Eric – I’m glad you know I how I feel

Turn the Inman statement around and you’ll see the point we are making – as some consumers see many agents as unneeded middle men, so do we see RS as an unneeded middle man.

As RS moves into their phase 3 traffic element, I wonder why that is seen as a good thing for anyone who considers themselves capable of marketing online. The internet has leveled the playing field. I can compete and beat anyone online who comes into my market.

Instead of rooting for yet another me too site, why not just seize the high ground your self?

Too funny. Get some rest =, my friend (grin)..When I lived in Korea many years ago, the first time I dreamed in Korean it REALLY freaked me out…sleep deprived posting in Spanish can be tough! Hope you are having fun at the conference.

Best

Eric

I take a deep breath now to tell you that I am sleep deprived and this same discussion about real estate listing portals is getting old and we can agree to disagree. – but calling vendors names for trying to make money and provide a good service to the consumer, is totally ridiculous.

At Inman this week, they mentioned that if Realtors saw themselves as “Vendors” (don’t shoot me yet, I didn’t say it) – then we would not only understand clients’ perception of our industry, but would be more open those those trying to sell us products [some are great, some other are not]

Exactly. The people trying to make this a personal referendum on Grant and Gia are their friends and fans, some of whom may have already invested money in sponsorships which creates a conflict of interest. The rest of us understand it is a business and treat it as such without blaming the owners. The issue is much bigger than Grant and Gia. Dozens of brokers and entreprenuers are lining up to provide similar offerings.

How much time are we expected to spend plugging our listings into every crap real estate search portal out there?

This question is being mooted because the terms of use on most online listings sites allow them to edit and sublicense your listings, so a listing entered on one site could show up on twenty sites. The downside is that every site claims that the listing agent is responsible for the information in the listing, even though the site didn’t get the information from the listing agent. Eventually we’ll see lawsuits over this, but for now the biggest exposure for listing agents is fines from their local MLS due to complaints from other members about misinformation or advertising listings that already expired and have been picked up by a different agent.

I need to make a correction. Earlier I said that Roost took viewers directly to the listing agent’s site. That was true when I previewed Roost a few weeks ago, however now Roost displays all listings with the branding of the broker providing the feed. I can already hear the complaints at the local board.

Off to teach a tech class but I was intrigued by the traffic phase of RealSeekr…can you detail a bit what marketing channels they will pursue in getting traffic? TV, Radio, Print, PPC, SEO, etc?

Best;

Eric

BTW don’t insinuate that others are cheap for not buying into a 3rd party site that has no traffic and is just our competitors IDX feed.

You increase the likelihood that the consumer will call the listing agent (by insuring it with a featured agent spot) and thus save (in my case) the seller money as we do not charge full fee to represent both sides.

Benn, this is the argument of every upstart (and seasoned) third party listing site out there. Right now, according to Alexa, austinhomesearch.com (a LOCAL FREE portal) has roughly twice the traffic of realseekr (a NATIONAL SPONSORED portal.)

How much traffic do you think realseekr gets from potential Austin buyers?

How much time are we expected to spend plugging our listings into every crap real estate search portal out there?

the consumer CAN list it there without you and the consumer is currently being trained by the mass media to do exactly that- to post their home FSBO in as many of these engines as possible to provide the same exposure an agent can, even right beside the MLS.

This implies that the the exposure you get from the third party listing sites can compete with the MLS. Realtor.com eclipses both Trulia and Zillow in traffic alone. Factor in the thousands of IDX sites on the net, and the gap is even wider. Then factor in the % of serious buyers that actually AREN’T working with a buyer’s agent, and what do you have? You have a really ineffective marketing technique in the way of third party listing sites.

Just my opinion, of course.