Top real estate executives at firms from all sizes say agent recruitment and retention are going to be their paramount focus in 2017, according to the latest Imprev Thought Leader survey. The survey reflects the responses of nearly 240 real estate leaders representing brokerages responsible for more than half of all U.S. residential real estate transactions last year.
Eighty-five percent of respondents agree that recruiting more agents is their most critical business challenge, with more than 52 percent of leaders ranked “attracting younger agents” among their chief concerns.
Some brokerage leaders also expressed concerns about the competition surrounding recruitment of talent. Smaller brokerages say a top recruiting challenge has been to offer agents enough motivation to stay or join their firm.
Technology also remains a primary focus and challenge for many brokerages. Forty-four percent of respondents rank “getting agents to use broker-provided technology” among their top business concerns, which even nudged before lead follow-up (36 percent) and lead generation (34 percent).
More than half of real estate executives say “getting our systems to work together” as a top chief technology challenges for 2017. Also, having “systems for more effectively competing against the real estate portals for generating leads” and “increasing mobile capabilities for agents.”
“Real estate leaders clearly believe that the technology they provide to their agents is widely underused,” says Renwick Congdon, chief executive officer of Imprev. “So how does the industry begin to improve agent adoption? By reducing complexity. Systems need to seamlessly fit into the agent’s business and process. Integrated and connected platforms—rather than ‘apps’ and standalone solutions—are imperative to successfully compete with the portals.”
Source: “Imprev Thought Leader Survey,” Imprev.com (2017)
