Connecting ISPs, Real Estate Agents and Homebuyers with Fiber Homes
Episode Description
Connecting to homebuyers can be a difficult task for broadband marketers. Thankfully, it is a lot easier with Fiber Homes – an online service that real estate agents can use to inform their clients about houses that have fiber internet and point them directly to the local ISP for service.
Kaleigh Cox, director of marketing at DxTel, tells our listeners about Fiber Homes on this podcast episode.
Transcript
Transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability.
Intro: The following program is brought to you by the Tennessee Broadband Association. Lead Tennessee Radio, conversations with the leaders moving our state forward. We look at the issues shaping Tennessee’s future: rural development, public policy, broadband, healthcare, and other topics impacting our communities.
Carrie Huckeby: Hello, everyone. I’m Carrie Huckeby, the executive director of the Tennessee Broadband Association. My guest on this episode of Lead Tennessee Radio is no stranger to the broadband industry. That’s Kaleigh Cox, director of marketing at DxTel. DxTel is a TNBA platinum member. They provide broadband marketing services to rural ISPs through their Harper Marketing Library, Harper Studios offering video, and actually our TNBA Conference opening video was produced by them this past year. We loved it. Cooper did a great job coming to Nashville, interviewing our legislators, our Speaker of the House, and also our key players. They also have a newly released e-sports gaming platform, and Fiber Homes. And fiber homes is what we are going to talk about. So welcome, Kaleigh.
Kaleigh Cox: Thank you so much, Carrie. I’m really excited to be here.
Carrie Huckeby: Well, I think we would all agree that the housing market is kind of a wild ride right now, and people are moving from state to state for all kinds of reasons. And Tennessee is one of the fastest growing states in the country for not only business, but also for individuals. And they need a place to call home. They need a place to live. So they have this checklist of things, or I imagine they do, that they are looking for, and I can’t imagine that broadband isn’t on that list. So first, it’s find a realtor, and there’s plenty of those around. So tell us about how Fiber Homes works – bringing together that realtor, the buyer and then how the ISP fits into that picture.
Kaleigh Cox: Yeah. Great question. And as someone, I don’t know if you know this about me, Carrie, but as someone who lived in Memphis, Tennessee for two years, I am not at all surprised that it’s one of the fastest growing states in the country. I love Tennessee. I’m in South Carolina now, and that’s where I’m from. But if I didn’t live in South Carolina, I would live in Tennessee. But yeah, we are seeing broadband as the most important consideration for homebuyers. They are ranking that more, homebuyers are ranking that as an important consideration than are even ranking commute time or local amenities. So it’s extremely important. And you’re right, there’s kind of three groups here that Fiber Homes is looking to connect. There’s the home buyer, who wants that fast, reliable internet, and our industry knows that means fiber. And then there is the local ISP that really wants to let all of these new movers in their markets know they exist before that buyer locks in to a two year contract with a national provider, who has worse service and worse customer service, but they just didn’t know their options. And then you’ve got the realtor, and the realtor wants to provide an excellent client experience. They want to be positioned as the local expert, and there’s a lot happening right now in the real estate industry. There’s a lot of lawsuits around inflated commissions for agents, and then you’ve got rising interest rates when compared to recent years.
Kaleigh Cox: And so we’re expecting it to get harder for realtors to win clients to sell homes. And so they need a way to stand out and provide excellent service. And I’m mostly talking about the buyer’s agent here who represents the home buyer, like you brought up. But it’s also good to remember the listing agent, and it’s their job to put the home on the market and help the seller. And something I want to mention there is Fiber Broadband Association recently shared the results of a study they did, and found that fiber now adds 4.9% on average to the value of a single family home. And so that’s exciting because we’ve been using the 3.1% stat across our industry since 2015, and so we knew it had to be higher than that now. But it’s nice to have some data there. But at Fiber Homes, we want to serve all of those needs at once and create a win-win-win for the home buyer, the ISP and the realtor. So we provide buyers with the most accurate address level information that is available in terms of broadband availability. We provide the ISP with multiple pathways to reach those new buyers early in the home buying process, including by partnering with local agents. And then we provide real estate agents with a bunch of free tools that help them provide that better customer experience, either as a buyer’s agent or a seller’s agent.
Carrie Huckeby: Well, I can see that the realtor could really use this as an extra tool because it is so competitive. I mean, if you just watch social media, how many realtors are on there? You know, they’re looking for listings, or they have listings. So I know an extra tool in their tool bag would be helpful, like Fiber Homes. But you sent me an email a couple of weeks ago with some really impressive stats on top of that 4.9%. That’s good to know. Tell us about Realtracs. What is that? How are the realtors using it, and what does that really mean to some of the TNBA broadband companies?
Kaleigh Cox: Yes! We are so excited about this, Carrie. So Realtracs is an MLS. And for those who may not know, that stands for Multiple Listing Service. That’s the platform or the database where agents and homebuyers view homes on the market. So yes, sites like Zillow are very popular, but what those sites are essentially doing is scraping all of the local and regional MLS around the country, the true data source, and then compiling them into one user friendly site. So when you work with an actual realtor, they’re going to be working from the source, the local MLS. And that’s where they post listings. That’s where they browse listings. That’s how they share info with their clients. And there’s about 600 MLS across the US. Realtracs is far and away the largest one in the state of Tennessee. It also reaches into Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky. I checked their website. According to that, they have over 20,000 users and more than 1,900 real estate offices. So that’s a very large reach as far as MLS is go. We turned on an integration with them in September. That integration was via CRS data. So CRS, I’m getting a little in the weeds here, but bear with me.
Carrie Huckeby: That’s okay.
Kaleigh Cox: That stands for Courthouse Retrieval Systems. That company provides a lot of MLS, including Realtracs, all the data that they would pull from courthouses to create a general property report that agents pull any time their listing or showing a home. So using CRS, we build an integration so that all of those general property reports that agents pull every day now have a section on broadband availability that’s based on Fiber Homes’s data. So that means that if an ISP has certified that address in Fiber Homes, they show up at the top of the list as being a, or in many cases, the confirmed fiber provider at that home. And so some of those stats I shared with you, you know, we saw realtors pull 367,633 broadband, or not just broadband, but property reports out of Realtracs in the month of October alone. And many of those reports featured a TNBA provider as the confirmed provider. And so I looked at that, 63,580 of the property reports that have been pulled from Realtrac since we turned this on in September have featured a TNBA member listed as the confirmed certified fiber provider. And that’s just across seven TNBA brands that participate in Fiber Homes. So massive, massive exposure.
Carrie Huckeby: Would you have ever imagined it would be that many when you started doing that?
Kaleigh Cox: No, and we have. So I pulled this out of our dashboard. Every pro-partner gets a dashboard to view kind of how their data is being used, how much it’s being used, local agents, things like that. And it like Realtracs alone like kind of dwarfed all past search history. I mean, it’s just been incredible the reach of that platform. So it’s a massive win for Tennessee.
Carrie Huckeby: It is. And when I saw that number, I thought, it blew my mind that that many people are looking for homes and houses are looking for listings. It’s just crazy, crazy number. So if I’m the realtor going into your website allows me to sign up for an account, I believe. So I can search addresses, and I can produce a broadband report for the client, for my client. Talk about those benefits.
Kaleigh Cox: Yeah, absolutely. So the Realtracs reports was talking about, that’s the general property report. Agents don’t have to have Fiber Homes accounts or run separate reports. That data is now in the general property report. But any agent and any state can create a free account on Fiber Homes. And we’ve got some really cool value adds for them that, like we talked about before, can help them stand out from their competitors. So they can run, if they search an address either on the home page or they create their free account and get into what we call the Pro Portal, they can search and address and run a separate broadband property report that’s branded for them as the agent, and it features more information than what’s in the one section of the CRS data report. So they actually get details on speeds and prices. If the ISP has told us they offer a new mover promo, that shows up. There’s a website, a phone number, so they can share those digitally or print them and hand them to their client. But there’s more than just the broadband property report. For example, if they are the agent listing the home, they can – and it’s one of our Fiber Homes Pro partners has certified the address – they get access to a whole toolkit of free marketing materials to help them make the market aware that it’s got fiber, so they can take advantage of that potential 4.9% boost in value, right? So they can download designs for door hangers or yard signs or rack cards. They can use that kind of thing for open houses, or they can even just download the certification badge or the QR code and put that in with photos of the home. A very easy way to leverage the certification as an agent. And then all of that is co-branded with the Fiber Homes Pro partner, the ISP that certified the address. So they get that kind of easy publicity as well. So lots of just extra little tools and resources that are free for agents in there.
Carrie Huckeby: Yes, that’s amazing. I can remember years ago, many years ago, when I worked in marketing and sales for a broadband provider. You know, we tried to figure out how to get those materials in people’s hands that were moving into town. They were new to the area. We talked about putting them, putting them in local chambers, maybe get them to the water department or even the electric company at that time to hand them out. Because we were competing with bigger names, and sometimes they didn’t know we existed. So Fiber Homes is doing exactly that, isn’t it?
Kaleigh Cox: Yes. And that’s because DxTel, our company that, you know, owns Fiber Homes, we’ve worked with broadband providers for years now, and we heard so many of our clients, we work with the marketers. And we heard so many of our clients say something very much along the lines of what you just said. And they were all – many of them, not all of them – but many of them were kind of kicking the can because there was no obvious path forward. So that’s yeah, exactly what Fiber Homes was built for. Because the truth is, you know, people in our industry, I know, hold a wide range of much more nuanced views on this topic. But the average home buyer really does just see internet as a utility, like water or electricity. And so, you know, they’ve always expected their real estate agent to tell them where to go for water and electricity. And they’re now asking agents for where to go for internet and, you know, agents, up until Fiber Homes, really didn’t have an easy way to answer that question or to answer it accurately. And so we’re just trying to make that much easier for them to answer your questions with confidence and provide that experience so that ultimately the home buyer has accurate information without the ISP having to do the legwork you just described.
Carrie Huckeby: Right. Because I can also remember years ago getting calls from a realtor that said, “Hey, someone’s looking at this house. Do you serve this area?” You know, “Do you have internet there? Do you have service there?” So this certainly makes it easier for the ISP and the realtor. So you’ve probably got at least one good success story. I know you’ve got lots of them, but have you got a success story where all of these pieces came together for someone?
Kaleigh Cox: Yes, and it’s out of Tennessee. So Twin Lakes has been able to benefit from the Realtracs integration, but they’ve also had 28 agents create those free accounts for access to the extra tools. But I went into their dashboard. Like I said, any of our Pro partners can look at data like this. But I went into the Twin Lakes dashboard to see exactly what kind of traction they’re getting beyond those 28 agent signups. In their service areas, in towns that they serve, 2,658 property reports have been pulled from Realtracs since September. We also have an integration on movoto.com, which is one of those, you know, public facing websites. 22 times potential homebuyers on those sites have clicked out to see who the internet provider was out of the little widget there, and that showed them Twin Lakes. And then they also, Twin Lakes overlaps with another smaller MLS. You know, I mentioned Realtracs is the biggest, but there are 600 in the country. Twin lakes also overlaps with the Upper Cumberland Association of Realtors, which has its own MLS, which is also integrated with us. And they’ve seen another ten agents pull reports there. So, you know, I think Twin Lakes probably is doing some stuff in their market to leverage, you know, the tools we’ve given them to promote Fiber Homes to their agents because we’ve seen those agents creating accounts. But a lot of that exposure is happening without them having to do all that legwork again with, like, the chamber or the water company.
Carrie Huckeby: And I think, too, and you’re right. I believe Twin Lakes advertised a webinar or maybe a meeting for their realtors where they could come in and talk about and learn about Fiber Homes. So I’m sure it’s education is a big part of that.
Kaleigh Cox: Yeah, absolutely. And we try to make that really easy for the ISP. We know that, you know, most of the companies we serve are smaller, and they can’t add this to everything else they’re doing. And so there’s two ways we do that. We run a quarterly webinar. So once a quarter, it’s the same content each quarter. But we, you know, do a general webinar that any agent in the country could watch that talks about fiber, explains that compared to other technologies, and then introduces them to the free tools in Fiber Homes. And then we also, you know, we give the ISPs materials to promote that. So they can either say, they can just promote it online, and say here, you know, join this free live stream. Or they can host, you know, a lunch and learn or something like that in their office and play it, and then have face-to-face time as well. And we give them materials to promote it, and then to hand the agents, you know, in person. So some people leverage that quarterly webinar, and then other Pro partners will actually work with Jill, our partner success manager that’s there for them to plan something custom in their market. And then the presentation is much more specific to that ISP in that area. We do it both ways for free for Fiber Homes Pro partners. So I’m sure Jill would be able to tell me exactly which one they did. But I’m sure Twin Lakes was taking advantage of one of those options.
Carrie Huckeby: Good. Great to know that it’s out there. So it is such a great tool, and we’ve touched on maybe some of the challenges educating the realtors and getting the word out there. Are there any other challenges that you found as far as getting it out there, or ISPs signing up or anything else?
Kaleigh Cox: Yeah. So, you know, I think with broadband providers, most of the companies, the vast majority of companies that do a demo with us, either do the full package of Fiber Homes Pro, or they’ll do a slimmed down version we offer where they can simply certify their addresses. And so just making sure they show up without, you know, any of the bells and whistles. And so the vast majority, once they’ve heard about Fiber Homes, which can go over in a half hour at most, they want to do one of those two options. The challenge is, I think getting them on the call to talk about it in the first place, because like I said, most of our clients and the companies we work with are smaller. They don’t have people on house to own this as a full time thing. And so they worry that if they sign up for Fiber Homes, they’re going to be putting a bunch of extra to dos on a team that that already has too much to do. And so, you know, I’d love to let them know if they’re listening and that has prevented them or anything like that, that we have way more tools available for ISPs to leverage than any one ISP is using. I mean, our goal is to provide you with every option your team could possibly want in building relationships with agents and boosting brand awareness with homebuyers.
Kaleigh Cox: But no one ISP is using all of them. It’s really meant to meet your team where you are. And especially if we can work with you to get into the local MLS, like we did with Realtracs, I mean, it just kind of takes off on its own from there. But, you know, in the days or months leading up to an MLS integration, we still have lots of options. But I never want an ISP to feel like if they can’t do everything, they shouldn’t do anything. And so we try to make that easy. And you at TNBA, Carrie, have done a great job of helping us, you know, get the word out about this to your providers, which we really appreciate. And when you see a bunch of providers close to each other signing up like we did in Tennessee, that’s when we have the power to go to a big MLS like Realtracs and say, “Hey, our data. You want this data. You know, our data has been certified by all of these providers.” So it’s kind of a group effort here in the industry, and I really appreciate you helping us get the word out.
Carrie Huckeby: Well, you’re welcome because I’m thrilled to see our providers uploading their certified addresses, but also going with the Pro package as well, because, you know, our providers serve about 35% of the state. And, you know, it’s about raising awareness of where we serve, and the work that we’re doing. And to me, the Fiber Homes just really brings that home, brings all those pieces together and said, you know, to let everybody know what’s happening in the rural environment. That you can get these gig/gig connections and ten gig connections here in the unexpected areas, probably.
Kaleigh Cox: Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
Carrie Huckeby: So I guess one of the other challenges, too, as you mentioned, is the MLS, is getting to the right people to coordinate and integration, right?
Kaleigh Cox: Yeah. And if anyone is interested in this, I have a two-pager I can email them that kind of explains this. So my email is kcox@dxtel.net. But at a high level, the way we have approached this is going up a level. So there’s 600 MLSs right. But above that, there’s only a handful of companies that build the tech stacks these MLSs use. The platforms in which they put that data and deliver it to the agents and to local home buyers. And so, every time we’ve had an MLS interested in the last couple of years we’ve been doing this, we have built the integration at that tech stack level, which then immediately makes it available to every other MLS that uses that tech stack. So of the 600 MLSs, at least two-thirds, and I think we’ve built another since I pulled that stack. But at least two-thirds could turn on a free integration today. Like they already are using one of these companies we’ve integrated with. So we’ve been able to kind of scale very quickly going that way instead of building one off integrations. And regardless of what platform they use or what details or features they want in the integration, we do that completely free for the MLS.
Kaleigh Cox: So the challenge is just letting them know we’re not trying to sell them anything. And then, you know, still, even with the free option, a lot of MLSs have to wait for the board to gather, and then they present it to the board, and the board has to approve it. And that may only happen once a quarter. And so even though we offer something that’s completely free, you know, fills a need they undeniably have, it surprises us sometimes how long it takes to get traction. And that’s why we kind of do this in partnership as much as we can with an ISP. If they’re part of Fiber Homes Pro. And Jill will get on with them and say, “Hey, do you guys already know anyone at the association you know, that could ask the MLS or ask the board for this? It obviously means a lot more to them coming from the realtors they are existing to serve, than it does coming from us, an outside company.” So yeah, lots of considerations there, but I’m really proud of the progress we’ve made so far.
Carrie Huckeby: Yes, I think so. It’s a great tool. To wrap us up, Kaleigh, tell us about the partnership between Fiber Homes and Livability. I think that was something that happened, was that last year or this year?
Kaleigh Cox: Oh, time flies. I think we started that early this year. But the other day I told someone, yeah, I met with them earlier this year, and I looked up and the meeting had been August of 2022. So I am not the most reliable person on when things happen. But yeah, we were really excited about that. Livability.com is a platform that does marketing for small to mid-sized cities. And so, not the big urban centers, but a lot of the cities kind of outside of those. And their website does those lists that often go viral, like Best Places to Live in America and things like that. But they help relocation researchers identify places that they might want to visit or move to or work in that maybe they haven’t heard of before. And Livability has been around for quite some time, but they had never had data to feature internet availability as part of that conversation or those rankings. And they really wanted to change that, and so that’s why they partnered with us. And they rolled out what they’re calling the Connected Community Program.
Kaleigh Cox: And so providers that have certified addresses in Fiber Homes can then kind of certify their community, their city, on Livability, as a Connected Community. And that means we do a feature story on them. And then there’s a, you know, a Connected Community badge that goes on the city’s page on Livability. And this has been particularly popular with our municipal providers that view broadband as very closely tied to their other goals of economic development and attracting residents. But we’ve even seen cooperatives and independent companies use it because then they can bring this cool value add to their communities. And then also get some publicity themselves with these top of funnel leads that might move to their service area soon, because we obviously do a section about, you know, in our feature stories about fiber. That’s kind of the story we’re telling and who that provider is. So if any of your listeners want to go to livability.com/connected-communities, you can see the stories we’re telling there. And that includes features on Bristol, Martin and Cookeville in Tennessee.
Carrie Huckeby: I did check it out. It is a great website, and I must say, I’m one of those people that fall for that. Best places to live, best communities to be in. You know, I like to read because I want to see if I’m, you know, if my community is on the list.
Kaleigh Cox: Yeah, it’s a matter of community pride.
Carrie Huckeby: It is.
Kaleigh Cox: Absolutely.
Carrie Huckeby: It is. Well, Kaleigh, I really appreciate your time today talking about Fiber Homes. I’m excited that our broadband providers here in Tennessee are taking advantage of it, and their brand is showing up, and they’re leveraging their networks there. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we close?
Kaleigh Cox: I guess just letting people know how they can find me. I mean, if they go to FiberHomes.com, and they click say, you’re an ISP, you click “ISPs” and you click to book a demo that will go to my calendar. So if you want to just schedule a call with me, that’s an easy way to do it from the Fiber Homes’s site. I’m very active on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. Kaleigh Cox, K-A-L-E-I-G-H. Or as I’ve shared my email earlier, kcox@dxtel.net. I’m always happy to answer questions, book a call, or whatever else might be helpful for our industry.
Carrie Huckeby: All right. Well, please reach out to Kaleigh and ask her about Fiber Homes, if you’re not participating, great service. I know our realtors here would love it. So my guest has been Kaleigh Cox, director of marketing with DxTel. You’ve been listening to Lead Tennessee Radio, produced by the Tennessee Broadband Association, cooperative and independent companies connecting our state’s rural communities and beyond with world class broadband.