Cape Cod broker Karen Stefani decided to take her career a new direction the day that Realtor.com asked her to stop framing its listings on her site. A former buyer's agent, Stefani was already tired of battling what she calls the "anti-buyer's-agent conspiracy."

"What does a buyer's agent have to show except how they do business?," asks Stefani. "No one cares because they want to see homes. When they took that away, I had to get creative. How will I get people to contact me?"

What she came up with is one of the first virtual relocation companies in the nation. Stefani, who has personally relocated more than 13 times with her husband and holds broker's licenses in several states, combined what she knows about the Internet, buyers and agents into a hail-Mary-pass business plan. Now she's netting 20 percent more income with far fewer headaches.

Stefani, who has dabbled in online real estate as a consultant for some top producers' Web sites, decided to create a series of Web sites devoted to the interests of the relocating Cape Cod buyer. She works online only, and gets customers off the Web or through former clients. She does no offline advertising.

She simply provides an information delivery service, and asks through a drop-down box if the seller or buyer wants to be contacted by an agent. If they want a complimentary update of all listings in their price range, for 3 months, they are automatically updated.

"I work like a relocation company," says Stefani. "I receive inquiries from buyers and sellers from my web sites. I answer initial questions and send them listing information if requested." Then, she refers the customer to an agent of her choice - via email.

Stefani has edited referral-worthy agents down to only a few. Some agents are missing the cut because they never responded to either her emails or to the customers. "Oh, I've been so busy this week, I just haven't had time!" they say. But Stefani isn't sympathetic. She knows that an email client is as good a lead as any other and worthy of a quick, professional response.

She's also learned the hard way that some agents whom she thought she knew well, have a different ethical standard when it comes to Internet referrals. While most agents who work with her are appreciative of the referrals and happy to pay her 25 percent referral fee, one agent, who has received as many as 15 referrals from Stefani, has yet to respond to her calls or pay her a dime. She only recently found out that this same agent had referred her referrals and pocketed the referral fees himself.

She won't disclose what she plans to do about it, but she is taking action. "It's a learning process," she says. Obviously, it can't depend on a hand-shake or verbal agreement. Despite such setbacks, her business is taking on a momentum all its own.

Stefani says that her market is uniquely suited to a referral-based relocation business. The majority of buyers are purchasing second homes for recreation or buying retirement properties. She has few clients who are interested in schools or employers, even though her area has a substantial number of technology companies in residence.

Hers is not the traditional relocation company. Relocation companies primarily coordinate service partners in the relocation process either through referrals or affinity programs. "They coordinate the purchase/sale of their corporate client's homes," explains Stefani. "This is quite a valuable service, as it allows transferees to move on with their new lives to their new locations as soon as possible. Many times these companies are equipped to advance the equity in your home for a down payment for the next home."

Relocation companies also send out relocation packets, bulging with materials from the local chamber of commerce, visitor's bureau, local schools and churches, and other organizations of special interest. Stefani does the same thing, only instead of packets, she gathers links to the appropriate information online. She doesn't worry about losing leads to offsite links or steering customers to fill her own pockets. "I don't believe in caging the customer," she says. "I've been there and I know how it feels."

So even if she can't display listings, she does have other information that buyers want. "I am the first point of contact if they have questions, and if they want information on listings I can look up their information on the MLS and send them a list that fits their perimeters with a method to search the listings online."

Before she refers the customer to another agent, Stefani qualifies the customer as a lead. "I make the first telephone contact. After speaking to them, I get a feel for whom I should refer them to. I also let the consumer know they can contact me at any time."

If the customer is already associated with a relocation company, she won't work with them. "They charge me a piece and then I would have to charge the agent a piece and I couldn't get anyone to work for that fee," she explains.

"I think people are guided by their companies. My husband used to work for General Mills. We didn't have to deal with after-the-fact referral fees, and it was left up to the transferee to use who they want to use."

"This isn't just handing them a name. I provide information and ask them if they want to be contacted," she says. I provide more than that - I make the contact and answer their questions. If they want further assistance, they can choose whether or not they want to be contacted again. If they don't want, I say please let me know in the future. The ones who want to be contacted, I will call, find out their motivations and answer their questions. I will decide who is the best person for them."

How does Stefani get so many people to her site(s)? "I have someone do search engine placement for my main site and I pay him $150 a month to do that," she explains. "He does bring in the traffic, so I'm not disappointed. It takes me so much time, but there is so much time to do that and it changes so quickly, I felt my time and money are better invested in someone else to do that."

"I have sites with just lists of Realtors, and real estate sites specific to the Cape. I also use a couple of Cape sites that link to my main site. The other extra sites are secondary, and I take care of those. I don't worry too much about placement, or fiddle with meta tags, or content. There's also regional sites where Realtors can put heir links that connect to their site, like the chamber of commerce sites, city sites, etc."

Are the referrals happy with being referred? "Everyone thinks Realtors try to sell them, that's not what I do. I'm not shoving that I'm in real estate and I want your business and I'm the best thing since sliced bread. If they want information they can link to my site. It's just another method of promoting myself and my company. I can't imaging more agents haven't thought about registering domain names for communities they serve and making it an informational site. And making it about entertainment, activities, jobs, and real estate and then the real estate link would link to their site. It's too easy to think one-dimensionally."

"I feel that most of the agents are trying desperately to hold on to the way things used to be done," says Stefani. "You want to say, wake up and get with the times. What I'm doing is definitely different. Most people are trying to generate business for themselves. I'm not doing that. I make too much money to give this up."

By the same token, Stefani doesn't want anyone to think this is easy money. "I answer emails 7 days a week," she says. "It is easier and I make more per hour than representing clients."

Published: June 14, 2000

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