My Annual Realtor.com Vent

Interesting... I need to look into this, thanks for sharing. 

Well, I guess when people pay zillow thousands of dollars a year they feel they should raise their  rates also.

John, I have not paid R.com for my listings in years for that very reason.  The last amount they gave me was near $1,000 for the year.   I had not receive any inquiries or leads off it, and terminated.

I have used Realtor.com for a couple years and this last year I went in big. I was spending between $3,000.00 and $4,000.00 per month for leads over the past 12 months. I arrived at this monthly cost over time by only buying exclusive leads and also just in more expensive towns with higher average sales prices. I did make money but certainly not double or triple my investment as I typically shoot for. I did grow my sphere to over 1,000 prospects to keep in touch with. Not great results but I was willing to work with it. My account was apparently setup for automatic renewal so I called before my expiration dates to check on pricing. Would you believe 3 areas I owned went up more than 250% and they could not tell me how much the areas that were to expire in 15 days were going to be! I told my account rep to shut them all down as they expire and stop all auto renewals. Well apparently there has been a recent shakeup in how sales and renewals are done at Realtor.com this year and the renewals are handled ny another team and my long time sales rep no longer can assist me in renewals! Makes sense only to churn to new agents for top dollar! After a long calm conversation with the newly appointed renewals rep I was told they would make sure they let management know what I thought about my experience and how my account was being handled. I received a call from the renewals rep 30 minutes later and was told that they listened to my comments and thoughts and would be in touch with me right after New Year’s Day to discuss a possible solution or remedy. Well I did not receive a call by the 5th of January,2018 so I called my sales rep as I did not have any contact information for the renewal rep. Tyler was very quick to transfer me to John “the manager” that was supposed to call me back after leaving a message. After two more calls to John and leaving two more messages, Tyler inquired what I needed. When I explained to Tyler what I was told and that I was promised a call back to discuss, I was told “ John, they are definitely not going to reduce the prices any”. I asked to leave a message for John to call me with Tyler and I did get a call from John within the hour. I was offered a 5% discount on the three renewals that were to expire and I declined to renew. My annual budget was increasing from $42,000.00+ per year to over $100,000.00 per year if I were to impute the 250% increase across the board on my accounts renewals. That is not feasible and they are driving away their best paying customers who once felt the investment could be worth the cost over time. They have now made it impossible to make worthwhile for any agent! I had very reasonable closing stats on the leads that were legitimate...meaning not the other agents seeing how it worked on their own listings or homeowners that are curious how their home on Realtor.com works . Countless “leads” from neighbors complaining about long grass. That I can deal with...but not at the new prices! Taking my money somewhere else to spend! Very disappointed after thinking it would payoff in the long run