RealTown's BlogTalk

Has anyone had any recent experience with z57?

I was just speaking with one client who uses z57 today. I don't think she is overall happy with them. It is expensive compared to other similar services. Working with her website, it is a little bit harder to work with than some of the other template companies. They INSANELY have a cap on how many photos you can have stored, and it is not very much storage at all. As she gets new listings we are having to go through and delete photos from listings that will be coming back on the market sometime in the future. Uploaded the listings is a longer process than it should be.

Personally I had another client that was thinking about going with z57. We set up a phone appointment to speak with a sales rep. We were trying to get simple clarification for questions such as 1. How easy is it to add custom pages? 2. Is there a limit as to how many custom pages? 3. Is there anyway to prominently display the Featured Listings link on the navigation bar? 4. Is there anyway to display the Featured Listings Slideshow on the front page? Well not only did we not get our simple questions answered, the salesman GOT MAD AND HUNG UP ON US. She would have signed on the dotted line that day, and we ended up going with another company (CloseRealty) the following day.

A few things I have learned working with the different template companies...

1. Unless you are willing to invest thousands initially and have the website maintain professionally YOU WANT A TEMPLATE COMPANY! I have seen way way too many people who paid Joe Nobody to build them this awesome custom site, then Joe Nobody disappears and I have to tell them that the site cannot be modified without the purchase of expensive website software or without hiring another company to maintain it.

2. I do not personally recommend Advanced Access. They have had a terrible time with their websites being down, then aren't truthful about it when they are questioned. Email handled by them is the same case. I would go on my client's website and it would be down 5-7 times a day. Plus pages would magically reformat themselves over and over again when they hadn't been opened to be modified in months.

3. I do not personally recommend Diverse Solutions. A client of mine lost thousands of dollars to them, they never produced a working site. The one they did produce had some serious fair housing violations on it, and had the city information totally wrong (put neighborhoods in areas where they were not, said things were by the beach when they were not, had neighborhoods that actually were from cities in another part of the state). Client never got her money back and the CEO was not very nice to her (and I am being nice in that phrasing).

4. Point2agent has some really good features, but it will take you time to learn how to use it. Adding custom pages can be very cumbersome. The agent handshake is a great feature. Manually added listings are a real drag to put in.

5. CloseRealty has templates, but they don't provide a lot of customization in their monthly price. You have to pay extra for that. You can set up a free trial and test it out. Their Add Listings function is great...very easy to use. Custom pages are very easy to add. BUT when you are working on the site, unless you know coding it can be difficult to get the layout right. For instance, there is no option to create tables. I get around this by either coding, or you can open up Microsoft Word, creating a table in there (getting rid of the borders if you don't want the lines) and then copying and pasting it into the Website editor.

6. I've personally never used ihouseweb.com but I have had someone tell me "they were very easy to work with and designing the site was super simple"

7. If you have more money to spend (in the thousands) then I know several people who have had really great success with RealPro

Hope this helps :)

Shauna Sefsic

Busy Agent Solutions

info@busyagentsolutions.com

www.BusyAgentSolutions.com

www.MarketingMattersMost.com

I signed up with Z57 and had a horrible experience. I was mislead on how their process works and out of six weeks I had only one person register. When I went to cancel I was told by the manager that he would cancel my agreement as of today, June 11th. I told Dave, the Manager that I was paid up until June 24th and he told me I was in arrears and owed the company 84 days of service. I signed up April 24th and had to pay $199.00 set up fee, $35.00 for another fee which I don't know what it was for and the 1st month of service $99.00. That was a total of $333.00. I was charged on May 25th for the next months service another $99.00. I was paid up until June 24. I couldn't believe it when Dave told me I owed the company for 84 days of service. I called billing and explained my situation and there information matched mine. When I wanted the owner of the company's phone number Matt in billing would not give me any information.

I don't know if the owner/president of this company is aware of how his employees are managing his company but I would not recommend anyone using this service. There are so many better choices out there. Market Leader and Realty Trac are two that work very well and deliver the service they sign you up for.

Bad customer experience is just the beginning when you use one of these generic tempated websites. Bottom line is this - you should NOT be using a templated website for more reasons than I have time to list. Blogs are the new website - But the fundamental reason you should be blogging instead of having a site is that a Blog keeps you focused on your client because you have to post fresh content that will be interesting to your client.

A website is static and is really no more than an online ego advertisment that does nothing to generate new business for you.

The below links will direct you to some very useful information that you will want to read before investing any more money into your templated website.

http://blog.dreamdesignrealty.com/7-reasons-your-website-suck/

http://realty-blogger.com/

Z57 has not progressed in many years as a template company. If you are looking to just start out, Point2 is fabulous. But, do not rely on making money for $49 per month for a website. You have to get savvy about how all this works.

Gone are the days of putting up a couple of graphics, adding content and praying it all works for $49 per month.

Point2 has a solid basis to start with, but set your expectations much higher on what you want an online business to do for you. They will also not lock you into a contract, if you pay yearly, then you have paid for a year.

Diverse Solutions is a fabulous IDX provider and the top of my favorites. We have many sites that use their IDX, I don't know about the websites themselves, but our custom designs work great with their product.

Advanced Access has limitations for custom design work.

Point2 is great for custom designs, but you have to understand that you lose the ability to manage adding new pages yourself. We are building a beautiful Africa real estate site on P2A because the client needs to use the features that come with Point2 in his area.

Do your homework and make solid decisions before spending money with anyone. Point2 has a free limited version, that allows you to get your feet wet. If you need to budget tightly and want a good template, they are the only product I would recommend.

Good luck,

Cherie Young
Online Marketing Strategies
www.CherieYoung.com

Wow... So glad that I took the time to check out this Real Town Blog. I was just about to set up a session for my agents to learn more about what Z57.com has to offer. I have yet to find a good comment!!!