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While 2016 was a strong year for Mark Stark and Gordon Miles, 2017 is on track to be even better. In all three markets that Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Nevada and Arizona Properties serves—Las Vegas, Arizona, and Orange County, Calif.—growth is healthy thanks to a winning combination of good recruiting and vibrant economies.

Team Buyside with Mark Stark

Mark Stark

But market factors aside, Stark and Miles know that their firm’s success ultimately relies on its competitive differentiators and the ability to engage consumers. One tool in their arsenal to help them do just that is data from Buyside.

“We started working with Buyside earlier this year,” says Stark, BHHS Nevada and Arizona Properties CEO and broker/owner. “For us, it’s all about how we can help our agents increase the experience for the consumer, and how we can connect more efficiently with the consumer. That’s what Buyside has helped us accomplish. This is an example of where technology is being utilized by the real estate community to communicate more meaningfully with buyers and help sellers in a more effective and efficient way.”

Buyside’s mission is to leverage buyer data to help generate more seller leads, give agents a leg-up in listing presentations and, ultimately, close more deals. By using Buyside’s data system, agents can effectively match their listings to likely buyers. Stark explains: “An agent can say to the seller, ‘I have 26 buyers looking for a home very similar to yours, and I can reach out to them even before listing your house.’ From the listing side, agents can get a property sold more effectively and can work through the non-buyers much faster, which saves the seller money.”

“Buyside gives our agents a substantial edge on our competition in a listing presentation,” says Miles, BHHS Nevada and Arizona Properties president and COO. “The ability to demonstrate to the client that there are buyers looking for their specific property is a real competitive edge. It shows we have clients looking for that exact home. Our company prides itself on having the latest technology for our agents to utilize. Buyside allows our agents to create a powerful enhancement to a listing presentation with real-time information.”

Gordon Miles

One of the most important advantages of Buyside is that it allows agents to back-up their listing price suggestions with factual data. They can now show home sellers how the pool of potential buyers drops or increases when the price is adjusted either up or down. “Agents can do an analysis on what’s really going on in the marketplace as opposed to saying, ‘you should be priced here,’” Stark explains. “You can now show sellers that when they price their home at $460,000, for example, there are 35 interested buyers, but when you price it at $480,000, that drops to 11 buyers—by increasing the price, they lose the opportunity to even talk to certain buyers.”

As Stark explains, this is where the real value of data lies. “Data is going to help the professional sales executive do a much better and more efficient job with real statistics backing them up.”

Not surprisingly, offering Buyside to agents at the brokerage level is a boon to recruiting and retention efforts. “In a recruiting or internal retention conversation, Buyside allows us to have an edge by demonstrating how this product directly contributes to an agent’s bottom line, which establishes broker value,” explains Miles. “We’re a company with today’s technology that enhances the agent’s opportunity to increase their income…and they do!”

From a big-picture perspective, Stark firmly believes that the use of data and predictive analytics in the real estate space is only going to grow. “What it’s going to do is give a lot more power to the really smart brokerage and the smart sales executive,” he says. “No technology, no statistic or analytic will replace the belly-to-belly interaction—but it will only enhance that.”