Realty Times: "Realtor.com isn't bringing any game." Ouch.

I canned Realtor.com a year ago.  THEY need to KNOW they are NOT the only kid on the block to play with.

Not surprising to me at all! Not wild about Zillow either, because of the property value search being so far to the left or right. Seems to give many sellers a "false" sense of what their property values truly are. Many do NOT read the print stating that Zillow's figures are not accurate in all areas. If they want to use Zillow, they need to read the facts stated there. I'm not trying to slam Zillow, but it does make it difficult on Realtors.

I agree that realtor.com needs to do something about its fees and what it offers for its fees. They get a lot more than they give back.  Our MLS listings go directly to realtor ... a complete inventory. However, Zillow?  I was surprised!  Zillow competes with Realtors and provides misinformation to the public re: home values. 

More to the point, I believe, is that the real estate community needs to somehow "convince" realtor.com that it is not giving us what we want at a price we can bear.  I think I read that we will be getting 4 photos instead of 1 with the standard listing.  Perhaps, this is a beginning.

I read the article this morning ... good post, Spencer.

I think it's good to have additional information that allows us to analyze how to best spending our marketing dollars.  Thanks,

Spencer, Blanche really calls it as she sees it. I have never been willing to pay Realtor.com to display my listings. There are so many other effective ways - including Zillow and  Truila...;)

Realtor.com website to me is not impressive. And I think that they can do wayyy better than what they have. Maybe they should talk to people at Zillow and Trulia and ask them what they are doing because apparently what they are doing works. Great post.

Realtor.com website to me is not impressive. And I think that they can do wayyy better than what they have. Maybe they should talk to people at Zillow and Trulia and ask them what they are doing because apparently what they are doing works. Great post.

Spencer, Blanche is right on the money. realtor.com is waaaay behind the times. Not only Zillow but Cyberhomes as well are leaving them in the dust. Cyberhomes is the sleeping giant in my opinion.

God I totally agree! They are so behind the times it's pathetic. They are also (Realtor.com) trying to get my company to do an entire agent scenario for a lower price.  We voted it down.  I personally don't bother with anything in Realtor.com except to add a tour which the buyers now expect.  They don't offer me a thing in the way of innovation.  It's a shame that they are "connected" with us & "disconnected" with us at the same time!

Hate Zillow!

Realtor.com gets a lot of traffic and the name is recongizable.  It is very sad that our national association who should have provided this information as a benefit to its members instead allows r.com to gauge its members.

Realtor.com has been around for so long, and now it's taking advantage of us all with their fees.  I pay for thier site because it's almost like I HAVE TO.

I've said this before, when I go on a listing appointment, I ask the seller where would they MOST like their listing to appear?  Well, when they quit saying realtor.com, I'll try whatever they tell me.

Most people I talk to never heard of Zillow.

I quit doing enhanced listings this past year, hasn't hurt one bit. I still think consumers think of it. Love Blanches articles, glad she said it.

Hi Spencer - thanks for bringing Blanche's article to our attention.  I had missed that one somehow.

I pay to enhance my listings on R.com, and just got a notice to renew.  Still thinking about whether to do it or not.  I do get leads from it, and have made money from my listings being up there in the enhanced state.  I like the stats I get on each of my listings up there, and I like that I can add so many pictures.  But, do I like having to pay for that?  Not one bit, but I consider it one of the places that my marketing money spent actually does bring me a return.  That's not to say I'll continue doing that forever. 

There are plenty of free places to put our listings, but very few of them have the name recognition and exposure that R.com has, for the moment.

Ann

While I do think Zillow has a few things it needs to address, it sure does beat the poop out of R.com.  But, is that really an accomplishment?

Spencer: Seems like Zillow is starting to do very well. I keep hearing about it

We used to use Realtor.com and their enhanced feed, but all that seemed to enhance was our money into their pocket. We never got any leads that were of any substance by paying for the added features there.

Well it does appear their pricing per company is more cost effective than each agent being charged separately - But if Zillow offers that much - We should be there too - I'm checking my Zillow account NOW!

The simple answers to Blanche's qustion  is "eyeballs".

Realtor.com is the most visited real estate specific website.

"comScore ranking of total unique visitors for December 2007: Rank Site

1 REALTOR.COM(R)

2 MSN Real Estate

3 Yahoo! Real Estate

4 Rent.com

5 Apartments.com

6 Homegain.com

7 Trulia.com

8 Servicemagic.com

9 HPCInter@active

10 Zillow.com"

Thank you to everyone who posted about this topic.

For the last 10 years I have been paying for the Enhanced Listing Package with Realtor.com - and for this I have gotten - 0 - nada - nothing - nuthin of value because of it. I too think there are too many competing sites out there that are just as good as REALTOR.com that get just as much exposure.

I think on Nov 1 - I am going to say BuhBye to Realtor.com!