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An Open Letter to Realtor.com

Dear REALTOR.com,

I tried to think of a diplomatic to say this, but I'll just cut to the chase.

You suck.

Not just because I have to pay you $3,000+ per year while providing you with my content.

Not just because you telemarket the living crap out of me for banner ads.

Not just because as a home search tool you are inferior to any basic broker IDX search.

Not just because no matter how many times you revamp you are still a clanky, slow -to-load page even though I pay through the nose for a commercial grade FiOS connection which loads movies faster than 1 lousy photo on your site.

No, you mainly suck because it has been a month and you still haven't fixed, or explained why you can't fix, the web statistics I pay dearly for and my 40+ listing clients expect.

Web Stats

I can't tell you how degrading it is to endure all of it. Telling my clients that I have a "trouble ticket" opened doesn't quite cut it. Maybe you don't understand that some people list their homes with me expecting this stuff to work. Maybe you don't understand that many of our clients are freaking out as it is and this contributes to, rather than helps solve, the problems of those who PAY YOUR BILLS. It has been a month and this still isn't fixed. And this is a public post because the public needs to know the frustration that I and my colleagues have with you.

If you were surgeon, the patient would have died.

If you were an airline pilot, the plane would have crashed.

As my late brother used to say, compact your fecal matter. Seriously.

J. Philip Faranda, Broker-owner, J. Philip Real Estate, LLC. 2010 Vice President, Westchester Putnam MLS. Read my short sale bog here. J. Philip Serves Briarcliff Manor, Ossining, Croton, the River Towns, Westchester County, and the bedroom counties of New York City.

Subscribe to the 40 Somethings Group. Reach Phil at (914) 723-8900.

Posted by J Philip Faranda on 03/06/2009 06:52 AM

Comments (20)

Realtor.com in the Online Marketing Channel

realtorcom, web statistics, realtorcom problems

Originally posted at: J. Philip's Briarcliff, Ossining & Westchester Real Estate Blog: An Open Letter to Realtor.com

This post has been included in New York Information Westchester County, NY Information Briarcliff Manor, NY Information
Post is included in group: We are pissed off and not going to take it anymore!
Post is included in group: The Vent
Post is included in group: Realtors®
Post is included in group: Rainmaking - Internet Marketing Strategies
Post is included in group: Diary of a Realtor

20 Comments on An Open Letter to Realtor.com

MAR

:) That's why I am not there.

Calm down. . they seem to be doing something good for a change. . check this out:

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=58916485996&h=mShiz&u=tFANJ

See if the OTHER portals will give you this much support

Fernando.

That's nice, but it doesn't fix the rather substantial prblems I outline. Moreover, if that new feature breaks down like the rest invariably do, it is just another letdown.

That's why I'm not there either.

Philip, it appears that the reporting function has started working again. It was down for over three weeks and was getting me pretty upset also. Their Tech Support was very, very unfriendly. I have yet to be notified that it is back up and working as they repeatedly promised to do.

Realtor.com isn't great, but all of the agents around here are on it so we are as well. Sellers here in Cleveland do expect a presence on it. I hope your problems work out.

Thank you NAR

I agree, and you probably haven't heard, but many MLSs and individual brokers have stopped feeding their data to that type of site. You haven't heard about it because they buy all the media, so there are limited (blocked) reports of data loss. Other sites of the same type are also tying up the media.

If you are interested, I am a broker. I began to link to listing agent sites on my own 9 years ago for free, because of my problems with R. com. I pay teenagers to look at real estate sites, identify where the site owner's listings are, and we directly link to them from the towns their personal listings are in.

Somebody that is a broker has to provide some support for us listing brokers and agents. I decided 9 years ago I would be one. You don't need to send me you link if you are above this comment, I will add your sites to the list of ones we will visit soon. If you comment after me, and we haven't found your site yet, send me your domain and we'll look it over. (the site I run is REindex.com)

Happy listing and selling!

If our board and members had a spine or thought outside of the box they would stop giving our data to R.com. For $30/month an agent can get an generic template web site that will provide way more exposure for a sellers listings... R.com does not even show up for local real estate searches... stop wasting money on them and lets put them out of their misery. The $ spent on R.com can be put to so much better and effective use with way more return.

I have never tried to use R.com because I have rarely heard good things about it. I think your issues should have been addressed within 48hours, for the kind of money you are paying. JMHO

This should be a popular view!

I think it's wrong - If we are all members, we should be equally viewed on Realtor.com - because of who it is put out by - there are enough other sites with fees, etc. for us to promote ourselves on.

It shouldn't take a genious to figure out that only the top selling agents can afford to give realtor.com $3000 a year to be featured agent and have your listings featured. It's tough enough to try to get established when you have limited funds to spread around.

On the bright side, a lot of customers are using other sites that are much more user friendly and quicker to load - some of us are still on DIAL UP and may be for a long time to come!!!!!!!!

Featured in The Vent for superb use of the word "suck".

Realtor.com definitely does suck.

MAR

I'm just going to ditto. That's why I'm not there also!!

MAR

Wow J you just wrote the blog I have been thinking about for weeks! I had a call from Realtor.com several weeks ago (or should I say 1 of 1000 calls since they only wait 5 minutes for you to call back before they call again)asking me why I was not renewing. Now, I did not have the exact same reasons as yours but alot of it amounted to the same things and they were paid (through our office) over $6000 last year. The person on the phone had the nerve to say to me that without my paid Realtor.com service that not only would I not sell anything without the enhanced features (your listings show up no matter what) but the listings would not be noticed like the enhanced listings would so I was doing myself a disservice. Then when I told him for what I was spending with them I was getting (I felt) ZIP he told me that all of our listings "must be overpriced." Otherwise they would have sold if they were on Realtor.com's enhanced package. Obviously in Realtor.com land...there is no recession and things sell as soon as there is an "enhanced package applied." You took the bull by the horns and said what I have been thinking about doing for the past few weeks. Good for you!

You can get approx 200x more leads off google PPC than realtor.com for the exact same money.

MAR

We should all stop with the worst real estate site ever. It does nothing except take money. On the other hand, we should all be broker owners of our MLS, but that is another story.

MAR

Phillip, If you think you've had problems with Realtor.com, then you should surely stay away from homes.com. They are one million times worse than Realtor.com.

Both companies have gotten a bunch of my money and I have never gotten a lead from any of the fancy banner ads, the featured listings - nothing.

But home.com-----I can't even tell you what a nightmare that was. They kept hittingmy credit card for payments for a service they never provided. I finally got my money back - but only after I attended a seminar for about 200 brokers where a speaker was touting Homes.com. At the break I found him and gave him a little taste of what I had been going through. I then told him I planned to stand up in the seminar and tell everyone else what an encredible ripoff homes.com was. He said he would personally contact the CEO of homes.com and have my money refunded and he did! I had been trying to get my money back for over a year and they were only responding sporactically with empty promises. The day I got my money back was a happy one!

Wish I could get my money back from Realtor.com, but they have provided the service. It just hasn't worked.

APR

I never tried Realtor.com but heard enough horror stories from my colleague that had her website through them too. What a nightmare!

AUG

You may want to try something that works in contrast... Point2agent.com... from basic web sites up to completely custom... even in their most basic form they offer built in virtual tours, slide shows, listings syndication, lead generation, prospect handling, and much more... all that for 10 bucks a month!!!... and if you need a really good customizer for Point2agent.com get in touch with www.hjswebdesign.com... fast, affordable and reliable... and good luck with R.com...

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