Property Point

I was at a bloke’s house doing an appraisal the other day and saw a phone on the wall and it took me by surprise.

It shouldn’t have surprised me because it wasn’t that long ago that everyone had a phone on the wall.
Okay, some people kept the phone on the kitchen bench or on a stand in the hallway or, if they had two, one was on the bedside table. Ooh, flash.

The point is that it was only a few years ago that you’d expect to see a phone on the wall.

And we didn’t call it a landline way back in, oh I don’t know … 2007. We just called it a phone. It had a cord and it was attached to the wall and everyone had one. Seems like yesterday. Because it was.

But when I saw that phone on the wall it was like I had just seen a horse and buggy pull up out the front of the house.

The phone was like some relic of a bygone era, kept on the wall next to the photo of great grandad standing beside his Model T Ford smoking a pipe. But while I was there, the phone rang. So people still use them, I thought. Quaint.

Change happens quickly in this crazy mixed up hi-tech world in which we find ourselves. And the new way of doing things becomes ingrained so quickly that in the blink of an eye you have forgotten the old ways…  that aren’t that old.

Real estate is no different. About a year ago I got my wife, Sonia, to help me at an open house in South Mackay that I knew was going to be very busy.

I have a young bloke, Fletcher, helping me at open homes these days but back then, when the market suddenly got very busy, I was still doing them by myself.

I needed to be in the house and around the property talking to buyers so I asked my wife to stand at the front door, greet people and get their names and contact details.

At Gardian, we use an app, which I have in my iPhone, that allows us to keep a database of names and contact details. Those details are entered in my phone and linked to the property those buyers have seen, allowing me to contact them later.

I had shown my wife how to use the app but on this day dozens of people turned up before the scheduled start of the open house and I had wandered off, with my phone, talking to buyers and discussing the property with them.
My wife, facing a growing line of buyers wanting to get into the house, dug a pen and piece of paper out of her handbag and started writing down people’s names and numbers.

Apparently the buyers found it pretty funny, this old school way of recording things. It was a point of difference.

My wife wasn’t sitting at a desk with a quill and pot of ink but she may as well have been because time moves quickly and a pen and paper seems a pretty ancient way of doing things.

The interesting thing is that we got all the names and numbers, I received multiple offers on the property that day and we achieved a great result.

Yes, the contact details had to be entered into the database later and it was a bit inconvenient, but going low-tech didn’t affect the sale of that property.

It was still about me talking to buyers, answering questions, being face-to-face and communicating.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the technology and it helps make us all better at what we do.

But it only adds to, rather than replaces, direct communication and engagement with clients and customers.

Some old-fashioned things are still in fashion.

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