Bonzai Real Estate Blog

Is anyone keeping statistics? I don't know of one buyer that has told me they saw a listing on Trulia/ Zillow/ etc. and wanted more information about it.

How much of their traffic is made up voyuers, real estate agents and home owners checking their listings? It would be good to know before I tell a seller they HAVE to be on these sites. When I look at Trulia Voices or the discussion format on Zillow for my area, I have found only a very insignificant few interested in Savannah and I have never received an inquiry from my profiles or the EZ ad I tried on Zillow.

I suppose I created the wrong ad or I didn't participate long enough or often enough, but I don't buy that. The problem is that buyers aren't directed to agents -- there is no good connection. This is not the purpose of these sites -- they are  not concerned about connecting me with buyers. In Zillow's case they even have a format that discourages buyers from contacting me -- the discussion board. Ah, but this is transparency -- it's the web 2.0 market place. Voices and discussions in the real world brought to cyber-land at the low, low cost of $0.00.

All the while our pretty pictures of homes are used as bait to draw the voices and discussions and the dueling diggers and the celebrity freaks and the zestimate hounds and the looky-loos and traffic, traffic, traffic for ads, ads, ads. And what do I and my seller get out this -- $0.00. Zillow/Trulia etc gets web 2.0 buzz and we get inaccuracy, obscurity and no results.

RE web 2.0 considers realtors at best a necessary evil (this is my opinion). We are unreasonable and selfish and out of contact with the new market place -- we don't understand how Gen X rolls. We must flow with the new wave and then we'll understand -- just give the listings and you will see, dear realtor -- become one with transparency and you will blend into the cosmic forces at work and then you will be enlightened -- there will be light and song -- the old will die and the new will rise in a harmonic balance where the marketplace will erase distinctions and all will be good. And advertiseres will love it! Why? Well, because it's cool and stuff.

RE web 2.0 Listing Sites had a good chance of taking real estate services to a new level, but that won't happen -- purposes are at odds. The actual people working in the real esate industry will need to take it to the next level and Zillow/Trulia etc. will be only a small part of that. I quit using print ads because they are no longer a viable tool for homes sales -- I'm not sure they were ever very effective -- everyone just thought they had to be in the magazines. Farming and local relationship building was far more effective.

I know this seems like Zillow/Trulia etc. bashing, and I have had some fun with concepts, but I'm making a point that was brought up by Galen and discussed at length on Bloodhound -- Rudy seems to imply that agents need to be on Trulia/Zillow etc. because they are all growing, and in order to do what's best for the seller it's less important to criticize the players as it is to go along and just do it -- give 'em the listings and do what's right.

I don't buy it. I think we as real estate agents need to strengthen our websites and direct web presence, utilize the best  offline markeing methods and create networks among ourselves in order to do what's best for our clients -- and if all the Listing Sites folded tomorrow it wouldn't put a dent in our businesses. The Listing Sites are in a totally different business -- use them if it's free, or decide to not feed them because it strengthens them, pushes us off the search results and leads buyers to places like Zillow's discussions where agents are bashed -- either way, the industry is ours to make of it what we will.

I personally don't care what they do, I'm going about my business with a plan in mind and it doesn't include Listing Sites - I don't feel captive to them because they haven't proved effective in being a viable marketing tool, at least not in Savannah. I personally think the buzz is over and the time has come to re-evaluate where the whole industry is headed -- what's useful, what's not. For me, they are not useful -- technologically interesting, but not useful.