RealTown's RealTalk

Catherine Myers said: if the stat was that 94% of home buyers (with internet) start their search on GOOGLE, I would believe that. But I do NOT believe that the number is anywhere close to that for "starting" at Realtor.com. Maybe many buyers, I may even admit - a majority, do go to realtor.com *during* their home search, but 94% starting there? No way. I'd like to see how they quantify that.

Lindy says: Ditto. What she said.
(with added emphasis on "during" their search, not at the beginning, not at the end... )

Lindy in Houston

Who cares what real estate website people start their search. The one that matters is the last site they are on when they decide to contact a REALTOR.

Keith Byrd

www.SloCountyHomes.com

>>>...our local Realtor association (Houston Association of Realtors) has done an excellent job of promoting their website to the public. It's a real chore convincing them to go to my personal website to search for homes [emphasis mine, Al] instead of HAR.com, even though we are searching through the same database.>>>

Ding ding ding ding ding ding.....We have a whiinaaaaahhhh!!!

(folks who have been here on RT for a while will remember my old rants about our Associations screwing us over and competing with us, their actual customers, with "Association Websites" instead of providing their dues paying membership, that would be us, with affordable, decent online solutions for ourselves)

Al in CT, JIM

Well for their stats all search engines will boost and beef up there stats. But investing in your own website is great which I now have 3 and working on my 4Th web site is great but you will need for people to find you?? I think Realtor.com and feature home is a great listing tool . When you can search by zip code and you are on the first page of the search when there are hundreds of others in that code is huge,if you would like more information on what I'm talking about feel to ask as many q's as you need I have been with Realtor.com for years and have found them very profitable to me . I'm there for many reasons and leads are one but not just for the leads but to further expose my listings to the public

Realtor.com has taken me for thousands. Each time I was convinced that they would deliver. Each time I ate it.

If you trust statistics provided by Realtor.com...

NAR built the beast and many are now strung out on it. You pay, you pay, and you usually don't even get a little high. If it costs $600/year for one good lead... Sure it's a rip but a rip with a return, once in a while. That's what keeps 'em going.

Hi Al, actually, we members of HAR (Houston) are lucky, in that, our association's web-site makes it easy to "find an agent" at the portal, it also provides ability for agents to create a simple web-page for those that don't already have their own, and best of all, no agent/company listings are ever given preferential treatment over any other... not for any "extra" fees nor "purchased status".

When working with clients, either buyers or sellers, I happily refer them to HAR.com but tell them not to bother with Realtor.com (except for just a curiosity visit). For actual non-partisan, up-to-the-minute listings, with full info, HAR.com is great. We are allowed to display our URLs on our listings, and on our profiles.

I'm not sure what else you'd expect your association to do.... they aren't going to do SEO for our personal web-sites, of course, and I don't see them as competition for traffic. If anything, they keep traffic centered for us, as opposed to lead aggregators that are competition for traffic.

Lindy in Houston