Agents Use Hi-Tech Mall Kiosks to Find Elusive Homebuyers

In yet another example of real estate agents employing new tactics in their efforts to unload their ever growing inventory of unsold homes, we now find agents taking their trade to shopping malls with electronic touch-screen kiosks in the same places where vendors typically hawk cheap jewelry and incense.

Some of the kiosks are manned by a person, others are expected to be viewed and used by passers-by.  Companies like REosk, Touch Point Homes and In Touch Realty Kiosk are all cashing in on the need for builders and Realtors to spend more money chasing fewer and fewer buyers.

This practice is becoming increasingly widespread, with media outlets from Roanoke, Virgina to Austin, Texas reporting on the new additions to their local mall landscape.

Luckily for rental property managers, apartment vacancy rates are low so they don't need to resort to radically new measures to find tenants.  The biggest change in rental housing marketing is the abandonment of newspaper classifieds in favor of Internet search engines like HotPads.com to keep their units occupied.

Unfortunately since there are no Internet listing services showcasing for-sale properties with the innovative features that HotPads has for rentals, agents will continue to have to catch clients between the Yankee Candle store and the Cinnabon counter at their local mall.