The Best Broker Tools For Recruiting Real Estate Agents

As any real estate broker knows, it can be a battleground out there when recruiting agents and one of the best weapons they can deploy are state-of-the-art WordPress real estate websites and real estate data.

Sure, some brokers chant the usual mantra when talking about how they go about recruiting agents. They tell the newcomers how their brokerage is top in the marketplace. How they have outstanding brand reputation in the community. How they have a great training program with seasoned veterans willing to help them out.

Here’s the challenge. Right now, according to the National Association of Realtors, there are fewer people under 30 in the real estate business than there have been in years. In 2010, there were 42,000 agents under 30. Five years later in 2015, there were an estimated 23,000.

Why? One reason is massive student debt. Graduates today on average are saddled with $30,000 in student loans. Tough to take on a commission-only job that far in a hole.

The other reason why you don’t see many millennials in real estate is that many of them have attended college (remember the reason for all that debt?). In college, you don’t see many real estate or even sales majors.

Luckily, many baby boomers are waiting longer to retire, so there is still a well to draw from for new recruits. But what is going to happen as those boomers start to retire? Millennials are the largest generation in the workforce. Brokers will need them.

WordPress real estate websites help recruit new agents

There is one solution. It’s something a brokerage can use in addition to all those accolades about being a leader in the marketplace with a top-notch mentor program, etc., etc.

The sweetspot with the millenials is that this is the generation that was raised on technology. Baby boomers can remember when their parents brought home their first color TV. Millennials are the generation that creates their own TV shows (YouTube) and communicates on TV (Facetime).

These people are plugged in.

So for a brokerage to gain a competitive edge when recruiting millennials, use technology.

First of all, get rid of that archaic website. Build a high-performance, stunning real estate website with a mobile responsive WordPress platform. WordPress—the top content management system in the world—gives you so much more versatility as far as publishing stunning photos and videos, giving people the ability to upload content quickly, adding a huge number of helpful plug-ins and adapting to different devices, i.e. tablets, smartphones, etc.

In addition, WordPress is one of the best platforms out there for enhancing rankings on all the search engines.

Most millennials are familiar with WordPress. They’ve blogged on this platform. The brand is very well recognized with this generation.

Secondly, you could almost say that Google is integrated into the brain of just about every millennial. They don’t ask other people questions, they ask Google. (To them Google is a verb that is as common as the walk or speak).

So when it comes to recruiting agents, show them how you are using the latest web technology on the market (supplied by WordPress real estate website developers and data providers such as Home Junction), and you will get their attention.

Real estate market data gives agents more tools

There’s more. Not only should you provide a stunning WordPress real estate website platform with spectacular photos of listings, but you also need to show how your firm goes the extra mile and loads that website up with big data (another term millennials are very familiar with).

You not only have a photo of that million dollar property, you also have massive data sets showing Recent Homes Sales, Local Market Trends, Home Values, School Information, Demographics, Boundaries, Local Businesses, Points of Interest, Maps, Statistics, etc.

That’s impressive to a 30-year-old. If that young person is split between joining your brokerage or another one down the street, roll out the technology angle. It will close the deal.

To be honest, the same goes for any generation. Boomers are immersed in technology as well, and they will immediately be attracted to any brokerage with enhanced web tools.

If a brokerage is going to grow, it’s going to need bodies. This is 2017, the old recruiting techniques are important, but you must be No. 1 in your marketplace on the tech side.

If you want to appeal to the plugged-in generation and start recruiting agents, your firm must be plugged into a WordPress real estate website with the latest big data real estate tools.