Why Am I The Only Realtor In America Doing This?

If your like me when you shopped for your last car you looked online for reviews of the car and maybe even went to the book store and looked at magazines such as Car and Driver to find out what cars other drivers like and why.  For most people a car is a big purchase and they want to make sure they know what they are buying in terms of the quality of the car, how it handles on the road and what to expect when owing one.   

When I became a Realtor with the goal of helping condo buyers pick the perfect condo for them I thought to myself I can only know so much not having lived in the buildings I was selling.  I thought my condo buying clients would appreciate and value being able to hear directly from the condo owners what it was like to live in their building.   So the idea was born, figure out a way to get San Diego condos ratings and reviews.

The only way I could get the condo owners to provide a review of their building was to survey them.  As much as I wanted to do this on line, there is no way to know how to contact the owners via email and a website function where people can add comments could not limit the comments exclusively to owners.  Its very important to ensure the people providing these condo reviews were in fact the owners.  This meant the direct mail method was the best method of ensuring only the owners would be providing condo rating and review information.   

So many years ago when I started by real estate career at RE/MAX Real Estate Consultants I decided to provide clients with the most educational information I could about the condos they were thinking of buying.  To date about 7,000 surveys have been mailed out to owners of condos in downtown San Diego, with 1,500 of them going out this week to condos that were sold out about a year or so ago.  I thoroughly enjoy reading the survey results that come back as it enlightens me and helps me and my condo shopping clients pick the building that's best for them.