Mon 4 Dec 2006
NWMLS stops feed to Realtor.com (still)
Posted by Marlow Harris under Real Estate
[5] Comments
As I discussed several months ago, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service is discontinuing its feed to Realtor.com. Audrey Cohen of the Seattle P.I. did an in-depth story about this, and Joel Burslem at The Future of Real Estate Marketing comments upon this move.
I have such mixed feelings about this, as I would really, really like to support my trade organization, the National Association of Realtors. However, I just wish Realtor.com was a non-profit website rather than a separate money-making venture, functioning more like our local public MLS site, just there to serve as a congregator, and not an advertising vehicle and means and method to sell more ads to us Realtors and our leads back to us.
Cohen’s story quotes Mike Skahen, owner of Lake and Co. Real Estate and a Northwest MLS board member. He’s upset about the move and feels that it was done to shut out small companies like his. “Big real estate companies that control the Northwest MLS board want to impede competition on Realtor.com and, more importantly, Google”, said Skahen. He also said it would be “ridiculously inefficient” and more expensive to have brokers send listings on their own into Realtor.com.
I’m sure he’s a nice man, but I believe he is mistaken. Even if the larger firms have colluded and conspired to veto the MLS feed to Realtor.com because they think it will benefit them in some way, it won’t and he should rejoice, as he and his firm will now have a marketing edge. He can send his owns firms listings to Realtor.com, Google, Trulia or wherever else he thinks will benefit him, and then use that as an advertising advantage over the competition. For instance, Windermere will not send a feed to Realtor.com and Coldwell Banker Bain will not send a feed to Google and if Skahen’s firm sends to both, he can use that to his advantage when trying to get listings. It won’t cost any more, as I see his website already has a feed through Logical Dog. This is a non-problem for his firm and for any other firm out there. It’s MORE freedom, not less.
For even smaller firms than Lake & Company, it may take a few bucks, but if they don’t have a website yet and have been relying on Realtor.com to get leads, perhaps this will motivate them to get it together.
For less than $500 you can get a very nice, interactive, multi-page, customizable website from companies like Z57, Inc., Advanced Access, or Superlative. Or you can even get a free site from Ubertor.
You can add Real Bird to the basic site, as they use a integration of a Map-based MLS Search service with the Northwest MLS (NWMLS) IDX feed, and this could be an inexpensive way for a small firm to put an interactive map on their site without a lot of fuss. It’s only $159 a year and exports listings to Google Base, Edgeio and, it says, “1000′s of syndication partners”.
And Zillow had a little blurb about Mike Rice (Eferi Web Development) who has come up with a way to add Zestimates, charts, beds/baths and historical sales data to websites in a very easy way. Mike has offered to help web site owners add this functionality for $49 to the first 50 interested people.
Combine that with Logical Dog’s easy MLS feeds for about the same price, and you’ve got a great real estate website for less than $500 and at a cost of less than $100 a month.
Smaller firms should empower themselves and take their marketing and success into their own hands. Instead of handing their destiny to an outside entity, they should grab the reins and take control of their business and its future. Take the money that would be spent on buying leads or advertising on portal sites and build your own site and work your own leads. Learn or hire someone to assist with SEO. If it’s a small town you’re working in, you won’t have much competition and should rise to the top in organic search in a short period of time. Jump start your leads with some PPC, put your website URL on everything you print, publish and advertise in or on, and do some high-profile community programs with your new website prominently displayed. Create original content for your website, add some information about the local area and different neighborhoods in the towns served. Exchange links with other real estate companies around the state. Start a blog with real estate information about the towns you serve. Perhaps lease a moving truck with your website splashed across the side and drive it all around town and advertise that the use of the truck is free when they use your services. Join clubs and social service organizations and make sure all your agents do the same. It’s a people-to-people business, after all, and no website, no matter how cool or hi-tech will replace the personal touch.
If you take control, these changes are great opportunities to grow and build a business and forces you to assess the direction and vision of your firm. The larger companies may have more money behind them, but there will always be room for the small independent, locally-owned real estate brokerage.
December 4th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Great post Marlow. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
December 4th, 2006 at 10:03 am
OK…
The problem is the time it takes to maintain the site once you own it. The ramp up time from my own little experiment is between three to six months. In your case, from the amount of content you have, it had to have taken years.
Lake and Company has been fighting the good fight for many years now. They have a tight knit group of good agents, in my opinion. Now they are faced with a whole new set of marketing tools that they may not have the time to implement. The money is one thing, but the technology changes and moves so rapidly it’s hard to keep track. A large company or group of large companies can dedicate a staff or even a couple of people to keeping up with technology. On my new site the people working on it are asking for an IDX link. I don’t want to use my company’s link because it sucks. I want new interactive top of the line searches. The problem isn’t finding a link it’s choosing which link to use. A year ago I would use what I could get, today I have to find a way to stay ahead of the curve.
I’m no longer asking if it’s all worth it. You are right this is the business as it is today. The internet is by far the thing people use to get Real Estate information. The problem, as I see it, is if people are looking beyond the big household names for that information. A large company can easily dominate the internet with an allocation of resources. Once they do that what chance does a Lake and Company have when they maybe telling buyers and sellers a different message than what the internet dominate companies are telling the public?
December 4th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Dave, I love ya, but you’re wrong. Once you get the site set up, it takes a minimal amount of time to maintain it. On the big local sites (Windermere, et al) nothing ever changes except the listings, and that’s fed by a feed. It is basically a static site. The reason I’m always adding content to my little site is because #1 It’s mine, #2. I can, #3 I need to add content to differentiate it from everyone else’s site and #4 It’s a reflection of ME, that is constantly changing, thinking, doing, being. What I do with my own personal website is NOT what a large brokerage should do. It’s apples and oranges.
Anyway, go ahead and use your company’s feed. The “feed” doesn’t suck, just the implementation. Your tech guys from India (or wherever) should be able to take the feed and turn it in to whatever you want. Anyway, you don’t have any choice, you HAVE to use your brokers feed. MLS rules. End of story. Read what I wrote in the post. YOU CAN HAVE A DECENT SITE FOR LESS THAN $100 A MONTH.
Windermere has the most money because it has the most AGENTS and the agents make the money for them. It doesn’t make the money because it has the best website. It’s the agents who come first and the money follows. Basic chicken-or-the-egg stuff here. Trust me on that.
December 4th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Marlow-
Great post (I agree with Joel). From a business perspective, I’m almost always in favor of controlling your own destiny if at all possible (in this case-a broker controlling their own website).
December 5th, 2006 at 9:36 am
OK…
Let’s start with the John L. Scott site which has the home search function on thier web site that improves constantly. As I understand it Lennox Scott is attending every board meeting that will let him in. I don’t know that for a fact, that’s just a rumor. The Windermere site changes regularly and they are now googling thier listings.
The national companies have hundreds of individual web sites that they help create for thier agents to help them have an internet presence. In that regard the content does change. They are also household names that naturally draw in searches by name recognition.
You are right any individual or small company can develop an internet presence to generate leads. Redfin comes to mind immediately. Redfin in my opinion has nothing to do with Real Estate or the Real Estate business, but they are taking a market share. Redfin is an internet based business model. They used some of the cheapest advertising imaginable to gain notarity. That little company hired a guy to go to our government with some complaint I have yet to figure out. The reality is that the company is a discount brokerage who pays the customer so they can fill out forms. Brilliant business model that focuses on a small segment of our work as Real Estate agents.
In the mix of all of this is, again my opinion, that Lake and Company is a fine company that I think does a very good job. How is the owner of a little company like that going to acheive an internet presence without spending a considerable amount of time? I would think it would be much cheaper to just buy into an internet presence even if you didn’t generate leads. It’s something that your agents can point to as a marketing tool. I would think that an affiliation with an internet presence is better than no presence at all.