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Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. “The whole idea
behind CBx is to help the agent confidently explain
the story behind the marketing and selling of a home
in a visual way. We don’t just give them the raw data.
When I conduct agent and broker education courses,
I always tell them, ‘It’s humanizing big data.’ It’s a
conversation piece for the agent and seller as they
sit around the kitchen table.”
Notes Sean Blankenship, chief marketing
officer, who spearheaded its creation: “CBx gives our
sales associates and brokers a competitive edge —
especially at the high-end, where no two properties
are alike. It’s yet another experience that no other
luxury real estate brand today provides.”
A luxury real estate agent can now easily cus-
tomize a marketing strategy, using CBx. They can
quantify a home’s unique features — such as an
updated kitchen or custom pool — to generate a mar-
ket price estimate and target the right buyers in the
right places. Even those who list homes in the ultra-
high-end segment will have the ability to add custom
comps such as a recent sale or a recently leased
property. Real estate professionals affiliated with the
Coldwell Banker Global Luxury
sm
program from
Miami to Malibu recognize the power that big data
provides them, especially as more of their sophisti-
cated clients want and expect a targeted approach
to marketing to a smaller pool of buyers.
“Our marketing is very customized and costly,”
says Wendy Walker, a sales associate affiliated with
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Paradise
Valley. “It provides a more strategic approach to find-
ing qualified buyers.”
“Our affluent sellers are very interested in the
buyer profile,” says Danny Hertzberg, a sales associate
affiliated with Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate
in Miami. “They always want to know, ‘Where is the
buyer coming from?’ They often have a profile in their
mind already, but the data from CBx may not support
that point of view. Some sellers in Miami, for example,
might assume their buyer is going to be coming
from Brazil or Russia — but that’s not so much
the case anymore. We have more buyers coming
from New York and California. For our market, age
demographics are particularly helpful. Maybe sellers
are going to do a renovation, and they’re wondering
if they should incorporate a wide-open floor plan to
appeal to a younger buyer? Or should they keep their
existing traditional floor plan because their potential
buyer may be older? Are they going to stage their
home for millennials or the older generations?”
Within CBx, buyers are divided into 67 segments
that help agents and sellers understand the lifestyle
of the potential buyer. For example, “Top Tier” is the
wealthiest tapestry of residents in the system, who earn
more than three times the U.S. household income —
which represents the majority of buyers in Walker’s
market area. “Laptops and Lattes” are predominantly
single, well-educated professionals in business,
finance, legal, computer and entertainment occupa-
tions — a segment that is highly attracted to areas like
Chicago’s Gold Coast and Lincoln Park. “Urban Chic”
is a category of professionals who lead a sophisticated,
exclusive lifestyle. And “Silver & Gold” is the most afflu-
ent senior market segment — a majority group seeking
residency in Miami’s highly sought-after Fisher Island.
Already, agents are using the data to improve
the targeting of their marketing initiatives. Young uses
the unique buyer profiles to target Facebook ads for
her million-dollar listings. For each listing, she plugs in
the home’s information and a buyer profile is created,
listed by town.
“For one $1.8 million listing in Basking Ridge,
for example, one of the towns — Edison, New Jersey
— was a 63.89-percent match and a highly visited
demographic on Facebook,” explains Young. “Based
upon this fact, I ran a campaign using Edison, New
Brunswick, Westfield and a few other targeted towns,
so Facebook ads would appear in people’s news
feeds who live in those towns. In just over one week,
the ads were shown to 38,000 pages, and 2,244 peo-
ple actually clicked to visit the pages on my website.”
Traffic to her website increased by 25 percent
during the ad campaign. Facebook was also refer-
enced by people at the open house and by those
agents who made calls on behalf of their clients.
“My closed sales volume increased by 20 per-
cent over the last year,” reveals Young. “Buyers and
sellers are calling me after seeing the Facebook ads,
but CBx is the wheel behind it.”
The brand has no plans to stop at the agent
level, either. In fact, the Coldwell Banker Global Luxury
program is already preparing to use the information
generated from CBx to power its latest Luxury Market
Report, expected to release later this spring.
“The real power of CBx comes from the fusion
of big data with the expertise of the affiliated agent,”
says Craig Hogan, vice president of luxury. “When
these two forces are combined, it’s unbeatable.”
SNAPSHOT:
“WHO IS GOING TO BUY MY HOME?”
A look at who’s acquiring real estate in three top affluent markets.
CHICAGO
ZIP Code:
60614
Neighborhoods:
North Side and Lincoln Park
Median Age:
34
Average Education:
Bachelor’s degree
Average Commute:
30 minutes
Average Home Value:
Just under $700,000
Average Sale Price in Top 10%:
$2,331,000
Trends:
Last year, about 27% of homes
changed ownership
Profile of Homeowners:
45.77% Laptops &
Lattes, 42.21% Metro Renters, 4.42% Dorms to
Diplomas
SCOTTSDALE
ZIP Code:
85253
Neighborhoods:
Paradise Valley
Median Age:
52.6
Average Education:
Bachelor’s degree
Average Commute:
20 minutes
Average Home Value:
$1,400,000
Average Sale Price in Top 10%:
$3,954,257
Largest Employer with Open Jobs:
Nextiva
Profile of Homeowners:
78.19% Top Tier, 9.24%
Urban Chic
MIAMI
ZIP Code:
33109
Neighborhoods:
Fisher Island
Median Age:
60
Average Education:
Graduate degree
Average Home Value:
$3,150,000
Average Sale Price in Top 10%:
$15,024,775
Trends:
Only 4% of homes change hands
each year
Profile of Homeowners:
100% Silver & Gold