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What Happened to Realtor.com? Shocking Listing Traffic Results Across The Board

WHAT HAPPENED TO REALTOR.COM?
SHOCKING LISTING TRAFFIC RESULTS ACROSS THE BOARD

To start my week I like to send my sellers updated traffic reports from different online sources where their home is listed. The first one I sent out was for a pretty new listing of mine - http://www.59MechanicStreet.com that has only been on the market for 4 weeks. I was shocked at the charts and statistics:

This listing only saw 30% of the traffic it was getting from previous weeks. I'd expect this from a stale listing, but not from a newer one! I went on to my next listing to send their report - http://www.53CaronRoad.com Again, I was shocked at what I saw!

The results = 30% of the listing traffic from what the average has been each week! What's the deal? I was almost embarrassed to send this to each of my sellers, but the same results occurred across the board. Is something wrong with Realtor.com this week or are they going out the window? I find it hard to believe that everyone chose a different method of searching for homes this past week, and I don't think Halloween could be the culprit. What do you guys think?

Posted by Kathleen Cooper, Broker, SRES, REALTOR® on 11/03/2009 06:42 PM

Comments (17)

Realtor.com in the ActiveRain Channel

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17 Comments on What Happened to Realtor.com? Shocking Listing Traffic Results Across The Board

NOV

That is shocking! Now I'm curious if other agents have noticed this.

Hi Bruce,

I usually check on there once a week, love being able to share this info with clients with the easy one click to email it to them, but I wasn't sure if they'd like seeing it this week for sure!

I'd be interested to see who else noticed this.

Now I have to go and check mine! Didn't realize that. Hope mine didn't dip that much, but it might be a sign of the tax credit dwindling or something. Thanks for sharing.

Brenda, Let me know what you find out! I'm curious to know if I'm the only one that had this happen. I know they were launching a new product for buyer leads...I wonder if it ripped off our listings traffic somehow.

Kathleen,,I have noticed a trend towards the bargain hunting lately...the lower the price (regardless of size) the more views. I know this isn't rocket science...but usually new listing rank high...3+ bedrooms get plenty of views, but recent stats for me it price is the ultimate amenity.

Hi Steve,

I'm not concerned about how many I'm getting on average, but more concerned with the huge dip that I saw this past week. As you can see in the charts, they were both getting 70% more views on average in the previous weeks compared to this past one. That's pretty significant. These 2 listings are on opposite ends of the spectrum as well, one is waterfront for $529,900 that has been on the market a long time, the other is new to the market with 4 bedrooms priced at $188,800.

Sincerely,

Kathleen

I think part of the problem is that they became Realtor.org. That had to throw some of the stats off, don't you think?

Hi Larry,

I never knew that! When did they make the switch? Very interesting, thanks for letting us know!

Sincerely,

Kathleen

I just looked at my Realtor.Com and my listing views were down significantly too! Will have to track it for next few weeks and compare traffic. wonder if I can get a credit for less traffic, rotfl....

HaHa Good question Laura! I wish! LOL

My sellers were a little offended by the traffic drop, but I assured them it was the same with all of them on that site for some odd reason...

Sincerely,

Kathleen

I noticed the same results as you did. Calls have dropped and the office is reporting fewer calls for showings by other agents as well.

Kathleen...

If I had to guess, it's probably search engine activity that has changed. The overwhelming majority of views on a website are generated by the regular crawlings of search engine spiders and other bots.

Also, the method of counting "hits"or files can vary dramatically.

In reality, there are NOT that many people actually seeing the property anyway, So I wouldn't try to make clients try to decipher bloated or meaningless stats.

Kathleen

This may have been a result of the $8000.00 first time home buyers tax credit coming to an end.

Good luck and success.

Lou Ludwig

I would just go and ask them. At least get the "official" answer from them.

NOV

Hi Everyone,

I did send in an email to my sales rep who was calling and emailing a lot over the weekend trying to sell me their new product before it launched Monday. Here is what he said:

"We are in the middle of launching this new product on Monday. This may have caused an issue. I can check Monday for you. Its a tech support issue."

Well, Monday came and went, no answers. Awe well. I'm not trying to provide inflated, incorrect stats to my sellers, I am providing them with something that comes with my Realtor.com subscription, which is used as a selling point and which the sellers have enjoyed receiving. It beats sending them nothing, they admire a professional that can show them real stats and data opposed to sitting on a listing in the MLS.

Sincerely,

Kathleen

NOV

Hi Kathleen,

Very interesting. Here's what their traffic stats look like for the past six month, which might help. While there is some drop, it doesn't look significant enough to cause the drop you're seeing in your listings.

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/realtor.com

I'm a little curious about what Larry found. I went to REALTOR.org, and there doesn't seem to be any listing information, or replace REALTOR.com in any way. In fact, I saw a banner ad on there promoting REALTOR.com.

Hi Michael,

I'll check it out! I am not sure about the Realtor.org thing either. Haven't heard this before.

Have a great day!

Sincerely,

Kathleen

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