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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

New Mobile App Brings Foreclosure Listings to Buyers

The use of technology has kept the real estate agents behind LAForeclosure finders.com busy following leads and closing deals even in today’s slow and difficult market. The property search website, which allows prospective home buyers access to all properties, including foreclosures and short sales in the San Fernando Valley the moment they hit the market, has been an effective lead generation service for real estate agents. Now, the company is going one step further by incorporating mobile technology to bring property listings directly to prospective buyers’ phones. “With our new real-time text message alerts we can notify home buyers as soon as new listings hit the market,” said John Gallagher, CEO of Gallagher Real Estate Group, the company that owns and operates the site. LAForeclosurefinders.com recently partnered with Chatsworth-based iVision Mobile, a marketing and text messaging software provider, to implement a mobile strategy that connects agents with prospective buyers. The mobile application, which allows visitors to opt-in and receive text message alerts with specific city and price range categories, is one more way the group is keeping a leg up in a highly competitive real estate market. “This is really a way to give real estate agents a marketing edge,” said Derek Simms, co-founder and CTO of iVision Mobile, who also designed the LAForeclosurefinders.com website. “It gives them more tools to sell properties.” The website was designed as a feed of MLS listings, the exclusive database available only to realtors, which contains information on all properties that go on the market, Simms said. The idea was to direct the thousands of people that are searching for properties online – many of which do not have a real estate agent working for them – to the site using Search Engine Optimization and other online marketing tools. When visitors click on the “contact agent’ tab on a specific property, they reach the Gallagher Real Estate Group’s core team of two real estate agents. “We receive a ton of inquiries,” said Gallagher. “And there’s only so many inquiries one person can handle so during peak times we’ve had to bring in three or four additional agents to help us respond to the demand.” Generating leads The site has been so effective at generating leads that Simms said plans are underway to offer the lead generation service to other Realtors and agents by geographic territory for a cost of about $500 a month. Essentially all the leads from people interested in properties in a certain area would be forwarded to a Realtor who would be assigned a specific territory. The Gallagher Real Estate Group focuses mostly in Northridge, so the lead generation service provided by LAforeclosurefinders.com could benefit real estate professionals as far south as Hermosa Beach and Long Beach, he said. “There are hundreds of agents in Northridge alone, thousands in the San Fernando Valley, so what would set us apart? How would people know to come to us? This site really is our digital business card,” said Gallagher, who is confident Realtors could use the extra marketing boost in today’s housing market. By enhancing the website with iVision Mobile’s text messaging technology, real estate professionals can reach out even more efficiently to prospective buyers. iVision Mobile, which was launched in 2004 has created text messaging campaigns for clients that include several MBA teams, Coca Cola, and Six Flags Magic Mountain. One of their mobile campaigns included text to win opportunities for club goers to win free bottle service and dinner as part of an effort to increase brand exposure for PINK Vodka in the LA market. Another aimed to increase radio listener interaction and promote the Rick Dees Brand through text to win promotions. House campaign The company has also created mobile campaigns for real estate firms including Rodeo Realty, where text-for info-instructions were displayed in open house signs, as well as magazine and newspaper advertisements. “For instance, a person driving by sees a house for sale and wants some information about the property: how much it’s selling for, square feet, etc. They see a sign for Rodeo Realty that reads, for example, ‘for information text: house 1 to this number’. Then they get all the information they want directly on their phone,” Simms explained.

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