Is anyone else noticing that the Internet buyers are getting more and more elusive and more and more difficult as buyers? I know each area is different in our huge country but I live in an area of where we have constant turnover.
I wish we had a way to boycott come of the "big boys" of Real Estate on the Internet. They buyers and sellers of today are BOMBARED with multiple agents contacting them. No wonder it is only the least experienced that actually provide a phone number.
For any of you that might be going ...huh? Let me say that I formally was a V. P. of Sales for several start-up companies and had the great opportunity to work in a startup Dot Com Company. Here I learned all about the Internet. So, when I started into real estate I immediately adopted the Internet for marketing and setting up my own website. I think they call that an early adopter? Anyway no one else in my office had a website, not even the office. No one was buying zip codes, only me. Then management started seeing that I was closing sales, and a lot of them, from Internet buyers. I had 100% of several zip codes and it was GREAT!
Then...first I got a call from one provided saying "well now we have so much activity in your zip code that we have provided another opportunity and we will offer it to you first (30 days after the original 100% purchase). I could not afford to pay double so I said no thanks. So now I have 50% and I am sharing it with another agent. Then I get a call from the same provider and they say they are separating out another zip code in the "100% area I had (very tiny area with higher end homes) and did I want that, since it would no longer be in the area I was paying for. So I bought it. And received ZERO leads.
It got to the point in our office that three or four of us would be sitting around and we would all receive a call and it would be for the same lead. They were selling first 50% and then they devised other ways to make more money. Bottom line now the Internet is so diluted with agents looking for leads that I have started not renewing non-performing companies. One by one I am giving up what prime for leads and going in other directions.
This is only fair to the Internet companies that swoop through he MLS taking all new leads and never coming back for an update or status or a sold. In my state it is up to the agent that never put it on the site in the first place, to keep the information correct.
So now there is another business that will do that for you. Brought to you by new entpreneurs that charge by the listing and have a maintenance fee to keep the data correct for you.
So this sound like an old bag of wind talking (or whining) but I feel that something must be done to make this more reasonable for all parties. Agents that pay for it and buyers and sellers that are bombarded with agents following up, etc.are all beginning to be the losers. The only one laughing all the way to the bank are the companies that have built these easy to use systems to search for homes.
How do I suggest you all help with this? First, if you participate in this process, talk and tell the Managers how you feel. Discuss it with your local Associations and even take it to your State Associations. Remember when one of us decides we have had enough, there is another agent waiting in the wings to spend money they may never recover.
In the beginning it was a great thing to buy into now it is a money pit with longer contracts and no guarantees of "clicks" but only the elulive number of "impressions" or how many times you will show up on the page. It is now more smoke and mirrors of agents and as for me, as each of my contracts come up for renewal I am assessing what works and what does not and the do not’s are gone and will be replace with good hard work, using the phone again.
Is anyone else out there seeing this too? Or this area specific to my area?
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