Have you heard the buzz around the water cooler?
The END of the Buyers' Market ended six or seven weeks ago. What? YES, it's TRUE. It ENDED.
With Home Sales up 5.1% in March, nearly 6% in April, and with home inventory now sitting at 6 months of inventory (as opposed to 11 months of inventory in November 2008) we can all look to a rosy 2009. President Obama's $8,000 tax break is fueling new home sales.
Just when you thought you'd be getting some relief on advertising and marketing expenses, online marketing is about to get MORE expensive for agents and brokers who are with one of the national real estate franchises: Century 21, ERA, Coldwell Banker, Sotheby's, Weichert, John L. Scott or REMAX.
Because if you are with any of these franchises and you are paying Google for AdWords or banner ads -- here's the really bad news: You are going to be paying a lot MORE for Google Pay Per Click campaigns than independent brokers.
Why? Google changed the rules again. Picture Simon Cowell here saying SORRY in his British accent.
Just today, Google announced that TRADEMARKED NAMES like Coke, Pepsi, Nike and any and all other TRADEMARKED phrases will soon be screened in your ad copy for compliance with Google's new policies. This includes nationally trademarked real estate names, too.
Google used to PROHIBIT the use of many words like BEST or #1 and capitalized words when you generate Google AdWords or banner ads. And resellers of products and services had a hard time getting approval to run ads using nationally trademarked names like Dell, IBM, Sony, Apple, etc. unless you had explicit permission to use them.
For example, say you're name is Bob Smith and you are a Coldwell Banker broker, but your website says, BobSellsDallas.com and you use the word Coldwell in your Google AdWords ad copy. Houston! We have a problem! Because this will set off the new TRADEMARK PERMISSION alerts for Google.
Which means you may not be able to take your Google AdWords ads online and have it link to your website.
Why? Because your website isn't ColdwellBanker.com -- it's: BobSellsDallas.com -- that's why.
Not only will you have to pay more for increased competition -- that being the other Coldwell Banker offices in Plano or Fort Worth who want to bid for the same search phrases (dallas real estate, dallas homes for sale, etc.), now you are going to have to ask Google for an EXCEPTION when you write your Ads and have them review your website to make sure you are authorized to use a Copyrighted (Trademarked) Phrase.
Since CENDANT was stupid enough to kill their NAF (National Advertising Fund) dollars, there's no co-op marketing dollars to take the sting out of your increased cost of marketing your real estate business. Don't get me wrong, CENDANT certainly cares about the Brokers who buy into the national franchise. Just not that much.
So when you choose to advertise your Coldwell Banker business locally with any medium, you swallow 100% of the marketing costs.
If I was Bob in Dallas -- I'd be freaking hopping mad about that one. The Cendant fat cats still make their boat payments, but Bob and every other CB office gets the short end of the stick.
At the risk of insulting anyone here, from my standpoint, there's just no incentive to REMAIN part of any national real estate franchise in today's market. It's getting too expensive to keep and run a successful real estate business in today's frenzied online world of dog-eat-dog real estate market.
Not one national franchise provides you with a virtual tour camera kit. They don't build their brokers an SEO friendly website. There's no more co-op marketing dollars and brokers have to figure out (on their own) how to keep their office visible online (preferably on page one). To add insult to injury -- they still have to cough up 7% every month to corporate.
Up until very recently, Google has never had to make layoffs. Their record profits like any bubble eventually have to come down. Up until very recently, Google hasn't been inventing new schemes to take more money from certain markets. But that's changed now. Let me assure you -- Eric Schmidt (Google's CEO) is pretty shrewd. He's savvy enough to invent new ways for Google to get the market to reach deeper into your already near empty pockets and pay even MORE for your Pay Per Click ads. Sure you won't like it -- but it's clear that Google doesn't care about how much you spend or how loud you complain about it.
If you've been thinking of opening up your own place and saying Good Bye to the national franchise... now is a really good time to think of doing this before your Internet marketing expenses triple.
-- Bartman
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