Last November, Danilo and I began blogging in earnest. In the ensuing twelve months we have thoroughly embraced Real Estate 2.0. We currently write 3 different real estate blogs for 3 different audiences. We utilize both major Social Media outlets (Facebook and Myspace) and we have online resumes at LinkedIn. Our listings are posted on more than 20 different online websites and we generate leads from a variety of online sources including our real estate blogs. We make our money by selling real estate. We are full time agents who rely on lead generation and lead conversion to earn a living. Since the first of the year, we have been involved in the buying, selling and/or leasing of 43 properties with a combined GCI of $625,000.
This is our report card on products, services, websites, companies and organizations that we have worked with or used in the past twelve months. This analysis is based on our personal experience. Most agents would stick a nice fat disclaimer right about here that says something along the lines of "this is not an endorsement or criticism of any product and the views are entirely our own and are for entertainment purposes" or some other garbage. We are not going to do that. These are our opinions and they are based on real world experience. We did not try every product out there but we stand by the analysis of the ones we did use.
Blogging Platforms and Sites
TypePad - We tried out several different platforms and chose typepad. For only 9 bucks a month it gave us exactly what we wanted. It was easy to use and inexpensive. We have since upgraded to the 15 dollar a month plan to accomodate all 3 of our blogs. Although, you can use Blogger for free and people say that WordPress is better. But we have had no complaints with TypePad.
Active Rain - This is the site that we got our feet wet on. It was great for about 3 months and we recommend newbies start out on Active Rain to see if you have what it takes to be a blogger. If you find out that you like blogging, you will definitely want to move off on your own. In the mean time, you can polish your writing skills there and take advantage of the search engine optimization (SEO) Active Rain provides. I haven't posted on their site since March yet, my Active Rain profile is still the first result in a google search of my name.
Blogging Systems - This is a company that is owned by the author of Realty Blogging. I will tell you right now to not waste your money. They set up a community blog for us that has cost us over $3000 and has not generated one dollar. It is a waste of money. In fact, I would highly recommend you avoid any online service or company that locks you in for any time period, let alone a full year. If a company requires you to sign up for a minimum amount of time, it is probably because they have a product or service that you will want to get rid of in less than 30 days. If the product was any good, they wouldn't need to lock people in.
Feedburner - We use this company to generate subscribers for our blogs by making it easier for people to stay on top of our latest posts. Feedburner also helps us track our progress in the blogging world. It's free and it works great. Never had a problem.
Real Estate Listing Websites and Aggregators
Number1Expert - This is the only aggregator site we pay to put our listings on and it is the second best lead generating source for us behind our own website. It costs $60 per week to list all of our houses on all of their affiliate sites. We pay that for the convenience of submitting our listings once and having them get listed on 20+ sites. They redirect about 60 leads a month to us and so far this year we have generated about $30,000 in commissions from their leads. Just like any lead generated online, it is not a very qualified lead. But you only need one deal to pay for the whole year.
Craigslist - We put all our properties on Craigslist, but we get the most activity from our rental properties. That seems to be their audience so if you have a house to rent, this is the best place to advertise it.
Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, et al - We put all these sites together because they all do the same thing for our business, which is virtually nothing. We get very few, if any, leads from all the homes listed on these sites. This year we have sent 103 listings to all three sites and they have in turn sent us 8 leads. If you think you will get leads from these sites, think again. Maybe you need to pay them a bunch of money, but we are not willing to do that. If they would guarantee us a number of leads like Number1Expert, I might consider it. But they won't guarantee anything.
Lead Aggregators
Housevalues.com - This is the biggest ripoff site of them all. Any agent who is unwise enough paying them for leads deserves what they get. And what they will get is nothing. Housevalues, a scam organization that passes out "Mickey Mouse" leads (literally), gives real estate and real estate agents a bad name. We gave them $500 and got recycled leads. The "leads" were people that had no intention of buying or selling their homes, had already been contacted by several other agents over the past 3 months and were sorry they ever signed up with Housevalues.com. Once we had this experience with housevalues I didn't dare try HomeGain so we can't speak about their practices.
Keyword Search
Google Adwords - We used to use a company to manage our keyword search program until June. We paid them to generate traffic to our site via the 3 main search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN. In June we moved it in house and it has turned out that we have been overpaying by about $2000 a month for the previous 3 years. We get the same amount of traffic and leads by spending $500 and managing the account ourselves versus paying the other company $2500 per month and wondering why our leads kept dwindling. We were told that we would never be able to manage an account the size of ours (50 keywords on 3 search engines) but it turns out it was a lot easier than people said it would be.
Off-Line Resources
Realty Blogging (book) - This was a great resource when we first started blogging. However, I have since found out that almost everything in the book can be found on-line. So save your money and just do your own research.
Tony - This is probably one of THE best posts I have ever read. I'm in the middle of tracking various things myself and now I fully plan to integrate a couple of things you and Danilo have done. Some of your experience simply proved what you suspected. Others surprised you. That is excellent. Thank you for sharing. I in turn will do the same thing in the Spring of next year.
Posted by: Christina Ethridge | November 12, 2007 at 09:53 AM
Christina, I am glad you found the post informative. We look forward to your analysis next year. Let us know if you are working with any good companies in the meantime.
Posted by: Tony Arko | November 12, 2007 at 11:24 AM
Your trial and error in blogging and on the Web provides great insight into what works and what doesn't. Great post!
Posted by: Erin | November 12, 2007 at 10:27 PM
Lead aggregation and lead generation models have, in the opinion of REALonomics.net, been a dead model for some time. Brokerage firms have adopted Internet business models that are merely extensions of their bricks-and-mortar models operating in static markets. We should be developing market-management models that can compete for new money in open markets beyond the confines of our secluded, defined and controlled local markets. Our websites are nothing more than necessary evils, rather than true consumer-centric business models designed to operate effectively in the "New Real Estate Economy." Brokers should be looking at open market models such as www.ePartnerUSA.com and www.CityBlogUSA.com which now work in tandem to expand an owners brand and influence across broad horizontal markets. The reason leads are not generated is because the new mandate from the consumer is transparency and information access about all things real estate. The "Non-Brokers" such as Trulia, Zillow, Housevalues, etc., are designed with the same fundamental flaw; our insatiable appetite for "leads" instead of "conversations" and this is why they fail most of the time. Too much of our industry still adheres to the old line selling model that existing from 1950-1994 (the year of the Internet for real estate). When are we going to start understanding that our model is counter-grained to what the consumer wants and begin to create the new streamlined, highly effective conversational models that can actually produce better sustained ROI than our current retail-labor model? REALonomics
Posted by: REALonomics | November 29, 2007 at 09:34 AM
I have been looking itno this card whenevr dealingwith a newagent. I find that it really helps to see what these agenat have been upto
Posted by: Estate Agents Finder | January 21, 2008 at 08:28 AM
this blog of yours really help. people will know what are the dos and don't in this kind of 'business'
Posted by: socorro | November 09, 2011 at 06:33 AM