Home Buyers, that Information is just a Urine Specimen & Retina Scan Away.

Amazingly, I still see listing information provided on some Realtor sites (both big and small, national and local) accessed in a way that puzzles me. I mean I understand the "WHY" of it, I just don't understand the logic of it. So maybe you can help.

So I look to the realtor community to shed their insight on this perplexity. How does RESTRICTING access to a listing's information and photos on a realtor's web site help a property sell? Why, on some sites, is it still required that a potential buyer first provide private contact information before unlocking a listing's sales information and photos?

While, home staging is what I do, a Marketer is what I am. As a Marketer I have always said, "You gotta market it before you sell it!" Marketer "Me" finds it counter intuitive to lock out and discourage ANYONE from viewing a home's listing information and photos. I can see how once, when the web was a smaller less connected place, this approach may have made sense. But let's face it, time does march on, and as it does, the "what, why and how" of a Real Estate website must be evolve and embrace today's markets, trends & technologies.

In today's world of listing marketing, Realtor websites need to provide access to listing information that takes into consideration the following:

• Ours is a culture of immediate impatience. Like it or not, we want it now... on our time schedule.
  
  
• The levees have broken and the market is flooded. With so much inventory out there, it is easy for a buyer to click away from the listing and your site, as if saying saying, "No big deal, there's plenty more."
  
  
• That's just "old school" fool. Buyer's are not technological dolts. Every day shoppers freely access information on products and services they are interested in buying from sites in every industry... INCLUDING real estate.
  
  
• We are leery of what is beyond that "SUBMIT" button. Face it, buyers care less about THAT locked listing then they do about their privacy.
  
  
• There are no "tire-kickers" or "nosy neighbors" on the web! Well, there are... but who cares? Its the web.
  
  
• Buyers who take an on-line look will cost you nothing. Not looking could cost you a sale.

I am sure there are plenty more reason why it is a good idea to have open listing information on Realtor websites... but then again maybe not. Either way, I would be curious to get other's spin on this.

But as it stands for me right now, when you strip away all the mumbo jumbo it comes down to this... If you got a prospect (hot, warm or cool) at the door, ringing the bell, wanting to come in to look around, why would you stop them?

Me