Anyone notice the new ad for the Lead Genie on active rain? You must have seen it. The blue guy with ear rings that says:
Leads! Leads! Leads!
If you have been in this business long enough you know there is an entire layer of the real estate industry that has nothing to do with being a real estate agent or broker. It is the part of the business that has the goal of doing one thing:
Sucking money out of the wallets of us agents!
When I first started out in real estate 7 years ago I paid for google ads. It worked great and I closed deals. Except most of my profits on the deals I closed went to paying for google ads!
The past year or so I tried the Zillow premeir agent program. I closed deals from it and it has paid for itself. BUT MOST OF MY PROFITS WENT TO ZILLOW. I am in the process of trimming way back on my zillow advertising now as my contracts expire.
I'm tired of working for other companies!
I got into real estate to work for myself. I'm in business to make a living for me and to help my clients. I'm not in it for making money for google, zillow, Trulia, active rain, and the other endless sites out there that just want to suck money out of agents. Yes, some sites are great tools for agents and I will continue to use those sites that add value to my business and make me more productive.
Paying for leads is another story and you can quickly lose a fortune paying for leads as an agent.
In 2012 I'm shifting gears and using what I have been taught at eXp Realty and Working the Magic. I'm building my own real estate IDX sites and generating my own business. I am already starting to generate real estate leads throughout Massachusetts and I'm in the process of launching a New Hampshire state wide site as well.
I'm not a programmer. I'm not a web design guru. I'm not a graphic designer. I'm not an search engine expert. I'm just an agent that has a great company behind with great training. I'm just following what I was taught and I'm saying no to the wallet suckers out there from now on!
Lead generation services are just like real estate agents - some are better than others. Unfortunately for both the consumer hooking up with an agent and the agent signing up with a service, oftentimes you have to try them yourself before knowing if you had found a good one or not.
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