When I read credible blog posts, from real agents doing real business online - like this one from RealBlogging, I wonder if this is the beginning of the end for real estate marketing programs.
If you don't have time to read the entire post, it talks about RealtyGenerator, a real estate marketing service, being bought up by HouseValues, a lead generation program. Many agents have a huge distaste for "lead generators" to begin with - for the fact that much of the industry has been chewed up and spat out because of bad leads, junk leads and zero return on investment.
HouseValues just recently settled a lawsuit surrounding their prospecting process, and are working to clarify their lead generation process to work WITH agents, not against them. My advice: don't hold your breath.
I have never used RealtyGenerator - but many agents seem to be pleased with it, though it does have its shortcomings. By buying up something that works though, I have to ask myself - is HouseValues going to taint RealtyGenerator, or is RealtyGenerator going to help build up the (perceived) value of HouseValues?
I'd love to hear other agents thoughts on this - where do you think the company will be in a year?
Personally I'd rather stick with referral prospecting that works - a service headed by real people doing real verification for real referrals, instead of investing my money in the corporate behemoth and not knowing what I'm going to get!
Hi Matt,
Sure you can do it yourself - the only downside to online referral generation is the sheer number of competitors you're up against in the search engines. Even local real estate agent searches will be highly competitive.
We spend over $25,000 each month to make sure the sites we use to attract quality prospects remain in the top of the search engines consistently. Not only that, but we personally verify each and every referral that comes through our system. That means only prospects who are genuinely looking to buy or sell a home AND work with a real estate agent are sent on to local agents. And the agents we have in each area are exclusive to that area, so referrals aren't passed around and you're not in a rush to "be the first" to contact them.
I highly recommend that every agent do their own local prospecting, but when you aren't getting enough fresh prospects in your pipeline, consider adding online referral generation services to your marketing arsenal.
The value of Housevalues to me was in their Market Leader software and NOT in their leads. Certainly some of their leads turned into transactions but it was far more hit and miss then leads from my own website. I frequently discuss this kind of thing on my weekly radio show - The Home Team- which broadcasts all across central Florida on 540 WFLA and worldwide at www.540wfla.com
Simon, Thanks for commenting! And yes, thier ML software was sweet...in fact, that was the reason we started using them before starting this company. But, the 1 out of 100 closing ratio is what drove us away. And if you check out sites like www.ripoffreport.com, you can see why we are not alone in that.
By the way, does your radio show do a podcast or a webcast? Id love to be a listener since you and I are pretty much on the same page with this.
I think HouseValues would do much better to give up on the "lead" pimping in favor of improving Realty Generator's solid back-end. Turning RG into a super speedy framable idx search with a dynamite lead incubation capabilities might be a nice change to HV working with instead of against us.
(Most frustrating thing about Realty Generator is the fact that I have to link out from YorksRealEstate.com to http://rhartman.searchinpa.com with no ability to have the latter site link back.)
If HouseValues really wants to impress us, they could give us what we're all looking for and add in some of Market Leader's drip email capabilities, a solid activity series scheduler, document uploader/manager, and (dare I say).... an email inbox with drag and drop GTD or even Outlook style foldering sytem. ) Coupled with Realty Generator's mobile service, this new HouseValues super Real Estate CRM could be something Realtors would get excited about.
This all said, we can probably be confident that HV will continue to ignore any and all feature enhancement requests. Knowing them, this move more likely a "get rid of the competition play" than a true "serve the customer better" reaction to lessons learned.... Too bad, was just starting to have fun driving my own traffic to my RG page.
Ryan -- I have spoken with numerous agents/brokers that tell me that Realty Generator (RG) is working wonderfully for them. But, I have heard the same story about HouseValues (HV) also. By the same token, I have heard quite the opposite. Your proposal about a super CRM is intriguing...and I would bet that HV would be missing the boat completely if they had not considered that. However, I am quite certain what we are dealing with here is HV using its deep pockets to buy up its competition, integrating the customer database and absorbing the profits to help off-set its substantial profit/loss issues.
Good remarks either way! And I hope they dont screw up your RG too much. :-)
Hi Dan from Realtygenerator,
I handle the advertising for RG, and i just wanted to say, Im glad your enjoying the system and let you know that HouseValues is taking a hand's off approach to to Realtygenerator. Everyone who was with RG is staying on. They havent wanted to mess with a good thing. The one benefit we do hope to see, I can say this from an advertisers standpoint is, more consistent traffic. Especially in in the slower months of the year. Besides that it gives us strong backing to make improvements. Btw, Justin CTO of RG will be at NYC connect next week.Does it suffice to ask whether these comments remain intact over a years later and with an additional evaluation with Market Leader (ML) at the helm. For what it's worth, the call center that did not make the trip with ML is sorely missed and is where I placed a lot of the value when I joined. They could very well nix the call center and replace the savings with increased affordable bad lead generation. While LTV in real estate suffers, lead generation value has died right along with it. RG's claim of 100=1 (100 leads equals 1 closing) probably needs a heavy revision and will probably be what drives me away also. Although some may view RG's back end as 'strong', there are other CRM systems that probably compete well. Overall, RG does nothing for the organic side of things which could be painful and costly during any withdrawal from the system.
Randy -- Excellent comment! I still find it amazing that people think that 1 in 100 is good. RECR has a national average of 1 in 7.
I'm still totally baffled that they don't allow framability of the idx module. The system actually converts visitors to registrations really well, but for some reason neither RG, or now HV have had any interest in allowing agents to drive their own traffic to the system...Seems really strange given the relationship with Active Rain.
Maybe they're working on this stuff and it's just not released yet? I'll assume not, here's why.
When the guys at HouseValues took over I had email / phone discussions with some of the product development folks. They took my many suggestions, thanked me for them...and did...nothing.
Want tons more bang for your buck? Peep these:
DiverseSolutions
IDX Broker
REW
I know many folks cling to the "traffic" package that Market Leader provides, but if your one of these people and are reading this, trust me (and tons of others on Active Rain,) you can generate a lot more traffic for a lot less cashola by employing a few relatively simple tools & tricks on your own....
-Ryan
http://propertunityknocks.com
We spent a fortune on House Values and got nothing, nada, zero.
Debbie -- You wouldnt be the first agent that I work with that has told me that.
With all do respect if your service is better why there is no price posted on www.realestateclientrefferals.com?
Why everything is hidden that we don't know what we are paying for?
Thanks.
Bob,
With all due respect, there is a demo at the bottom of the home page that explains everything involved with the service INCLUDING the price. The package prices are on slide #9.
lots of info here. will check out your site Clint. thanks for sharing
I JOINED REALTY GENERATOR RECENTLY AND I'M GRATEFUL TO HEAR BOTH SIDES B/4 I'M UP AND RUNNING. I DO THINK IF YOU GET 1 OUT OF 100 TO CLOSE THAT DOES PAY YOUR EXPENSES AND PUTS SOME DOUGH IN YOUR POCKET, DO YOU THINK?
karl...That depends on your definition of expenses. 1 in 100 might recoup your dollar costs you paid to join...But, what about the time and phone calls and emails it took to find that one that does close?? Isnt that worth something??
My company does all of the screening for you. instead of closing one in 100....We close one in five. You do the math. ;-)