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PHILOSOPHY The real estate industry has been on automatic pilot during the advent of the most revolutionary technological innovations in history. During the worst part of the explosive beginning of the Internet age, historically low interest rates inspired a massive entrance of first-time home buyers into the real estate market. Our industry was so robust that the Internet component of it was largely an afterthought for agencies and became a place to hide out and do research for the average buyer. An opportunity has been squandered and another one has risen up to replace it. The real estate industry is poised to now go beyond the surface of what it means for a company to exist in the face of an increasingly online reality. In that sense, Metropolitan Boston Real Estate enters the market with a clear purpose - to take the Internet and the real estate industry to the next level. Our mission is to challenge three critical assumptions. First, we challenge the current perception about what buyers are willing to do online. At a time when 80% of buyers begin their home search using an Internet search engine and buyers not using the Internet at all are practically extinct, surprisingly few buyers actually choose their real estate agent online. At Metropolitan, we believe that number will increase dramatically in the near term and we are building our business based on challenging the assumption that home buyers will continue to use the Internet merely as a source of information. How we will do that relates to the second assumption. Ours is probably not the first real estate web site you have visited. Whether it is or not, visit some others before you decide on working with us. What you will discover is our web site is an open challenge to industry convention. In developing it, we took our visual and aesthetic cues from sites outside the real estate industry, precisely because we didn't want it to look and feel like a typical real estate web site. We didn't want to confound users by trying to do much in our home page. Our home page is simple. It visually communicates our vision for the Metropolitan brand and is possessed of a clear and concise navigation which enables you to reach any area of the site within one click and get down to business. Whether you are a buyer, seller or renter you will find everything you need to help you find the right place to live, get your place sold, and meet the right agent to assist you. If you've come just to get info about apartments and homes, make no mistake, our site features the state of the art home and apartment search tools you came for. Just one click away you will find our MLS Assistant registration/log-in page as well as one of the deepest databases of apartments for rent in the area. We're just getting started, so some of the bells and whistles and areas of the site are still under construction. When the dust settles, we'll also have live chat with our rental and sales agents available as well as additional market data, info on public and private schools, and area resources info for our entire service area. In the meantime, feel free to use the recommended links where available and don't hesitate to call us or send an e-mail if you need further assistance. The third assumption we are challenging is perhaps the most important. The idea of creating an enhanced online experience -- that is to say, an environment in which Internet consumers can not only function effectively, but also feel comfortable meeting agents - is an empty proposition without consideration to the quality of those agents and the character of the agent-consumer relationship. The real estate agent profession, like many sales-oriented professions, is not always well-regarded. Many of us have had bad experiences at the hands of an unprofessional sales person upon whom we depended for assistance with an important decision. There is enormous pressure on sales people to perform well, which in real estate often manifests itself as too great an emphasis on closing. Many people regard real estate agents in particular as "pushy" or of questionable ethics. On a nationwide basis this has had the effect of creating a phenomenon known as "Buyer's Agency" which has been relatively slow to take hold in the Boston area, but has achieved considerable traction in Massachusetts suburbs. NAR reports that in 2003, for the first time, more than half of all Massachusetts buyers used a Buyer's Agent to assist them in acquiring a property. Several agencies, notably the entire GMAC franchise, have ceased to allow the practice of sub-agency. Sub agency is practice in which agents working with buyers do so as "seller's agents". Finally, real estate agents are commission-based independent contractors, so the relationship between agents and real estate companies lacks the paternal character of traditional employer-employee relationships. There is no guaranteed weekly paycheck, no company health insurance or retirement plan. At Metropolitan Boston Real Estate, we will challenge real estate consumers' perception of people in our profession by changing the traditional relationship between the real estate company and it agents and by changing the relationship between the real estate agent and buyers. First, we have a new approach to agent recruiting, training, and retention that has reoriented the way our agents think about this business, and changed the way they behave and work with customers. We select our agents without specific regard to their real estate industry experience and recruit aggressively from outside the industry to create a healthy mix of both seasoned real estate professionals and new blood. We not only consider our agents our partners, we actually treat them like partners by making better than industry standard splits, profit sharing, as well as health insurance, retirement accounts and other financial planning instruments available to them. Most importantly, we place intelligence, professionalism, and ethics ahead of performance (closing) on the list of our key hiring and retention criteria. We do this because we want our agents to focus on creating a positive search experience for our customers - an enjoyable, enlightening journey to find a new place to live - rather than constantly obsessing about closing deals. We do this because we believe intelligence, professionalism, and ethics improve rather than limit performance in people who have real talent. Finally, we train our agents to work as Buyer's Agents and insist on Buyer's Agency from cooperating agents. By challenging the aforementioned three assumptions, we hope to redefine the relationship between the real estate consumer and the real estate agent. We believe that relationship is in the process of undergoing radical changes anyway, and we are building a company ready to meet the new demand both from Internet users ready to engage in a more meaningful relationship with real estate agents online, as well as buyers looking for true buyer representation. Metropolitan Boston Real Estate is the new way home. Take the journey home with us. |
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  The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.  Paul Valery French poet and philosopher A vision is not a set of objectives. It's about using your imagination. To be inspirational it must reflect a deeper understanding of the brand and project it into the future. It must be at once ambitious and legitimate. Jean Marie Dru |
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