I Am Not Paying You For A Lead
This statement is primarily meant for internet marketing firms.
These firms are not real estate brokerages.
They are not real estate agents.
They advertise a product or service which they do not provide.
They contact licensed real estate agents like me, or other agents, and ask them to provide the service which they advertise.
Buyers and sellers of real estate stumble upon these firms when they start their real estate search on the internet and unwittingly give their information to these firms thinking that they are receiving some kind of real estate service.
In actuality, these firms simply pass the information onto a licensed real estate agent, who is willing to pay them a fee for the lead.
The real estate agents are not screened. They are simply the ones who are willing to pay a fee for the lead.
Because the business of these firms is marketing and only marketing, they tend to be at the top of the list on most search engines, so they are likely going to get many potential buyers and sellers looking at their site.
This pushes the real and licensed real estate brokers and real estate agents, the ones who actually provide the service, further down the list.
By these firms asking real estate agents to pay for the leads that come to these firms, they increase the cost to the agent and potentially to the seller or buyer.
While agents do need to advertise to get business, if they did not have non-value added firms clogging the internet, then more business would come directly to them, which would reduce their costs.
Almost every real estate brokerage already has an internet presence with their own web site and, in many cases, their web sites provide access to the viewing of all homes which are listed on the multiple list, not just their own listings.
These marketing firms are perfectly legal and there are many good agents who are okay with paying for leads from them, but I am not one of those agents.
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