‘Tis the season to prepare for the coming year, addressing concerns, challenges, and goals of our businesses. The results of the 2014 Imprev Thought Leader Survey indicate that brokers and agents are most concerned with lead generation in the coming year, and recruiting tops the list of goals.
Fully 42 percent of real estate leaders surveyed cited the creation of “systems for more effectively competing against the RE portals for generating leads” as among their top two technical challenges as they plan for next year, second only to “getting our systems to work together,” which topped the list with 54 percent.
Also of note for 2015, 86 percent of respondents say that recruiting agents is their top business challenge, and 54 percent note that retaining agents and teams, followed closely by “attracting younger team members” rounding out the list.
Imprev reports that when asked, unprompted, “What’s your firm’s single-biggest challenge today?” nearly one in four cited recruiting and retaining agents as their biggest challenge, followed by growth (15 percent), profitability (13 percent) and an aging work force (7 percent).
Although an influx of international home buyers dominating headlines, they aren’t on many minds, with only 8.0 percent of respondents cite “tapping into foreign home buyers” as one of their most critical challenges as they plan for 2015, tied in last place with “my MLS competes against us.”
Visual representation of survey results
Imprev surveyed over 270 broker-owners and top executives at leading franchises and independent brokerage firms that were responsible for nearly half of all U.S. residential real estate transactions last year.
Although this is not exactly a scientific survey, nor is it a sizable sample, it is a peek into the pulse of the industry and is in line with what we’re hearing on the ground as well.
Growth is a top priority and recruiting and lead generation remain top of mind for brokers and agents.
