer deep local knowledge not only empowers buyers in their decision-making process but also establishes real estate professionals as indispensable local experts, paving the way for growth and success in a competitive market.