I have spoken with several sales people while researching real estate template sites for several agents in my office to recommend the best one.  I have also seached the Activerain Blog posts and posted a question of my own.  So, here is a summary of what I have found out.

I have advanced access www.cathytishhouse.com which I have had for about a year and a half.  I have had a few problems as they are converting to the new 4.0 virtual office (I still have 3.0) and my statistics are frozen quite frequently.  While they are prompt when I call, I have been a bit frustrated and was considering a switch myself as I investigated all the options.  To jump ahead a bit--I have decided to keep Advanced Access.

Homes.com was one of my first conversations because a realtor in our Birmingham Real Estate office has it and was recommending it at our initial website class that I was sponsoring.  Why not (I thought).  First I discovered that they are mainly a lisiting service with the BEST search engine placement or page rank (still trying to understand this).  However, my realtor friend (unknown to him) did not have his listings on Homes.com but only on his website through them.  Several agents do not want to enter their listings as they have a lot so he was highly recommending Homes.com because they pull the listings into your website.  Come to find out, if you want your listings on their main site you do have to enter each one yourself--he will now be doing that and was glad to know he has that option.  Homes.com costs about $399 to set up the basic package, $70/month for standard and another $10/month for a website.  There was a deal so I signed up for just the listing package and seem to have wasted $99 because they never followed up with me and wrote down my wrong e-mail address.  On the initial hour long conversation with the salesperson, he gave me his direct number to call if I had ANY problems and when I called about my problem about five days later, he did not remember anything and transferred me so fast--well you know the feeling.

I spoke with someone from iHouseweb and they were not in the running because they do not export any listings anywhere and, if I remember correctly, they do not submit the site to any of the search engines.

Number1 Expert is the most expensive and in my opinion there are other options for the money and I am a relatively new agent so the cost is important.

I enjoyed speaking with the salesperson from Z57 and it seemed like a decent site and their plus was that they supply a coach with the website to ongoingly help you market yourself and your site.  I don't remember the cost but it was not outrageous.  They said they pull the listings so you don't have to enter them yourself.  For the team in our office who does a very large volume of foreclosures, this may be the best option.

Now the Point2Agent site.  Through all of this, particularly reading Active Rain (and joining the Point2Agent Blog), I would recommend this site and have started one myself for free www.homesinoaklandcountymi.com   One of our agents had the paid site which is $39.95/month and no start up fee.  She gets more leads and she doesn't develop her site like I do.  I am considering upgrading and paying for the premium package just to have more flexibility over my site.  However, for free you get most of what the premium site provides.  There is a new agent in our office and I recommended this site so that she can get online quickly while she develops her business.  If you already have a site, I would recommend have a second and play with this one for free.

If you use Point2Agent, I recommend purchasing a domain name and then pointing it at their site.  You can purchase one through Point2 but it is more expensive.  In all my research, I found a great site 1&1 INTERNET where I buy all my domains--they cost $5.99 each and you only have to buy one year at a time--unlike godaddy that is $8.99/year and you have to buy two years.  I build sites for each of my listings and they have an inexpensive hosting package (two sites, 12 pages each and free domain name for $5/month) and relatively easy website builder--here is one of mine promoting my home for sale in Royal Oak Michigan www.myhomeview.com  You can buy their business package which is five sites, 18 pages each and five free domain names for $10/month.  I have developed by own non template site with them with the business package for Real Estate in Oakland County, Wayne County and Macomb www.southeasternmichiganrealestate.com

Lastly, Advanced Access and Number1 Expert has been purchased by Dominion Enterprises which also owns Homes.com.  I was told that all of them will remian independent but the customer support at Advanced Access indicated that they will have a new ability to share or export their listings to each other (my words & interpretation of what he said).  So, I have the thought that I may get some of the benefit of exposure of my listings by staying with Advanced Access and not pay the cost of Homes.com.  Plus, I realize that I appreciate the customer service of Advanced Access even with the few glitches I have been experiencing.

Royal Oak Realtor selling Real Estate in Southeastern Michigan.  TishHouse sells Houses - selling Oakland County Real Estate with RE/MAX Showcase Homes in Birmingham, Michigan. Helping People in a challenging market by specializing in Short Sales. See what my clients have to say about my extraordinary customer service.