Re/Max has been helping people find their homes since 1973. In those more than 40 years of experience, they have grown to be a worldwide power-house in the real estate industry. Their philosophy is to find good, hardworking agents and supply them with all the support they need to give their customers outstanding service as they search to find their dream home. Their success rate over all of those years proves that they know what they are doing and can help any customer find what they need. When people see the Re/Max balloon, they know who they are dealing with and what they can expect from their experience.
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The Good
- Census data
- Charts and graphs
- Neighborhood
Since there are many factors that are a part of the decision to buy or rent a home, it is important for the customer to have access to as much information about the property as possible. The listings on Re/Max have a good amount of information about the home for sale, including all of the typical specs about the size of the home, how old it is, any special features to the home, and others like this. But the listings also include some extra information about the area the property for sale is in that is not typical for every real estate company. Each listing has the Census data for that area available to the customer. This data includes:
- Ages of residents
- Types of housing units (and how many)
- Occupied vs. vacant housing data
- Ages of surrounding homes
- Racial breakdown
- Average income information of residents
- Unemployment rates
- Building permits issued for area
All of this data is shown in charts or graphs that make it very easy for the customer to be able to understand what all of this information means. These types of graphs help customers to figure out how they will relate to the rest of the neighborhood in terms of economic and family status. Another type of information Re/Max provides their customers which is not as common is Environmental data, which can include:
- Weather (temperature, chance of sunshine, rainfall)
- Energy demand
- Earthquake probability (broken down by magnitude)
This information is not necessary for the customer to know in order to make a decision, but it is nice to get to know the area of the home a little better. Another helpful addition to Re/Max listings is a list of services that are near to the property. This little box shows customers what fire department will cover their home, how close the airport is, which hospital they will use, how many retirement homes are in the area, and other similar information. By using all of these different views of the neighborhood, the customer will be able to really understand the area without having to do the research themselves.
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The Bad
Re/Max does a good job of providing their customers with a lot of information about each of their listings. They create a full picture of the home, property and surrounding neighborhood for the customer to really understand what they are looking at purchasing and living with. Then the customer can contact the listing agent to get more information, set-up a physical tour of the home, or begin the purchasing process. This process works and will help customers find a new home, but it is also limiting to the customers because they can only work with a Re/Max agent.
Re/Max customers only have access to listings that are handled and posted by Re/Max agents. This is only a problem if the customer has their own agent or prefers to work with someone else. If the customer is okay working with a Re/Max agent, they might run into a small problem when trying to find one because there are no agent reviews available. Each agent has a profile with their standard information but there are no reviews from previous customers about their performance. These types of reviews are helpful for customers when they are trying to get a feel for the agent and see if working with them will be beneficial to both parties. Having reviews for the customers to be able to read would be especially beneficial for those customers who are moving to a different area and will not be able to meet personally with the agent throughout the entire process of buying a new home.
Another way that this limitation can be a slight issue for customers is that it might limit the number or type of listings available for them to look at. For example, there are no listings that are being sold by the owner for the customer to choose from as they search properties. For the most part, working exclusively through a Re/Max real estate agent would only be a slight problem for some customers.
