Real Trends Commentary 2009
Thumb Talk with David Geipel (Co-Founder, CellSigns, Inc.)

When it comes to reaching buyers, it’s all in the thumbs. Texting is the new e-mail and everyone is getting into the act. REAL Trends spoke with CellSigns who offers a mobile texting solution to agents and brokers to find out how it works.

CellSigns Inc. (http://www.cellsigns.com)

David W. Geipel, President and Co-founder

REAL Trends: What are some of the benefits of your service?Geipel: We offer property information on demand. In seconds, buyers get information on the property including beds, baths and price along with photos. Buyers never have to call an 800 number and listen to a recording. The trend is that buyers do not call those services anymore for fear of being hounded. CellSigns is interactive. Buyers can request a showing or chose to get a call back from the agent. They can even forward the information from their cell phone to a husband, wife, friend or family member.

With our service, the agent logs into the system to upload the property information. When the listing sells, the agent reuses their codes on the next listing. Full reports are available too. Mobile Agent extends the CellSigns property marketing system by reaching out to homebuyers.

Agents can now allow buyers to search the entire MLS with their cell phone. They simply find a property for sale, send atext message with the street name, address, and neighborhood or MLS number and get the property information. They can also request nearby comps. When the buyer gets home, he or she can also login to the Mobile Agent Web site, enter their cellphone number and secret PIN number to see all the homes they visited on an interactive map. Agents can get showing requests from their buyers and can view their activity on a map.

REAL Trends: What opportunities does this offer real estate professionals?

Geipel: There are currently more text messages sent/received every month than calls made on a cell phone (on average, there are 380 texts to 204 calls made each month). While many think this is just a younger demographic using the service, the opposite is true—everyone is texting.

REAL Trends: What are some trends in this arena?

Geipel: While a younger homebuyer may use it more than a person buying/selling his or her fifth home, the average ageof the person using this service remains at 38 years old. In June 2008, The Wireless Association (CTIA) reported that over 75 billion text messages were sent/received in the United States. That’s up from just 28 billion last year and 12 billion the year before.

Bottom line, it works extremely well for a younger clientele, but working professionals now demand these types of services from their agent. And the agent just needs to be able to read the text message on his/her phone, click on the client’s phone number and call to connect with their client. In addition, wireless carriers understand that their customers demand texting plans. Just like phone plans started bundling minutes, the carriers today are enjoying revenues from family plans and unlimited text plans. Why? Everyone is doing it.

REAL Trends: What’s next? How will CellSigns’ service be upgraded in the future?

Geipel: In 2006, the company offered a new service called Mobile Agent that was re-released in 2008 out of beta to offer a complete mobile search for brokers and MLS Boards. Agents can now search all the listings for sale in their market by using SMS (text messaging) and view photos and detailed description on a broker branded WAP (mobile internet) site. It also allows brokers to display a Web widget on their Web site to have buyers sign up directly with that broker. This allows the broker to assign leads to their agents.

As more and more consumers have access to GPS-enabled phones, we’ll extend our services to various devices and carriers. Most consumers don’t want to download an application to their standard cell phone to search for real estate, and they certainly don’t want to pay additional fees for the service. So we have applications consumers can use via their Apple iPhone or Blackberry smartphones.

RealTends.com 

 

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