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Real estate agents can find out what buyers’ perceptions of them are in a new report by CoreLogic.

The Buyer Perceptions of Real Estate Agents Report surveyed 326 vendors and 524 buyers, and revealed that agents who ignore buyers to focus on vendors can significantly reduce their number of sales leads.

It also added that buyer-care is one of the most powerful and affordable assets agents can own and identifies easy ways to dramatically improve the buyer experience.

Report author Kylie Davis said: “One of the greatest falsehoods real estate agents tell themselves is that buyers and sellers are two different types of customers who need to be treated differently.

“Agents who ignore buyers to focus on vendors they can pitch to in the short term could be reducing their leads by as much as 75%.”

Some of the key findings of the report are:

1. Only 14% of buyers’ experience excellent service, compared to 31% of vendors in a sellers report last year, and 58% of buyers rated their experience of buying a home as positive
2. Only 25% of buyers would definitely use the agent they purchased their property from to sell their property
3. 57% of buyers would recommend the agent they bought from to friends and family, compared to 68% of vendors

The report identified that the behaviours and skills that buyers see as being hallmarks of excellent service are identical to those outlined by vendors. 

Both buyers and sellers want good communication, help, empathy, fast response times and a transparent process from end to end that recognises both the emotional and financial enormity of buying and selling property. 

Key findings

• Concerns of buyers are similar to vendors and both want agents to lift their behaviour
• Buyers are confused why many agents are always on the hunt for their next listing and don’t understand that good service creates referrals and new business
• 33% of buyers said the post purchase follow through of the agents they dealt with was negative, with 22% describing it as poor and 11% claiming it was disastrous
• 68% of buyers said agents had little to no interest in helping them find a suitable property 
• 9% of buyers claimed the honesty and trustworthiness of agents is excellent, 16% poor and 12% disastrous
• 18% of buyers said the price guide offered by agents was poor, 10% disastrous and 9% excellent
• 46% of buyers use property reports to help them understand pricing
• 57% of buyers would recommend their agent to family or friends
• 25% of buyers expect to stay in touch with their agent and use them again.

Download the report by clicking here.