Are You Missing out on an Entire Group of Home Buyers?

Posted On Thursday, 20 May 2021 19:08

With the real estate market heating up, agents need to be on top of their game – for everyone. Everyone, including the nearly 20% of the population with some kind of disability (roughly 61 million people in the United States). So how can real estate agents cater to those with disabilities? They can make sure their website, listings and open houses are accessible for those with disabilities.

Physical Accessibility: Real Estate Open Houses

Many listings are not required to highlight accessibilities traits that houses may offer (ex: first floor master bedrooms, extra-wide doorways that can accommodate wheelchairs, lever door knobs and faucets, etc.), but they should if you want to ensure you aren’t missing out on this group of people.

People with disabilities often have specific needs when it comes to housing, so when creating real estate listings, real estate agents should highlight all major functionality of the house. Individuals rely on real estate agents and listings to help find them the best house with the appropriate accommodations that will address their needs. 

When working with individuals with disabilities, agents should: 

  • Make sure that they are listening to their clients needs and help them find a house that fits their unique circumstances
  • Address physical hazards from the beginning (steep driveways, abundance of stairs) may avoid sticky situations when showing the home and/or may help the client budget for remodel if they like the house
  • Ensure that they are prepped to show the house with individuals with disabilities during an open house. Agents should bring a removable ramp (if necessary) for those that may have a hard time accessing the house
  • Examine the property’s floor plan to show the ins and outs of the house and where individuals with disabilities may have trouble accessing. Agents should point out all accessible features of the house and make sure to show where areas can be remodeled or improved for accessibility 

You can learn more about how to create an open house to be inclusive of those with physical disabilities here.

Digital Accessibility: Real Estate Website Listings

With real estate listings comes an actual website where these listings are posted, and believe it or not, this needs to be accessible too (this includes more than just physical disabilities, such as motor impairments, ADHD, and more). Web accessibility means that websites, tools, and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can use them.

Real estate agents should make every effort to try to make their online experience accessible to all users, including those who access the web through various screen readers and other accessibility tools. 

While making open houses inclusive seems pretty straightforward, creating an accessible website comes with more confusion for real estate professionals. Unfortunately, this can send you down an expensive and difficult path if you aren’t careful.

As your website is constantly being updated with new properties, keeping the website accessible will be an ongoing task, and an expensive one at that. Companies typically rely on marketing companies or their website partners to handle anything web related, including accessibility, but the downfall of this is that while marketing teams can typically add the alt text to their images, call to action buttons, or different font sizes and contrasts, the team lacks the legality of making a website truly accessible.  

In short, this might lead companies to accessibility lawsuits. In January of 2021 alone, 1,108 cases were filed - the most ever in a single month. 

While companies may think they are doing right, they may be causing harm in the long run by depending on the wrong individuals to handle such a heavy lift. Therefore, companies need to be proactive in making the necessary investments to make their online presence ADA-complaint and truly accessible. 

Website owners can check out the aCe compliance calculator from accessibility solution accessiBe, for free, to evaluate the website. All the users need to do is submit the URL of their website, and the tool will automatically scan the site elements to show if the website passes or fails the scan. It also provides numeric scores of how well the elements test against the standards in addition to detailed explanation of the results. Below is an example of how it works:

In addition to providing an accessibility calculator, accessiBe is also a solution for making inaccessible websites accessible. Within 48 hours after initial download, all of a website’s content is accessible, and compliant with ADA and WCAG regulations, protecting the site from accessibility lawsuits and ensuring a fair user experience for everyone.

The Takeaway

Real estate and the hot market are not going away anytime soon. For real estate agents to stand out and help serve the community, they should be thinking about everyone when listing homes. Making a real estate website, listings, and open houses accessible for all will be beneficial to everyone involved in the home buying and selling process and will ensure client satisfaction and retention.

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