Comments on: An Agent’s Thoughts on Realtor.com http://www.thechicago77.com/2009/02/an-agents-thoughts-on-realtorcom/ Comprehensive Chicago Real Estate Information Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:18:33 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Telltale Signs Your Listing Broker is a Dinosaur | The Chicago 77 http://www.thechicago77.com/2009/02/an-agents-thoughts-on-realtorcom/#comment-379 Telltale Signs Your Listing Broker is a Dinosaur | The Chicago 77 Fri, 01 May 2009 16:13:45 +0000 http://www.thechicago77.com/?p=585#comment-379 [...] rest of their presentation talks about Realtor.com, their company’s web site and bundle the rest under ?all the others.” They think they [...] [...] rest of their presentation talks about Realtor.com, their company’s web site and bundle the rest under ?all the others.” They think they [...]

]]> By: Catherine Brennan http://www.thechicago77.com/2009/02/an-agents-thoughts-on-realtorcom/#comment-70 Catherine Brennan Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:04:23 +0000 http://www.thechicago77.com/?p=585#comment-70 Great post Katie! Nancy and I (G and B Real Estate Team) consider the $800 fee we spent to enhance our listings on Realtor.com money better spent elsewhere. Since the time we paid our realtor.com "dues" last summer, we have received one consumer inquiry about only one of our listings. Which tells me that consumers do not use that website as a search engine. On the flipside, I receive at least two inquiries a week about our listings through Trulia alone (not to mention other sites like Tribune.com, Zillow.com, etc...) Ironically, after your post on theChicago77, this blog post came out about the Trulia vs Realtor.com Challenge, and Trulia seems to be the site that Realtors and Consumers prefer as the place to post and find available real estate: http://www.truliablog.com/2009/01/28/take-the-trulia-challenge/ So thank you Katie for putting that information out there! Great post Katie! Nancy and I (G and B Real Estate Team) consider the $800 fee we spent to enhance our listings on Realtor.com money better spent elsewhere.

Since the time we paid our realtor.com “dues” last summer, we have received one consumer inquiry about only one of our listings. Which tells me that consumers do not use that website as a search engine. On the flipside, I receive at least two inquiries a week about our listings through Trulia alone (not to mention other sites like Tribune.com, Zillow.com, etc…)

Ironically, after your post on theChicago77, this blog post came out about the Trulia vs Realtor.com Challenge, and Trulia seems to be the site that Realtors and Consumers prefer as the place to post and find available real estate:
http://www.truliablog.com/2009/01/28/take-the-trulia-challenge/

So thank you Katie for putting that information out there!

]]> By: Ben http://www.thechicago77.com/2009/02/an-agents-thoughts-on-realtorcom/#comment-66 Ben Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:15:36 +0000 http://www.thechicago77.com/?p=585#comment-66 I think realtor.com is at serious risk of dying if they don't change. When they charge the agents to put up full listings, they make a buck in the short term, but they end up giving the buyer an inferior search experience (because half the listings are incomplete). What we see happening now is more and more searchers are simply opting to use competing sites. As they lose more and more traffic, they become less relevant and more agents will realize the uselessness of paying the premium, which makes the search experience even worse, and so on. Honestly, aside from some sellers (wrongly) demanding the enhanced listings, I am surprised that any agent would pay those rates. I think realtor.com is at serious risk of dying if they don’t change. When they charge the agents to put up full listings, they make a buck in the short term, but they end up giving the buyer an inferior search experience (because half the listings are incomplete).

What we see happening now is more and more searchers are simply opting to use competing sites. As they lose more and more traffic, they become less relevant and more agents will realize the uselessness of paying the premium, which makes the search experience even worse, and so on.

Honestly, aside from some sellers (wrongly) demanding the enhanced listings, I am surprised that any agent would pay those rates.

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