I talk to a lot of REALTORS and in my conversations, the topic of IDX (Internet Data Exchange) or as some call it Broker Reciprocity frequently comes up. The first question I always seem to get is "Well do I really need it?". From my point of view the answer is YES.
But why do we need to share our listings?
I think the first thing that comes to mind is the fact Agents have been sharing listings for many years already. The whole spirit of the MLS is cooperation and the 
foundation is the sharing of listing information so the buyer can have the broadest array of data to make the most informed decision. The big old book of yester-year has now been replaced by online listing data. This is the next natural progression of how we share listing information.
With that said, the typical buyer that comes to your website is looking for online listing information and if you are not supplying it, someone else will.
So what does that mean?
Well Generation X and beyond are have grown up on the Internet and want to see listing data at their finger tips. Take Website A - Lets say this Agent's website is in New Jersey. We'll call him John. Now John is a hard worker and has 3 active listings in Oradell and the surrounding towns. His office has 10 more on top of that. Now Sally was surfing the Internet and found John's site. She is looking for a home in Oradell and John has 1 of this own and 2 from the office. So Sally has 3 to choose from. Now mind you, their is actually 20 active listings in Oradell right now. Because Sally wants her information online and we know that because:
…73% of home buyers used the Internet as an information source
…74%of Internet home buyers drove by or viewed a home they saw online
…23%of Internet home buyers found their agent online
…24% of buyers first found their home on the Internet
…22%of FSBOs used the Internet to help sell their home
**Source: realtor.org
So because Sally knows she can find more listings elsewhere she will probably click back to google and look at the next website. Now if she had IDX on her website she would have been displaying all 25 active listings, the same amount of listings as REALTOR.com What compounds this is when someone finds her on lets say Google and searches her site for a listing out of her marketing area (like maybe 15 miles away in the Northern part of the county) and finds NO listings. Adding IDX would yield all the IDX listings inthe MLS and now Sally has a reason to stay.
I think you are getting the picture here, right?
Now I dont want to mis-lead you into thinking that IDX brings you leads, all IDX does is help you retain them. You still need to do your marketing and have a well maintained website. The typical IDX add-on costs from free to a high price of around $40 per month. So for a high of $420 per year it is an overall small investment in your marketing budget. One referral in a year can fuel your IDX investment and then think about what one sale could do. Any good website today can benefit from IDX listings from both the perspective of getting a new lead as well as being used as a client retention tool. So if you MLS offers this type of solution, give it a try. Don't know how to get started, click here, to view our IDX solution and how to deploy it on your website.
Comments(3)