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I'm going to be brutally honest right now. Those of you who have participated in the Buyer Link program from HomeGain, if it didn't work for you then you need to redesign your website. It's that simple. You need compelling content, MLS Search, and lead capture forms ON your landing page. You need a specific landing page (not your homepage!) on your website (so you can track hits) that welcomes visitors generated from HomeGain's web. You must understand that even the visitors themselves might not even know they came to you via HomeGain, because HomeGain utilizes many affiliate sites to capture traffic and deliver them to you. By the time someone is on your Landing Page, they have usually already clicked 2-3+ pages to get to you, and they want to search the local MLS NOW. Not after filling out your forms or reading about you, but right now. You must have Lead Capture ability tied to every property they might retrieve, so that you are the contact person - phone or email. I've spoken to agents who were very successful with BuyerLink. The above information had much to do with how they were. Don't tell me it's not your website's fault, it is. And the beauty of it is this: once you optimize your website for these visitors, you will find your website does a whole lot better on lead conversions even from organic search traffic, and your bottom line will grow considerably.
Tony Pomykala
Sunrise Investments
602-290-6217
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jgullett@charter.net said:
I would be very interested in hearing anyone's experience with HomeGain.com, positive or negative.
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I've been using HomeGain for approx 5 years. My first thought in replying to you is that it's just 'so-so'. But then....it's business that I would not have had. You don't pay the referral fee until the sale closes. Another positive is that they do not bug you for follow up. However, they do not miss much. They keep contact with the leads they send you and will ask for follow up only occasionally. I plan to keep the relationship for now.
Barbara Higgins CRS, ABR, SRES, e-PRO
Prudential Cooper & Co
Mobile, AL
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I signed up with HomeGain eons ago. Was a free service then, no monthly fee, and it was a 25% referral. Got nothing from it, although I can’t say I was diligent about responding to each and every inquiry speedily. When they went to a 30% referral fee, I did nothing more with site except put in my listings. I was “grandfathered” for no monthly fee. Now they sent me email that they’re going to charge me a monthly fee, so I’m done.
Basically, you create a buyer and seller presentation that you send when you receive an inquiry. You’ve got to do research on comps for sellers and possible properties for buyers. Too much time to research (their automatic comp tools are worse than useless), and sellers/buyers do not provide you with enough info to do a decent job. Also, you have to enter your transaction history, which again, was too much effort for no return.
I’d pass…
Martie Henry, ABR, e-PRO
A New Attitude in Real Estate
Serving South Florida in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade
Cell : 561-716-4459
Martie@MartieHenry.com
http://www.MartieHenry.com
Exit World Realty
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I joined homegain when it was brand new and was free to join. I have gotten listings that have sold out of it so continue to submit responses to inquiries. However, please be aware that you're paying a 30% referral on a non-referral. I mean that you are actually receiving a pretty cold lead and if you work it and interview and beat out the other 10 agents they're interviewing and get the listing, you'll have to pay the 30% referral to Homegain.
In my opinion a referral fee is paid for a slam dunk customer. But when you have to kill yourself to get the listing and then pay them 30%, it's pretty annoying. Imagine getting a referral from an out of state agent who sends the same referral info to 10 other agents in your market area so that your seller can interview all 10 and then decide . . ..
Anyhow, I digress. If it weren't free up front, I wouldn't continue it. Half the inquiries are people who are just speculating (not sure if they want to sell) and the other half want you to offer the lowest rates (with the 30% referral), etc., etc.
Plus to add insult to injury, Homegain takes that 30% referral money and continues to buy the top spots on all search engine inquiries so that their site comes up before yours so you can continue to pay Homegain the 30% referral.
Sometimes life isn't fair.
Irene Hallisey, CRS, e-PRO, GRI
Broker / Owner
Hot Properties Realty, Inc.
www.HotPropertiesRealty.com
TEAM HALLISEY
Mark, Irene & Natalie
(727) 815-3600
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It seems, HomeGain is joining the ranks of those e-lead companies finding it hard to make ends meet.
I was a very early sign-on to HomeGain - based on knowing Brad Inman and based on curiosity. I looked at, but rarely responded to their leads. Actually tried to cancel my subscription a few years ago, but an employee convinced me to just keep it, as I was not paying a dime for the leads and I was also not paying anything for the service. All they wanted was their percentage of any sales I made as a result of the leads.
Today, however, signs of the times came to me with the following message from HomeGain:
snip:
As an AgentEvaluator member, we regret to inform you that your free subscription will end as of April 19, 2007 due to rising customer acquisition costs.
For the next 30 days your subscription will remain active. To continue your AgentEvaluator membership uninterrupted after April 19, on this date we will email you a link so you may update your HomeGain account with a valid credit card number. You will then be billed for the monthly membership cost, which starts at only $29.95 per month for eight of your preferred ZIP codes.
end snip:
It doesn't really matter to me, as I have no real need for this service, but I thought you all might find this change interesting and indicative of a shift in the perceived value of online lead generators.
Jack Harper
Managing Broker
Prudential California Realty
Castro Valley and San Leandro Offics
21060 Redwood Rd.
Castro Valley, CA 94546
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In fairness to HomeGain (and any other lead generation company), it is really critical to measure the leads they send you apart from any other leads you gain on your own. The only way to do that is to create a Landing Page for your website specifically welcoming visitors you receive from HomeGain's channels. Once you create this page, instruct HomeGain to use that page as your Landing Page. The page can look very similar to your own homepage, however the only way someone should be able to find it is by clicking through HomeGain. The page should be an orphan page, that only contains links out, not in (even from your own site - don't list it on your sitemap!). You'll also need to instruct the search engines to not crawl that page in your robots.txt file on your site's server. Be sure you have some tracking code (such as www.StatCounter.com) placed within the code of that page, so you can measure the incoming traffic.
I gotta tell you, the initial training seminar HomeGain provides when you initially get on board with them is very informative and helpful. I gained a few insights that I hadn't considered, and learned from it.
Bottom line, and this is just my opinion: If your site is very good at converting leads on it's own, you will do very well with HomeGain as a supplemental lead generation tool. If however you can't seem to convert the leads you get on your own, you'll likely find the same success percentage with the leads HomeGain sends you. It is ALL in your hands, on how you present your website to any traffic you receive, regardless of where it comes from.
I found HomeGain easy to work with. I did at one point have a Rep that I wasn't comfortable with, but asked for a different rep and things were fine again. I never felt HomeGain was dishonest or deceptive, after all - their success comes from your success.
Tony Pomykala
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Spending money on Homegain is a terrible idea on top of a waste of money. As Realtors we should be marketing ourselves, branding ourselves. Not supporting a company that takes OUR listings and then charges us for leads on our own listings.
I don't think ANY Realtor=AE should be supporting companies like them, we don't need them. If we didn't pay them, they wouldn't be marketing OUR listings on the internet.
Save your money, market yourself; make a name for your self NOT, a company like Homegain.
Dennis Pease
Dennis@DennisPeaseTeam.com
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I had some success with it a few years ago, when it was first introduced, but didn't like the type of clients that it seemed to attract. Since they advertise with "Let Agents Compete for your business!" most prospects won't respond to you unless you promise a very discounted commission rate. Originally, Homegain had a $99/year program, but later changed to a referral fee. With the referral fee (35% ??? - I can't remember, but it seemed like a lot) it just wasn't worth bothering with.
I would rather spend my "hard earned money" on pay-per-click, or professiona SEO work.
Vicki Lloyd |
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I have used HomeGain in the past for buyer leads. At that time my main area was a smaller beach front town in Florida. I received a ton of leads during the market boom for 2003-2004, but in 2005 and 2006 the leads fell off to only a few per month. I cancelled the service after that because it just wasn't giving me the ROI (return on investment), especially since it cost min of $250/month.
When I got leads (and this is the key for it to work), I worked them hard, wrote them back the same day, and contacted them at least 3 more times before giving up. You will get bogus leads, with fake phone numbers and emails, and they do count against you -- they have no filter for bad emails. Overall my experience was good, but if you do not get more than a few leads per month, it is not worth the money. If you live in a major metropolis, it might work better, but it all comes down on how much time and effort you put into working the lead. Hope this helps!
Jennifer Kirby
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Anyone heard of GetMyHomesValue.com?
Yes sorry to say I have dealt with them, no there were no closed deals.
All of their "leads" were people who just wanted a free service. They
wanted to get their homes value from a real estate expert and not
pay a darn thing for it.
When I called to cancel my contract with the company I asked what
they were going to pay me for doing their business for them?
Choose who you sign up with carefully, and if you don't like
giving away free service, charge the consumer for it. We as real estate
professionals work for money. Our time is never free, once you start
giving away services where do you draw the line. I did this by telling
the person calling from Get my homes value.com. That yes I would give
them a free evaluation, if they would just sign a listing agreement with
me for 6mos to a year.
If they are serious about selling their house they will sign, if they just
want a free service they will not. If they also do not want a face to face meeting,
this also means they just want a free service. I started charging a flat fee if
someone called from that certain .com. and wanted a value on their home.
Maybe you should do the same thing. But the leads you will get are often
times pretty cold ones. They do not want to pay anything for a service that
was advertised for free. I really don't like that company. Talk to your broker
about good companies to work for. Most of the times they give great
advice. My broker told me to ask what the .com would give to me, what will
it do for you.
The answers might amaze you
Alicia Castillo
NWOHOMESELLER@MSN.COM
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Hi Fellow e-PRO'S
I wanted to let you know I have had great sucsess with Buyerlink, which is a program that can be purchased through HomeGain and other places. I have mine through my web site company z-57. I have had 7 closings in one year since I purchased it last August. If you want more details, feel free to e-mail me.
BethAnn
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Hi All!
I am Alberto Pacheco, e-PRO. Last year I used Homegain buyer link and Favoriteagent Software with pre-written email messages. I used the service of both companies since Aug-Nov/2005 and I made 2 sales with a commission of about $ 16,000 and I spent about $ 1,700.00.
If I were not using thany lead generator service, I couldn't make this extra sales / comission.
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I have been a member of Homegain for 8 years. I've probably had about 4 sales/listings thru them. They only get a referral fee, if the lead they
provided actually results in a sale. I was on another site, where if you responded to any lead they sent you, you were automatically charged $29.00 per lead.... and if you didn't get it, oh well. I found out later, that that same lead went out to 30 otheragents, and of course who ever answered the lead first was usually the "lucky" oone and all 29 other agents that also responded, got charged the $29.00 fee none the less. I dropped that fast. Most lead generators are like that you pay for the lead, wether it actually generates a sale or not.
Marie Richman
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James Anglin wrote:
I am considering going home gain to increase the leads that come off the internet. Would some of the e-pro or Real Talk contributors please post their experience with the main offerings, Agent Evaluator, Buyers Leads and Seller Leads which has worked best for respondents? Or is it really a waste of money?
Hello James,
I am not to sure about Homegain and I am wondering if any if any of these type of sites really work. I have used RealtyTrac and I am about to drop it as the leads never work out. What leads I do get are I find out they are already talking to other agents.
One time I called within 5 minutes of getting the lead and they were already talking to 6 other agents. I know you should e-mail an internet lead but was getting no where also. I guess it is a problem we all share. And I am all so looking for some in put on this one!
David Rundle
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I used HomeGain's Buyer Link last year. I canceled it in August before I went out the country for a month. When I was reviewing my business for the year, I found I had made about $15,000 in commissions from their leads. So I spent about $,2000 to make the $15,000. I think I may give it another go.
Donna Skaarer
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I'm very curious. Since we've never really heard from anyone about great successes from the lead flipping companies, I wonder where the glitch is.
Just how much info is delivered as a "lead" from HomeGain???
Before I send a referral out, it has a name, phone number and price range as well as the desired location for purchase. Do the lead generation companies provide this much info??? What about the others, HouseValues,Just Listed, etc.
I'd appreciate some feedback.
Lenn Harley
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Not everyone out there would agree with this point of view and I'm one of them. As a new real estate agent it will take you substantial time and energy to "build your brand" online and to generate sufficient volumes of qualified visitors to complete your online registration forms and become legitimate prospects.
HomeGain's BuyerLink product is NOT tied to your commissions and does deliver geo-targeted buyer "prospects" to your IDX-enabled website. You still have to do the work-- managing those internet visitors into prospects, establishing an online relationship with them, converting that online relationship into a more personal one over time as the Buyer prospect becomes comfortable with you, and ultimately generating a transaction.
I speak with agents daily that swear the opportunities they receive from this service are worth far more than the cost to secure them and wish only that we had MORE internet visitors in the towns where they conduct business. The picture painted for you about "lead generators" as leaches (sic) is painted with a pretty broad brush and a fairly opaque coloring. It may well be the opinion of some respondents but don't make the mistake of believing it's the real estate gospel. As always, determine what works for you!
Chris Hendricks
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