This morning I came across a post written by Fran Gatti in Crescent City California titled, "Are REALTOR.COM Enhancements Worth the Money?". The post itself is an excellent topic to cover and at this time over 150 people have weighed in on their opinions.
I work with many Realtors and they have almost all asked me at one point in time or another if Realtor.com is worthwhile. I always turn the question around and ask them what their definition of worthwhile is:
- Do you expect leads? How many? How often?
- Do you expect increased traffic / exposure to your website from these enhancements? How much more traffic would you expect? How will you successfully track this?
- Is having enhanced listings going to be a STRONG selling point to potential sellers? Is this alone worth the fee for all of your listings? Some of your listings?
- Which enhancement package have you looked into / researched?
- Have you asked others in your office / area if they use it and what results they have experienced?
This almost always gives my customers perspective to keep in mind when considering the use of Realtor.com. Once they end up contacting them for package and pricing information, if they make it that far, they almost always pass on the opportunity.
You can reasonably ask the above five questions with anything you are looking to invest time or money in and probably should.
Sincerely,
John F. Jones III
Well it wil be interesting to see and i guess realotr is doing things to boost its presence. You can always second guess.
John, Those are 5 great questions to ask oneself when considering new ways of marketing. Our office received a group rate that is pretty attractive but I will see what this year brings as far as leads.
From a $1200 a month fee that was charged to me.. . I generate less leads for the whole year than one week with FREE Craigslist.
Then the harassed me to death. .calling me and I got convinced to sign up for the enhancement of listings for half the price PLUS they gave me a FREE ZIP CODE for "What's My Home Worth?"
End result. .
SAME RESULTS. . this time, they could give me 75% and I will still think that is OVER PAYING!
John,
As a Realtor who has just recently, last week, looked into realtor.com, I have decided that the money can be spent else where. The average hits and leads for buyers on a listing is not strong. The cost was okay, $ 395.00per year for unlimited enhancement, but nothing more.
I would like to see Realtor.com expose the lsitng agents name and office on each lisiting of realtor.com WITHOUT upgrade cost.
To me it is not about the seller being enhance but about the agents having their name in the realtor.com site for buyers to contact or maybe even an agent with a buyer.
Great topic and I look for some more wisdom from experienced users.
Good questions to ask!!!
We used to have the enhanced realtor.com service and stopped it after the 1st year when they wanted to charge us an arm & a leg to continue. We have never really gotten anything from realtor.com that we were able to track. I agree that your money and time can be better spent on something else like craigslist.
Since Realtors are the only reason R.com is even here its crazy we have to pay more just to have our name on Our own listings. I am really considering nor renewing my Realtor status.
John,
Thank you for linking to my post. I stopped using realtor.com in July, 09 and have not had any dip in my business. In fact, I am ending the year as number 1 agent in my market in volume and number of sales. I credit this to my internet presence, website and blog, most of which are free.
It takes time to build up a presence, but it is well worth the effort.
Merry Christmas and have a fruitful 2010,
Fran