Property Management
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The Real Reason You Can"t Have Listings On Your Site
Jim Fowler suggested that "In our opinion, the best and most economically efficient manner for a Realtor to keep up with the significant changes underway in their industry is to become a customer of Homestore.com. It is incumbent upon management to align themselves with these Realtors and offer them products that will enhance the consumer experience." Too bad Realtor.com is prohibited from doing just that, because its competitors aren"t so encumbered. Homeseekers.com has a program that has proven very popular with agents in which all the local listings are shared. The CityNet feature puts the listing first, and the broker"s and listings agent"s information second. The listings are framed on the Homeseekers" customer"s site, giving any agent who wants to take advantage something in their basket to sell and a lead capture tool. Would you like to see this listing? Cyberhomes, a VistaInfo subsidiary, is working on developing a similar feature for its database; coupled with the National MLS database platform, that could make VistaInfo a much more serious competitor to Homestore than it has been in the past. Homes.com and Homeadvisor get their listings direct from cooperating MLSs, feeder companies, and from brokers and agents. Move.com is in a unique position of strength to take on Realtor.com. While it is under contract to share listings with Homestore for another two years, that arrangement could be leveraged to Move.com"s advantage even more when the contract runs out. With three of the largest brands under the Cendant/Move.com roof, the companies could easily form their own pre-MLS. By enabling their agents to post listings directly to the Internet, brands such as the Cendant brands, RE/MAX and Prudential can easily outrun and outwit the slower MLS-bound systems, giving them faster, cleaner inventories of listings. By having a critical mass of listings because of brand loyalty, they are also capable of hurting the independent brokers in their markets. So far the brands have not used the advantage of speedier, fresher, and more accurate listings, and they have stayed out of the listings wars, but they won"t much longer. They have leverage, and no reason not to use it. So it all goes back to the individual broker. Where should their loyalties lie? To self? to the N.A.R. and its partners? to the franchise brand? What about the agent? No matter what the revenue model is for the broker, MLS, the brands, or the N.A.R., nobody is going to meet their Internet goals if the individual agent can"t make money on the Internet. Agents are spending too much money trying to conquer the Internet and they aren"t getting the results they were hoping for. The deck"s too stacked against them. Brokers, it"s time to take off the handcuffs and free your agents to make money on the Internet. Start with your own MLS and vote for broker reciprocity. Preapprove the vendors so the brokers will retain control over the integrity of the listing information. Keep the listing broker"s name and contact information on the listings. Let your agents publish all the MLS listings on their Web sites. If you allowed a large listings service to publish your listings for your own personal profit, you should do the same for your own agents. What goes around will come around, and the agents will be the better off for it.Pages: 1 [2]