Real Estate

Real estate booms in communities
as Web sites aid in growth

April 20, 2004

DES MOINES, Iowa -- For Iowa Realty in Altoona, houses can’t be built fast enough to sell. The quiet bedroom community has seen its population boom in recent years, and the growth stems from a variety of reasons, Iowa Realty President Joanne Mangold said.

In March, 23 agents sold more the $12 million in housing in Eastern Polk County, more than doubling their figure from March 2003.

Mangold said there were many contributing factors for that.

“I think we did an exceptional good amount of new construction,” she said. "I think the interest rate has been down for a long time, but during the month of March we saw them pick it up a slight bit. I think people thought they should be serious about it, and they know they can’t take for granted that it’ll stay low.”

Good weather always gets people in the mood to shop. But she always gives credit to the Internet.

“We have an awesome amount of Internet usage,” she said.

Each agent has his or her own profile page and e-mail address that’s linked through the Iowa Reality Web site.

Customers can get access to each individual agent’s listings through the site.

“But even more than that, it’s the immediate access the public has to top real estate information. If one of my agents lists a home, they bring that listing to the data input person at the office and within an hour the listing is online, ready for all of the agent network out there to view what is for sale,” she said. “That’s what gets it sold quickly – the information is dispersed quickly.”

Steve Wolvers at Re/Max in Altoona said the biggest change is that he shows a lot less houses because of the Web site. “I used to show 15 to 20 hours before a buyer would find out they liked. Now with the Web site, they’ve already seen the outside and the insides before they come to me.”

Time and gas money is saved that way. “Now the first appointment is usually spent at the office viewing houses online to see what they like and what they don’t. There’s no use of showing them a house with a blue roof if they don’t want a house with a blue roof.”

Overall, Wolvers said about 20 to 25 percent of his sales are from the Internet.

Virtual tours of the homes at Iowa Reality are available online within 48 to 72 hours. Instead of having to drive by the house, you can see the inside and the outside by simply sitting at home online.

“I tell people if it doesn’t look good online, we need to make it look good online,” Wolvers said.

Buyers can also tell agents what their specifications are for a home and Mangold said a program is set up that will automatically an e-mail to them when a house falls in their parameters goes for sale.

“It’s just set up that we can do that,” she said. “We don’t have to make the phone calls. We don’t have to take each other's time from business to keep that communication going.”

The future of real estate rests online, according to Wolvers.

“Eventually you’ll look at your house online and submit your offer online, similar to Ebay, but that offer would go to an agent. We’d send the offer to the seller and we’d negotiate online,” he said.

While the future prospective would probably generate a lot less commission, it would save a lot money in the end.
“I spent $170,000 in advertising for print, the moving trucks and the Internet,” Wolvers said. “As Internet comes more and more popular, you won’t see those kinds of advertising costs.”

Of the 23 full-time agents, Mangold said nine of them are in a special training program called Tigerland. A company trainer developed the program that’s designed to help train agents to focus on things that boost their businesses, making them better sales people. Mangold said it teaches better awareness of customer’s needs, agent organization, how the Internet can help them and how to make better use of time.

After working on the Altoona Area Chamber of Commerce for the past three years, she said she feels Altoona is ready for the growth. Both school districts are looking to build new high schools, but she said she doesn’t feel the communities should have a negative growing pains.

“(The school districts) are going to grow in a way that is going to accommodate any number of children we can bring into this district,” she said. “We’re just trying to accommodate that by brining in the rooftops and the tax dollars to keep the cycle going.”