Rebogateway real estate BenutechI had a chance to review a new product recently that takes a more strategized approach to finding listing leads for real estate agents.  Rebogateway (R.E.B.O. being an acronym for Real Estate Back Office) is a product that focuses on which homeowners are most likely to sell in the near future.  The emphasis is on saving the agent time and money by focusing their marketing efforts on the leads that are most likely to convert.

Rebogateway is tied into a number of data sources, from the local MLS to taxing and record-keeping authorities.  The system asks two basic questions that get to the heart of the likely-seller discovery process:

1)  What life events are most highly correlated with a homeowner deciding to sell?

2)  Which of these events are recordable and reportable to and end user in the real estate industry?

Finding these potential home sellers allows an agent to market by mail, phone, or even door knocking in a much more effective way.  The cost of marketing materials and time would reasonably be reduced if the leads being targeted were higher caliber leads.

It turns out that there are quite a few situations where homeowners have their information given to government and private sources that allow themselves to be categorized as likely home sellers for real estate agents to target for potential listings:

  • Divorces
  • Expired Listings
  • FSBOs
  • Notice of Default
  • Notice of Sale
  • Probate
  • Tax Defaults

There are also instances where a local market can be farmed for new listings based on a neighbor’s home transaction, even if that home was listed or sold sold by a different broker:

  • Just Listed – Market for interested buyers
  • Just Sold – Market for potential sellers

Rebogateway filters seller leads

Rebogateway frames all of these potential lead sources into one set of data and allows the user to search by a variety of different methods to focus on a target market.  User searches based on location, life event type, and other criteria produce a list of homeowners to contact–which are already verified as not currently listed, when the system is tied in to the local MLS.

For the agent who has a long-term community that they regularly farm, there is also a “future events” tool to keep on top of that community’s homeowners’ life events.  The user selects a geographical area by radius, location, or drawing an outline on the map, and then saves a homeowner record search.  Going forward, any time one of these key life events happens within that user’s defined boundaries, an email is sent from the system to the user, identifying a new prospect as a likely home seller.

Rebogateway map search real estate leads listings

There is also an interesting “Tract Utility” which reports turnover rates in certain locations.  An agent could find that homes turn over at twice the rate in a neighboring area as they do in his/her local community and find that farming the new area is more profitable.

Real estate agents aren’t easily impressed with new tools, as they get new pitches every week.  The best product pitch to an agent will:

  • Reduce the amount of time needed to get a task done
  • Reduce the cost of necessary tasks
  • Generate more leads at a reasonable ROI

Rebogateway does an excellent job of taking extensive research time and costs off of real estate agents’ plates, and allowing them to focus on marketing to qualified leads that are more likely to result in listings.