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An Open Letter to Nikish

By Gene Riemenschneider

Real Estate Broker/Owner with Home Point Real Estate DRE # 01492725

February 27, 2012 03:45 AM

An Open Letter to Nikish

Nikish,

This morning I received a very disturbing call from ActiveRain/Market Leader. I recently purchased the Local Expert for my community on RealEstate.com from Market Leader. I have not been happy with Market Leader in the past, but decided to give this a shot as I am so pleased with ActiveRain.

So far the launch of RealEstate.com has been delayed and it is somewhat unclear to me what is encompassed in what I purchased. I understand I will be able to link my own website. There a few other things that I will address after I hit my main point.

What I got this morning was call from the same person that sold me my Local Expert Badge offering to sell me that Local Listing Agent spot. Well hold on a second – If the local expert does not handle listings what is he? I was not sold a Buyers Position. I was sold a Local Expert Position. I viewed this as rather comprehensive.

What next? Will they sell a Buyers Expert? An Investor Expert? A First Time Buyers Expert? I can understand selling a separate Lender Spot. I don't compete with them.

When I e-mail in questions regarding what I have purchased there is a lack of response from Market Leader - but they seem ready to slice off a piece of my pie and sell it back to me.

Anyway I have purchased the Local Expert Spot. I expect to be the local expert for the real estate in that community. That would include listings.

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Gary L. Waters Broker Associate, Bucci Realty

Bucci Realty, Inc. - Melbourne, FL

Eighteen Years Experience in Brevard County

This will likely get a response pretty quickly! Quality support is critical..plus an understanding of what you bought!

Feb 27, 2012 03:48 AM

Kimberly Tapscott

Keller Williams Prestige Properties - Stamford, CT

Giving you the service you deserve!

Gene I got one of the calls to be The Local Expert for my market. It seemed unclear as well when I got the call. I hope they figure it out quickly.

Feb 27, 2012 04:01 AM

John McCormack, CRS

Albuquerque Homes Realty - Albuquerque, NM

Honesty, Integrity, Results, Experienced. HIRE Me!

Gene, Cant be of much help since I don't use any of Market Leaders products or least not yet. After seeing your conundrum not sure I want to jump into the puddle. If customer service isn't apparent I out of there. Good luck, I hope they resolve your issue and your very valid query.

Feb 27, 2012 04:52 AM

Nikesh Parekh

Suplari, Inc. - Seattle, WA

Technology Entrepreneur, Executive, & Investor

Hi Gene,

First of all, here is my number: 206 659 6454. Please give me a call and I am happy to discuss directly. As I have said in the past, I find direct communication to be the most helpful, rather than dueling blogs.

To address your question head on, when we launched the pre-sales for the RealEstate.com Local Expert, we have tried to be clear in terms of what you receive and what you do not receive with the RealEstate.com local expert. Here is a blog post I wrote in December on the RealEstate.com Local Expert explaining it in detail as well as the sales presentation from December which is linked to in the blog.

With RealEstate.com Local Expert, you are sponsoring all the local, neighborhood information on a city - schools, restaurants, demographics - very similar to Local Sponorships on ActiveRain. With the RealEstate.com Listing Expert, you are sponsoring a home valuation or home price check on a specific house in a zip code. In both the blog and the sales presentation, we talk about the additional products which will be available in the future. The products on RealEstate.com will include the Local Expert and the Listing Expert for launch. In the future, there will be a Buyer Expert (Homes for Sale / Home Listings) and a Mortgage Expert. We have clearly stated that sponsorship of Homes for Sales is NOT included in the Local Expert package. See number 5 from the blog.

Unlike other sites like Zillow or Trulia which offer you a percentage of the traffic, but have 4-10 agents on a specific page, we feel that having one agent per page in important for both the real estate professional and for the consumer. Instead of selling a percentage of the traffic, we are selling an exclusive sponsorship per page. Local Expert is sold by city. Listing Expert is sold by zip code.

I apologize if you received a different impression from the salesperson or from any marketing materials.

I would be happy to speak directly about this. Please give me a call and we can talk further.

Niki

Feb 27, 2012 06:26 AM

Nikesh Parekh

Suplari, Inc. - Seattle, WA

Technology Entrepreneur, Executive, & Investor

Hi Gene,

I am also including the marketing materials for the RealEstate.com Local Expert and RealEstate.com Listing Expert here.

Niki

Feb 27, 2012 06:36 AM

Nikesh Parekh

Suplari, Inc. - Seattle, WA

Technology Entrepreneur, Executive, & Investor

Also Gene, can you send me the email you are using to contact Market Leader or RealEstate.com so I can run down why no one is responding?

Feb 27, 2012 06:53 AM

Gene Riemenschneider

Home Point Real Estate - Brentwood, CA

Turning Houses into Homes

Be more than happy to send you copies of e-mails not responed to but I will need a direct e-mail for you as I cannot attach to AR Contact. You can send it to Gene@HomePointRealEstate.com.

I went back to the post and you are correct it was put out there up front and I did express concern at the time about the diluted exposure. I think I also noted that there was not release date or even projected one at the time so I put it in the back of my mind to see how many leads/Clicks are generated.

I did try and discuss this with the sales rep when he called this morning.

Now that it is comming our right away my concerns are more relevant. I expected pricing to go up or down depending on the amount of traffic generated. I suspected part of that adjustment would be in slicing up the services as mentioned. However, I think what bothers me is I am being asked to pay more now if I want to lock down my area completely for an untested product and web site.

I am doubly concerned that the page I am buying on RealEstate.com looks a lot like the page on the Market Leader Web site I am trying out. Although it may be an interesting page, putting in the link to my site might seem odd to a consumer using any link to my site that just gives them the same page. How will capture be done on RealEstate.com or will it be for the Local Expert?

I have a limited marketing budget. If they are both rolling out at the same time I might prefer the Home Selling Page, but again I do not get to see the page in advance to know the quality of the lead I am getting. I am have paid for some pretty sad leads in the past from companies that were basically desiguising the lead capture purpose.

Feb 27, 2012 07:33 AM

Doug Bullwinkel

E Mortgage Capital, Inc. NMLS 1416824 - Roseville, CA

Mortgage Loan Officer NMLS #281609

I think this was poorly planned and executed before they really knew what they were going to offer. There seemed to be a big rush to get us signed up and then, instead of improving what they sold, they were off trying to sell it over again with no regard to those who already purchased the areas. Not a good business decision.

Feb 27, 2012 05:26 PM

Gene Riemenschneider

Home Point Real Estate - Brentwood, CA

Turning Houses into Homes

You know I am still a little upset, but Nikesh is right they laid out that this was going to be subdivided. I would have liked them to go slower. I may get the Seller contact and drop the other or drop the web site I bought from them, but there is only so much room in my budget.

Feb 27, 2012 11:27 PM

Charles Stallions Real Estate Services

Charles Stallions Real Estate Services Inc - Gulf Breeze, FL

Buyers Agent 800-309-3414 Pace and Gulf Breeze,Fl.

I always say if you want to get rich in real estate invent something and sell it to agents our egos will make us buy the latest and greatest to be first. I got suckered into this by realtor.com and didn't understand nor read the fine print that said 5 agents would have the same leads.

Feb 28, 2012 11:27 AM