Real Estate Blog - Who Wants to Buy Realtor.com With Me? aka Move.com

Home : Blogs : Lawrence Kansas Real Estate Rob Lang CRS, GRI, ABR, ePro, Realtor : Rob's Blog

Who Wants to Buy Realtor.com With Me? aka Move.com

Just to start a dialog on the subject of a broken business model, I'm wondering if a grass roots campaign to collectively pull listings from Realtor.com aka Move.com so Realtors can start directing the way things should be done there -- with Realtors' best interests in mind.

We need to find a way to be heard at Realtor.com.

One of the first things that needs to be done is have them start charging reasonable fees to market our listings for us and not the outlandish $1000, $2000, $3000, etc. type charges per service we buy. Even better would be to remove, entirely, any fees we are charged and have the services we use be paid for by other websites that want to buy the ability to put our listings on their websites. Another potential income source is identified below.

Next step will be to have them replace the non-Realtor oriented tech support, sales staff, and on up to the CEO and replace them with Realtors who know what we need to get our listings SOLD and to get our listings in front of buyers. Every time I call in for tech support on my MarketSnapshot, my Showcased Listings, etc., I get sales and tech people who don't know anything about or care anything about Realtors or real estate. This has got to change. I have spoken with one person at Realtor.com named Doug who is a "lead" tech who seems to be able to get the job done. Any of you have similar stories to share?

Next task will be to encourage Realtors to start investing in the stock of Realtor.com aka Move.com to provide a Realtor based accountability group.

Next will be to seek out a Realtor/Broker who is also an attorney who can handle the legal issues of doing all of this. There is at least one on Active Rain that I am aware of.

Finally, we would need to re-visit and re-write NAR's connection/involvement with Realtor.com aka Move.com. Their involvement is only needed to the extent of getting access to our listings and even that is subject to review since we can alternatively get Realtor load of our own listings directly into Realtor.com and then sell them back to NAR, the state, and the local associations if they decide not to cooperate with us by letting Realtors use and control the Realtor.com domain name. This step of bypassing the local MLS's is probably the best step in the whole process. Realtors will no longer need to fax their listings to their local MLS but they will enter them into the national MLS at Realtor.com who will then sell them to all other out sources such as the one that starts with Z and the one that starts with O and the one that starts with O, etc. They will still want to buy them because they make money with all of their pay per clicks and other revenue sources. This will put Realtors back in control of their listings and who gets them and how much they pay us for them.

So who is up to this challenge to protect ourselves from being ripped off from marketing our own listings? Add your name below if you are in. Disclaimer: I am not looking to accept a position with Realtor.com aka Move.com or receive any monies from same with the exception of proceeds from monies saved through lower marketing fees of my own listings. NOTE: I know that they are the Broker's listings and not my own and the monies generated will have to run through the broker before coming to me.

I will reveal another way of going about this later on in one of the comments. Look for the link. Again, this is just to start a dialog on this subject to see if it can be done.

Thanks and "Don't keep me a secret--I'm never too busy for your referrals!"
Rob (FREE Home Warranty with every home you buy or sell through me!!)
Rob Lang, CRS, ABR, ePro, GRI, CFPS Realtor®
Sellers www.MLSPlease.com (Marketing homes to 4 MLS's, to over 100 websites, "Showcase" Realtor.com listing, and virtual tours)
Property Searches www.LetRobDoIt.com
Places for Rent or Lease www.KSLease.com
Blog www.ActiveRain.com/blogs/langrob
Realty Executives, Hedges Real Estate (three convenient locations)
(Serving Lawrence, Eudora, Baldwin, Topeka, Olathe, Tonganoxie, Leavenworth, Kansas City, McLouth, Wellsville, Ottawa, Berryton, Tecumseh, more)
300 Rockfence Place, Lawrence, KS 66049
1037 Vermont, Lawrence, KS 66044
3300 Clinton Parkway Ct., Lawrence, KS 66047
785-393-2274 (cell) 206-339-3199 (fax)
Rob@YouWantHouses.com

Posted by Lawrence Kansas Real Estate Rob Lang CRS, GRI, ABR, ePro, Realtor on 08/05/2008 04:33 PM

Comments (52)

buy, realtor, com, move, buyout, takeover, invest, investing, investment, stock, nar, kar, lbor

52 Comments on Who Wants to Buy Realtor.com With Me? aka Move.com

AUG

2008

Rob, please count me in to buy this broken piece of crap. I gave up 2 years ago because of their outragious fees and no return on investment! Thank you!

I would be interested if there were plans to add an auction section to it.

Hi David,

I'm open to learning more myself! You know you really may be onto something with this!

David, thanks for being the first one to jump on board!

Endea, please provide some more details about how the auction will work. It will of course depend on the majority of Realtors to decide.

Thanks!

Rob

So far we have two with no stipulations and one with an auction stipulation. We also had one interested in learning more.

Rob

I have heard about a project that is slowly and silently being constructed called RealEspace that will provide among other things a national MLS similar to what you are suggesting. I think it is from the people who created ratespeed.com

All an all I like your idea and would not be against investing that is unless this RealEspace thing is for real.

What I would like to know is, why do we have to put up with it now? If it is supposed to be for NAR members, why doesn't it serve NAR members? There are so many ads on there, our memberships should be free. IMHO.

Justin, Is RealEspace owned by Realtors or would it be privately owned by non-Realtors? This is good to bring up alternatives. Point2NLS is an alternative but is not owned by Realtors even though a great Realtor runs it now.

Lynn, we don't have to put up with it now and most Realtors don't but as you stated, it is supposed to be for Realtors and should be free to its members. I agree completely that their business model is backwards and broken.

Rob

Lawrence,

Count me in.

They priced me out about 3 years ago.

Just got new prices......same old crap.

Rob

From what I understand it is privately owned by non-realtors. However the people that are creating the site have been working very closely with both realtors and lenders to make the site a seamless way to purchase property on line perhaps even with out agents.

I gave up this year, I have generated so many more leads from own website. And all from what I learned on Active Rain.

Way to go Michael!! ... and yes, thanks to ActiveRain. Many of us will be thanking them or already have thanked them with community sponsorships!

Justin, it sounds like this is a plan doomed to fail if they think they will succeed witout Realtors. On the subject of negotiation alone a good Realtor is worth his commission in gold, not to mention all the other services performed.

Thanks to Linda, we now have three with no stipulations unless others have slipped in since I started typing this.

Rob

Your post is right. Their days are over as a place where we spend money.

AUG

2008

Rob,

For the sake of conversation, I'll put my name in the hat as an investor. I've "invested" more than $10,000 before on less admirable ventures! :)

Realtor.com is VERY expensive, arrogant, and unresponsive. And, yes, I'm still a member because of their strong presence in the marketplace. I put a phone call into someone at Realtor.com over three weeks ago and still have had NO response. Is anyone there? Does anyone care?

It is definitely something worth discussing. If nothing else, maybe someone over there will wake up and realize their job is not as secure as they once thought!

Thanks,

Lucky :)

Thanks Lucky!

Okay, that's 4. Are there more? Or are we dead in the water and stuck with Realtor.com's broken model?

Do we know how many of AR's 102,066 members are Realtors or about what percentage? I know we have lenders and other real estate industry members in here but Realtors are who I am looking for. Are there only four of us who will stand up against Realtor.com?

Rob

What a great idea !!!

At what share price? Plus what is your plan for restructuring?

ever since our Realtor community got sold out by realtor.com I have had issue with them...and our association. In the end it could end up helping us.

Hey Rob, I'm with you on this one. I would be willing to invest in the buy out. I am sick to death of Realtor.com and their ridiculous fees/prices. A more Realtor friendly company is needed for sure!!

Great idea!

Hopefully Realtor.com will quickly become a dinosaur. They charge the outrageous fees because they think they have the market, but they wont. Also, the more agents that boycott them the more they may be willing to bend to the consumer and realtor's actual needs.

Might not be a bad idea, at least someone would police Realtors a bit. Heck, you call with a complaint and they tell you to get a lawyer, but, when it is time for the dues to be paid? Geeez, NOW you have their attention...

I will be watching to see if you pull this off! I wish you well and will promote it for you after you take it over for free!

Thanks for taking on the idiots at Realtor.com which has a special connection to Coldwell Banker agents who are favored with their listings? What happened to an even playing field? The best way to make Realtor.com go away is to educate the public that the info they want can be found elsewhere and it will be more informative. Realtor.com makes a fortune on the backs of realtors who provide the data for free....why?

I read that Realtor.com is ranked as the number 2 most visited home buying and selling website .. yet it is the most "disliked" tool out there by most Realtors .. why .. fees and access to service.

Realtor.com loves my listings but hates me .. what I mean is that yea they will use my listings to build web power yet I have to buy in ($$) to have access to the web power. I have never felt that Realtor.com as at all focused on marketing individual agents/ brokers.

Save the 10,000 just for one week everyone pull their listing on Realtor.com and watch the world awaken .

COUNT ME IN.....Good lord it's time to get rid of crap like Realtor. com. What a total rip-off. My love affair ended with them years ago and I never looked back! I'm in, I'm in, I'm in!

Your venture surely couldn't perform any worse than my TRUCKLOAD of Countrywide stock I bought 2 years ago:( OUCH!

Hey Ron,

You are absolutely correct.

Anyway, some very interesting solutions that are much more doable are available to us as stated a couple of comments ago. Collectively we will make this work one way or another.

If all of a sudden there were no listings on Realtor.com, what would happen? New blog at...

http://activerain.com/blogsview/626863/If-all-of-a

Keep the ideas coming and lets see what looks like the best solution for us.

Thanks!

Rob

Ron:

We need to pull all our listings first and make the stock do the nestea plunge. Then we purchase!
Power to the people! 'Course, we would probably be open some type of SEC investigation. =]

My biggest gripe is that NAR is a member driven association which does not provide service to its members via move.com. It is a business and a profit center for them. I personally would love for our association to remeove our data feed of listings. It would be nice if others chose to do the same and give control back to the members who got the listings in the first place. with no listings, local boards, and state associations, would become the new source. Oh well.. but you count me in too,

Oh one other thought... move.com is almost like the Giants charging season ticket holders thousands of dollars just to keep their seats plus the price of thickets... Go figure... something with the system is broken

Hi Jessica,

Good point! But it looks like I was making this more difficult than it really is. We just temporarily pull the listings like you stated and that takes them down and they will come begging and making deals with us to get our listings back.

Hopefully, you have read http://activerain.com/blogsview/626863/If-all-of-a.

Thanks!

Rob

Count me in! They want more than that from me EVERY YEAR!

It could be done. We just need a few more people to join up. It could be a profitable business

A few things to consider before embarking on your venture.

I have more than a passing knowledge of NAR's involvement with Move/HomeStore/RealSelect.

NAR owns the domain name Realtor.com and all rights to it.

NAR also has veto powers over any sale or transfer of the domain name Realtor.com to any other entity.

Why want NAR want to re-write the operating agreement they have with Move?

Just a couple of things to consider.

Evening Lawrence, I hear so little about Realtor.com but when I do it is generally very negative !

I have no love for realtor.com. They have NO affinity whatsoever to REALTORS and it is so obvious...

We can do it why not? after all is called Realtors.com and it is suppose to be our site. I gave up on them 2-3 years ago. Why pay them to do something when I can do it myself?

I'm not in love with realtor.com but seeing a little wool here....parked for now.

Hi Rob.

Please feel free to delete my comment if you find it not acceptable. I am not in the habit of editing my remarks. Nor, am I in the habit of looking over my shoulder for tongue in cheek comments. You won't offend me but I am not one to go back and edit myself out of fear of the government or people with too much time on their hands.

The comment was ooozing with sarcasm.

All my best,

Jessica Horton

Hi Jim,

Thanks for stopping by!

You wrote: NAR owns the domain name Realtor.com and all rights to it. NAR also has veto powers over any sale or transfer of the domain name Realtor.com to any other entity.

Rob writes: That is correct but people will cease to go to that domain if all of our listings are temporarily moved from it to other sites for marketing. NAR will be begging us for our listings and at that point we can negotiate NAR's involvement/control of the domain name to something is Realtor favorable instead of charging us for our own listings to be showcased featured, etc. If NAR wants to veto the putting the domain's control back in the hands of Realtors, let them, and we will pull our listings and put them on another website. We also need to negotiate back some rights we have lost such as this new bizarre passing of no "MLS" in domain names.

You wrote: Why want NAR want to re-write the operating agreement they have with Move?

Rob writes: NAR would have no choice if they did not have our listings to feed to Move.com. They would need to re-write their agreements.

Again the whole purpose of this is to get our listings back in our control and we should be the beneficiaries of any monies that come in from them from ads on Move.com and not a private corporation.

Thanks again for your comments Jim! You in for the land rush?

Rob

AUG

2008

Hi Rob- Have you looked at their financial statements? They just a little over year ago had to go and raise another $100 million by selling series C preferred stock, and they still can't make any money.

So far, out of 11 years, they have only shown a profit in 1 year. They have lost an aggregate $2 billion since they have been in business. You are right, they definitely have a broken business model.

Sounds like somebody has been s----ing off the top, eh? Why do you think they recently changed their name? I would invest as long as I knew we ran the show. Great topic, BTW.

-Scott

Everytime I meet a prospective buyer, the first question I ask them is "where online have you been searching". Not once in 3 years has anyone said "Realtor.com", or any other public sites for that matter. Nearly every name brand office in my area has a better search tool than them and that's where nearly everyone around here searches. Their days are numbered, 'em die on their own.

Lawrence, best of luck with your endeavors, and I'll do what I can to help. It will be interesting to see what you think, "might" work in your next post. Actually, I don't do enhanced listings anymore, because they never brought me any business, after 13 years in the business, no leads at all. I know others do better I just never clicked with r dot c.

ou wrote: NAR owns the domain name Realtor.com and all rights to it. NAR also has veto powers over any sale or transfer of the domain name Realtor.com to any other entity.

First of all Rob, the likelihood of every (or even a majority) of MLS systems, boards, or brokers in the country agreeing to pull all our listings from Realtor.com a a huge stretch at best.

As you know, all listings are taken in the name of the brokerage firm you're with; not the individual licensee/Realtor.

Not going to happen in my hardly ever humble opinion, but I do wish you the best of luck in your quest.

Hi Jim,

Thanks for stopping by again. Absolutely! I clearly stated that in the blog. In the blog it says "NOTE: I know that they are the Broker's listings and not my own and the monies generated will have to run through the broker before coming to me." in there.

The odds were against the colonists in the American Revolution too but it doesn't mean we can't try to get improved services and better marketing for our seller clients just because it may not happen.

Thanks again!

Rob

Realtor.com is way to expensive for the number of leads it generated last year.

I am amazed at the way Realtor.com does business. I purchased all 4 featured home spots for the city that I am in, I purchased enhanced listings and I have to go through 2 separate log ins to access the features -- there isn't a single account management feature. Then if I have a question, not one group can answer it -- I get shuffled around. Oh, and I might be interested in "X" services -- oh that isn't either of the groups that I am already talking to -- it's a different group. So I talk to that person -- oh, you're a broker, I have to transfer you too -- AAAAHHHHHHH ! ~Evelyn

Interesting idea....They just came through Rochester, NY looking to sign people up for the service. When I saw the price...YIKES! You can count me in as potentially interested.

I never bought into NAR....our listings automatically go there...and just for the fact they want you to BUY to add more pictures....well, I knew they weren't working in my best interests. Nope...they can suck our membership fees but I refuse to buy into anything where they want MORE and MORE and MORE just so I can watch commercials about THEM.

Rob,

Hmmm.. I would certainly be interested in joining a group called "Realtors that want to purchase Move stock" to take over and make it what it should be.

If we were to take all of the money REALTORS spend on Realtor.com and use it to buy the stock, we should be able to have a real voice - and make it what it should be.

As some of the comments above state.. many have given up on R.com (and spending money there) like myself who have found better sources for our ROI.. but that's only because R.com has not kept up with the times and charge way too much for what they offer...

SEP

2008

Lawrence you are 100% right about the broken business model of Realtor.com. I gave up on Realtor.com and the NAR fixing the problems a long time ago as have so many other Realtors. The NAR reads this forum and receives written complaints so they know we have problems but they have another agenda and choose to ignore us. I too have found much better sources for my ROI. I admire you for trying to find a solution to the problem but since Realtor.com is a for profit company not run by NAR it would be too complicated. Wouldn't it be easier to just start our own nation wide multiple listing service with it's own name. Since the NAR sold the rights to the domain name Realtor.com to Move.Com they are a complete farce.

SEP

2008

Just as a point of accuracy Brenda, NAR did not sell the rights or the domain name, Realtor.com to anyone. We still own it and it's still a registered trademark of NAR (which is US by the way).

What NAR did is license it's use to the company now called Move.com to use is subject to our operating agreement with them.

Jim how is selling the rights to the name different from licensing the use of the name? I didn't mean to imply it was a permanent sale by leaving out the word use. NAR licensing the use of the name www.Realtor.com would be like www.senate.com licensing the use of the name to China. Either way it is deceptive advertising to the public and unfair to the Realtors who cannot afford to advertise on the site especially in this market. At the very minimum Realtor.com should put the listing agents name on their listing for free. We should not have to pay mega bucks for that. They do put the brokerage on the listing but that is not fair to the agents who pay dues. Every Realtor's name should be located prominently on the site in one location. Only the Realtor's who pay top dollar get their name on the site where it can be readily be found by anyone looking for a Realtor. That is beyond ridiculous and I have written NAR about it to which they replied they have not had any complaints. Evidently they don't read Active Rain because there are a large number of threads by unhappy Realtors regarding the way the site is being run. Realtor.com should not license the use of the name to any for profit company and should be equaly affordable to all Realtors. The important thing here is that the NAR is not listening to it's members and is not putting the members interests as a priority period. If given a choice I believe a majority of real estate agents and brokers would not even join the organization primarily because of this Realtor.com issue. We are forced to join by our boards.

This blog does not allow anonymous comments