Portland Home Buyers Shop Online, Buy With a Real Estate Agent

Forget Silicon Valley – did you know the city of Portland, Oregon is the tech hub of the Pacific Northwest? HP, Intel, Yahoo! and hundreds of other web and tech businesses have major operations in the Portland area. Portland residents are known for being wired, and not just on coffee. We pride ourselves in being able to access information with the touch of a screen or click of the mouse.

What does all of this have to do with real estate? Well, besides the technology industry providing thousands of jobs, making Portland a great place to relocate, it’s interesting to note how technology has changed the real estate industry itself. Stop for a moment and consider how you would go about shopping for a home if the world wide web had never been invented. In the days before the internet, a key part of a real estate agent’s job was helping home buyers just find homes that were for sale. After all, who else could they ask?

Flash forward to 2003, and 70% of home buyers are using the internet to research homes for sale, according to the National Association of Realtors. That number has been growing over the past decade, and in 2013, 92% of home buyers were going online to learn about what’s available in on the real estate market. That percentage is pretty consistent across all age groups – even 75% of the 65+ crowd is employing the internet to find the home they want to buy.

In 2014, Portland home shoppers will be more wired than ever. Mobile apps make it possible for you to walk down the street and pull up data on any homes for sale, then look up home values across the neighborhood and find related information like school rankings and transit options.

With all of this speed and convenience at your fingertips, you may be wondering where your Portland real estate agent fits into the picture. Are we to go the way of the telegraph and the horse and buggy?

Actually, the National Association of Realtors’ data shows that the opposite is true. In this age of unlimited information, home buyers are more, not less likely to contact a real estate agent once they get serious about buying a home. Of those who used the internet to look for a home to buy, 90% went on to buy that home with a real estate agent. (88% of non-internet users also went through a real estate agent).

Why? The answer is simple: For all the bells and whistles on a smartphone or computer, they can’t represent you in a Portland real estate transaction, negotiate for your best interests or ensure that all your bases are covered when it comes to mortgage lenders, home inspectors and the tricky closing process. Only a licensed Portland real estate agent can.

I reached the top 2% for sales in the Portland, Oregon market because I embrace the power of information and technology (see my listing agent services). I know that more buyers will find your home for sale through the internet than any other medium, so I pay to promote my listings on the top five real estate websites among others. For home buyers, I offer a weekly emailed Portland Market Action Report, my comprehensive website with detailed information and tools to help you understand the Portland real estate market, and the option to go paperless when it comes to real estate contracts and paperwork.

Technology aside, I feel that the best service a Portland real estate agent can offer is to be available both on and offline to answer your questions in a friendly and professional manner. So contact me today if you’re ready to buy or sell your Portland home!