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Realty Times: "Realtor.com isn't bringing any game." Ouch.

Blanche Evans, the well-regarded senior editor of Realty Times, and one of the 25 Most Influential People in Real Estate according to REALTOR Magazine, tears into Realtor.com today in an editorial.

She writes: "For a tech company, Realtor.com is surprisingly out of touch. Why should agents be excited about paying Realtor.com for privileges they can get for free elsewhere? There are other sites like Zillow climbing up Realtor.com's back that offer agents a lot more for free. ....On Realtor.com, they don't even get their names on their listing unless they pay enhancement fees. Other sites are willing to provide all kinds of enhancements ---including agent profiles for free. Zillow takes listings from feeds and individual. No limit on photos, tours, videos or anything else. They even provide agent profiles for free. It's such a good deal, Zillow has seduced major franchisors Realogy and Keller Williams, along with ZipRealty, Prudential California and dozens of top regionals. In six months, they've added two million listings and counting."

She concludes: "Zillow isn't the number one real estate destination site yet, but it's got momentum. Realtor.com isn't bringing any game. They need to come up with something better than four free photos, and quick."

Thank you Blanche for the kind words and astute analysis.

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Posted by Spencer Rascoff on 05/21/2008 09:30 AM

Comments (45)

realtorcom, zillow, blanche evans, realty times

Post is included in group: Realtors®

45 Comments on Realty Times: "Realtor.com isn't bringing any game." Ouch.

MAY

2008

LOL three cheers for Blanche! I love her spunky attitude and so agree with her. Realtor.com is not the best resource on the block. One day they will figure it out, perhaps before it is too late. Or do we care?

Hey Spencer,

Sorry to say, I' not surprised one bit.

Wow. It is nice to see someone analyze Realtor.com from an outside perspective. While I'm not a big fan of the fees Realtor.com charges Realtors - I'm also not a big fan zome of Zillow's practices. In reality, Realtor.com is simply a different business model than zillow. I think both could learn from the other.

I'm sorry to hear that since I just signed up for another year of the enhanced feature on realtor.com

MAY

2008

Loved it! It's about darned time someone else stood up and said "What the heck Realtor.com???"

I believe there are a lot of free things out there. However, the free sights have not produced any results yet, I stress yet... My Realtor.com on the other hand turns into at least 5 closed deals a year, so giving up $3500 a year for $35K-50K a year, well I would say at this point is worth it to me. My other sources of getting clients will result in 12-15 other deals.

Realtor.com seems to think we need to pay to place on their site, what would they be without our inventory?

It also made no sense for me to pay to write up market reports on somebody else's site...

Realtor.com is not the only or even the best way to get exposure on the net anymore. They need to wake up!

Realtor.com is definitely out of touch with what's going on in the industry. In the one year I was there, we didn't receive a single worthwhile lead. The cost was way out of proportion to the value received.

I read the article on Realty Times yesterday and have to agree. Realtor.com is way behind the curve.

Sandy

Yep...Realtor.com has NOT been serving the real estate and Realtor community for years - nice "call" on that blog!!!

It's almost 'worthless' to be a Realtor and post listing on OUR main website!

I don't think they ever had "game". I am sure it has worked for some but not many.

I think the back end on REALTOR.com has been a vey valuable assett in tracking how many people are querying and actually viewing the tours. Does Zillow offer viewing stats?

Hi Spencer - no coincidence that she talked about Zillow a lot in that round:) Nice job:)

Sounds like a sales pitch for Zillow. I use them all , but I prefer Trulia

Spencer- Great press for you and I agree with her Realtor.com assessment. I know Realtor.com works for some, but I had to laugh at the rep who called me to try and go with one of their premium packages. There weren't many questions asked of me and very little useful information provided to me. A web site that wants to charge me for my inventory, should have some hard numbers on how many leads people typically convert etc...not just "we're big so spend money with us....come on....lots of other people are doing it.....please....it's the end of the month, this 'deal' might not be available again."

I canned Realtor.com a year ago. THEY need to KNOW they are NOT the only kid on the block to play with.

I feel like Realtor.com hasn't made continuous improvements to their site--I'm not surprised there are better options out there....

I have found this to be true about realtor.com, but have never heard of zillow. I'm glad to know there is something better out there.

Not surprising to me at all! Not wild about Zillow either, because of the property value search being so far to the left or right. Seems to give many sellers a "false" sense of what their property values truly are. Many do NOT read the print stating that Zillow's figures are not accurate in all areas. If they want to use Zillow, they need to read the facts stated there. I'm not trying to slam Zillow, but it does make it difficult on Realtors.

I agree that realtor.com needs to do something about its fees and what it offers for its fees. They get a lot more than they give back. Our MLS listings go directly to realtor ... a complete inventory. However, Zillow? I was surprised! Zillow competes with Realtors and provides misinformation to the public re: home values.

More to the point, I believe, is that the real estate community needs to somehow "convince" realtor.com that it is not giving us what we want at a price we can bear. I think I read that we will be getting 4 photos instead of 1 with the standard listing. Perhaps, this is a beginning.

I read the article this morning ... good post, Spencer.

I think it's good to have additional information that allows us to analyze how to best spending our marketing dollars. Thanks,

Spencer, Blanche really calls it as she sees it. I have never been willing to pay Realtor.com to display my listings. There are so many other effective ways - including Zillow and Truila...;)

Thanks for all of your great comments.

@ Meyer. You wrote, "Does Zillow offer viewing stats?" Yes, every one of the 80 million homes in our database has a pagecounter on it, so you can see how many times a home has been viewed. Look in the upper right corner of any home where it says "Views".

Also, if you buy an EZAd, we report on views and clicks.

Realtor.com website to me is not impressive. And I think that they can do wayyy better than what they have. Maybe they should talk to people at Zillow and Trulia and ask them what they are doing because apparently what they are doing works. Great post.

Spencer, Blanche is right on the money. realtor.com is waaaay behind the times. Not only Zillow but Cyberhomes as well are leaving them in the dust. Cyberhomes is the sleeping giant in my opinion.

God I totally agree! They are so behind the times it's pathetic. They are also (Realtor.com) trying to get my company to do an entire agent scenario for a lower price. We voted it down. I personally don't bother with anything in Realtor.com except to add a tour which the buyers now expect. They don't offer me a thing in the way of innovation. It's a shame that they are "connected" with us & "disconnected" with us at the same time!

Hate Zillow!

Realtor.com gets a lot of traffic and the name is recongizable. It is very sad that our national association who should have provided this information as a benefit to its members instead allows r.com to gauge its members.

Realtor.com has been around for so long, and now it's taking advantage of us all with their fees. I pay for thier site because it's almost like I HAVE TO.

I've said this before, when I go on a listing appointment, I ask the seller where would they MOST like their listing to appear? Well, when they quit saying realtor.com, I'll try whatever they tell me.

Most people I talk to never heard of Zillow.

I quit doing enhanced listings this past year, hasn't hurt one bit. I still think consumers think of it. Love Blanches articles, glad she said it.

Does that mean that we should all stop getting robbed by them and put our information elsewhere? With the change in the market, I am doing away with things that do not bring a ROI

Hi Spencer - thanks for bringing Blanche's article to our attention. I had missed that one somehow.

I pay to enhance my listings on R.com, and just got a notice to renew. Still thinking about whether to do it or not. I do get leads from it, and have made money from my listings being up there in the enhanced state. I like the stats I get on each of my listings up there, and I like that I can add so many pictures. But, do I like having to pay for that? Not one bit, but I consider it one of the places that my marketing money spent actually does bring me a return. That's not to say I'll continue doing that forever.

There are plenty of free places to put our listings, but very few of them have the name recognition and exposure that R.com has, for the moment.

Ann

Finally someone decided to spell it out clearly. Maybe having been put on blast, Realtor.com will wake up?!?

While I do think Zillow has a few things it needs to address, it sure does beat the poop out of R.com. But, is that really an accomplishment?

Spencer: Seems like Zillow is starting to do very well. I keep hearing about it

MAY

2008

We used to use Realtor.com and their enhanced feed, but all that seemed to enhance was our money into their pocket. We never got any leads that were of any substance by paying for the added features there.

You still have to admit that Realtor.com drives crazy traffic! If you're a blogger there - you can get a ton of hits and drive them to your site, and that's free.

Zillow is also a great site. There are always ways to find fault, especially when someone/something is so visible - and that's the point right?

We tend to look at these sites/services as professionals - through the eyes of the consumer it's all the same. Gen y and gen x are looking for fast/now, easy to find, an assumption of anonymity and when they have a question.....you want to be the first one available to answer them.

That's the beauty of both Zillow and Realtor - consumers flock to these sites! This is an opportunity for every great mouse trap maker.

Great debate!

Well it does appear their pricing per company is more cost effective than each agent being charged separately - But if Zillow offers that much - We should be there too - I'm checking my Zillow account NOW!

The simple answers to Blanche's qustion is "eyeballs".

Realtor.com is the most visited real estate specific website.

"comScore ranking of total unique visitors for December 2007: Rank Site

1 REALTOR.COM(R)

2 MSN Real Estate

3 Yahoo! Real Estate

4 Rent.com

5 Apartments.com

6 Homegain.com

7 Trulia.com

8 Servicemagic.com

9 HPCInter@active

10 Zillow.com"

I'm not a fan of the Realtor.com either...I'm tired of the endless solicitation calls. And their 'Market Builder' program has produced a grand total of ZERO business for the $2,000 invested.

JUN

2008

I don't know if people really use realtor.com to search listing guys. I have gone to it only because I offer virtual tours. "Could not find the information I wanted on their site. The site really does suck" when I was searching for a house I went strait to panamacitymls.com that is obviously local to me. My search went like this on Google. "Panama City FL MLS" and it came back with most of the brokers websites. Let me offer you a suggestion to increase your marketing. Give a liberal amount of information about your listing. Take lots of good photos and for god sakes do not user your camera phone. Someone is paying you good money to sell their property at least invest in a 3 mega pixel camera.

If I wore choosing an agent to sell my house I am going to go look at there listings at a bare minimum.

I am going to want virtual tours of quality or none at all.

I am going to want good photos.

I am going to want my listing on the MLS very detailed.

I am going to want to consistently be in something like homes and land magazine.

Beyond that everything is gravy.

Oh by the way what are some of you thinking

This is not a virtual tour

http://www.visualtour.com/applets/flashviewer2/viewer.asp?t=1033368&sk=13&dm=panamacitymls.com

Do not use music on your site. People hate this. I know you love music on "Your website or tour" but when you go to someone else you hate it too. You are just paying for an extra feature that everyone hates. I am not into paying for crap that people do not like. But hay; it's your dime.

This is what I mean by crap from virtual tours. If you can't buy anything better than this why waste your money. http://www.jimpoppellphotography.netfirms.com/mls/320732/320732-5-LARGE_SCREEN_TOUR.htm

I want something like this at a minimum damn it.

http://www.re.ratesmate.com/index.php?action=show_vtour&popup=yes&listingID=102 or this

http://www.re.ratesmate.com/index.php?action=show_vtour&popup=yes&listingID=101

and these are what I consider poor quality.

Ah what do I know?

Good luck everyone; sorry about my tangent

AUG

2008

Brett Shaw from Cyberhomes:

You bring up an excellent point. Why would anyone pay for features on Realtor.com? Shouldn't that be included in my REALTOR dues twice a year? Personally, I can get much more relevant information from sites like Cyberhomes.com. It's free and very insightful not only to agents but clients as well. As far as paying to have your name on your own listing on realtor.com, that's just stupid. Spencer is right in that this feature is free pretty much everywhere else. This is not a competitive advantage for them.