iHOUSE Website Customer Close-Up
Laura Roskelly started her real estate business 7 years ago after settling in Crofton, Maryland with her retired Navy husband. Laura was no stranger to real estate, she knew she wanted to be a real estate agent in her early 20’s, but she was hesitant about striking out on her own and specializing in residential property. With the help of her supportive husband, she successfully realized her dream. “I always wanted to be a real estate agent but I was leery about jumping into a pure commission structure. We moved around frequently which made it difficult to plan for my own business. I worked in commercial property management for years and realized that when you do a great job for someone else’s property, you really don’t reap the rewards and you are basically assigned the most difficult clients.” She laughs at this, saying, “Everywhere we went, I found this to be true, and it really moved me closer to deciding to start my own business.”
Her business is specifically geared towards helping military families relocate to the area and buy or rent housing that they love. “When we moved here, even though there’s a major military base, I felt that as a military home buyer, we were treated as second-class citizens by our agent. She didn’t understand the particulars of our situation, and she didn’t seem to care. For example, military families are granted a 10-day leave window to find a home, so you have to work hard to find something in that amount of time. Also, there are unique military housing allowances. Our agent wasn’t aware of this and we felt as though we were probably a low budget client for her. She would show us 3 homes and then want to schedule another appointment for a week later to see a few more.”
“After that, I decided that my experience as a military wife, and my desire to be a real estate agent could be melded to provide a unique service to military families here in the Fort Meade area. At the time, Fort Meade was an under marketed clientele, particularly on-line where I knew most families were turning for their relocation information. Now, 7 years later, thank goodness I’m in this area! We’ve got lots of competition, many with no military experience. Thanks to iHOUSE, I am firmly entrenched in the market here. I’m always between #1 and #3 in natural search.”
“I’m absolutely thrilled with the evolution of iHOUSE over the last 7 years. Every time I think of some new feature that I’d like to have, iHOUSE announces that they now offer it. iHOUSE is always ahead of the curve. I love how easy it is to use, build and shape. I change my website look and feel periodically, sometimes seasonally, but the basic building blocks for flexible content and a good user experience are always there.”
“I love the level of control that I have to make my website my own. The other thing is that, if I have questions, and I usually email them, I always get a thoughtful and knowledgeable response within 24 hours. There’s never been a case where I couldn’t get help, if I needed it. The ease with which I can create and edit listings, we carry up to 25 listings at a time and iHOUSE is the only software that everyone in the office knows how to use!”
“iHOUSE gives me the ability to project who I am and what my business is in a very concise manner. After seeing my website, people are surprised to find that I answer my own phone. We’re real people, not rock stars, but our online presence is so professional that they really don’t expect to talk directly to me when they call.”
“iHOUSE is the most effective tool for my business. I’ve dabbled with more expensive products, but found that they give you 25 buttons and try to sell you things that you don’t need and claim to give you better results. I will stay with iHOUSE because I continue to get the best picture of my business and I have found that even for more money, you can’t get anything better than iHOUSE.”
“I have personally sold over 80 million in real estate since I started my business – starting from a customer base of 0. I started fresh here: no family, no connections, with a desire to serve the military community. 25% of my business finds me through the internet. I do track statistics and with iHOUSE, I get 180,000 visitors a year to my website. I owe A LOT of my success to my iHOUSE website!”
