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Old 10-02-2007, 09:53 AM
 
Location: Williamsburg
1,194 posts, read 3,963,914 times
Reputation: 424

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Our company pays for enhanced listings for all agents, believing that the additional exposure is well worth the cost !
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Old 10-02-2007, 10:19 AM
 
Location: Montana
2,203 posts, read 9,298,016 times
Reputation: 1130
In my area - Realtor.com automatically pulls the main photo from MLS plus a few criteria about the house, i.e. # of bdrms, # of baths, sq ft, etc. Not much info, tho. If you have a Virtual Tour, you can generally upload that, if it's a good quality one that's "approved" by Realtor.com.

With the "enhanced" realtor.com listing (which, btw, I'm very fortunate in that my broker pays for our office), you can post and/or change out multiple photos (I think it's 8), plus one of the nicest features - we can post our own ad copy about the home and use banners and scrolling marquees.

As a buyer, which home would you spend more time looking at on realtor.com - the one with one pic of the exterior and the description, 3 bdrm, 1.75 ba, 1790 sf, built in 1993 . . .
or the home with mulitple pics, a virtual tour, a banner that reads "Moutain Views from your Private Deck" and a scrolling marquee that reads "Best Value in Pine Knolls Estates" and then copy that makes you want to call to set up a viewing appointment?

I'm with Shelly - the enhanced/showcase listings on Realtor.com do give a listing extra exposure. I forget the stat for the number of people that start their search online - I think it's something like 80%+, and realtor.com is the #1 website for those searches.
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Old 10-02-2007, 11:52 AM
 
Location: Gainesville, VA
566 posts, read 2,978,159 times
Reputation: 152
I'm not sure where I am on this issue. I have seen the reports that 80+% of people start their search online, but I have also seen it reported that, of that 80%, 1 in 4 people actually find the house they end up buying online. So if I'm doing the math correctly, that gives me 1 in every 5 homebuyers will find their house on the internet. So does that make it worth the extra cost? I don't know....

Now having said that, we do place all of our agents listings online (about 20 different sites-all free, but very time consuming) and our local MLS just signed an agreement that will automatically upload our listings to Google Base, AOL Real Estate and Cyberhomes as soon as we enter them into the MLS (it also goes out to realtor.com). For a small monthly fee they will also upload them to another 8 sites. So I do see the value in have a strong web presence, but I guess I'm not convinced that it will actually sell the home.

Last edited by DavidS827; 10-02-2007 at 12:07 PM..
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Old 10-05-2007, 09:03 PM
 
610 posts, read 2,721,542 times
Reputation: 128
To the original questions. Yes and No. In my area you can pay to have Realtor.com upload photos/tours from the MLS. Or, you can upload them yourself. Therefore if they are pulled from the MLS they are the same, but some agents do something different on sites outside of the MLS. I would think each area is different however.

On a side note, I find realtor.com to be very outdated. Homes that are closed show up there 2 months later. Also, homes that are under contract show up as active. It is great for agents because you get calls on your listings but as a buyer it is annoying to think these homes are available when they are not. This could be in select areas and not nation wide. I'm in the midwest.
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Old 10-06-2007, 09:56 AM
 
Location: Danbury CT covering all of Fairfield County
2,623 posts, read 7,398,821 times
Reputation: 1371
Quote:
Originally Posted by irish setter girl View Post

On a side note, I find realtor.com to be very outdated. Homes that are closed show up there 2 months later. Also, homes that are under contract show up as active. It is great for agents because you get calls on your listings but as a buyer it is annoying to think these homes are available when they are not. This could be in select areas and not nation wide. I'm in the midwest.
I have gotten calls on other companys listings which have sold two or three months ago and I end up working with them to find their new home. I'm in metro NYC.
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Old 10-06-2007, 10:04 AM
 
Location: Pinal County, Arizona
25,100 posts, read 39,163,544 times
Reputation: 4937
Quote:
Originally Posted by irish setter girl View Post
On a side note, I find realtor.com to be very outdated.
One of (not the only) reason you find this happening is because the agents often do not update their local MLS (note a property as pending or sold) etc. So yes, it would still show as available as REALTOR.com can only update the information in the local MLS
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Old 10-06-2007, 12:07 PM
 
Location: Mokelumne Hill, CA & El Pescadero, BCS MX.
6,957 posts, read 22,246,738 times
Reputation: 6469
Out in the great rural area of CA, we sell a lot of acreage. One of the first things I was taught was to indicate any land size with a +/- to avoid misrepresentaion. Realtor .com takes my 5 acre listing and shows the size as 232800 sf. NICE

I am struggling with adding the enhanced listing to my marketing. The first rep I talked to at RDC told me my little zip code got 1.3 million page views per month!!!!!!!!!! It's a freaking miracle we have any inventory at all.

I asked about adding my whole staff to the enhanced deal and they offer absolutely NO DISCOUNT whatsoever. ??????????? Are you telling me how to market my service and you can't even market yours?

The enhanced listings don't necessarily show up at the front of the page either, out of 11 pages of listings in my zip there we're showcased listings on every single page. I talked to one of the C-21 agents that uses the extra service and she seemed to think it was worth it, but I don't know. I've NEVER had a click through from RDC to my website in 2 years and I keep very close tabs on the referring URL's. (I did get one from freeporn once though)

Somebody convince me that RDC is worth it. As for now, they appear to be as lame as my local Assn.
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Old 10-06-2007, 01:33 PM
 
Location: Missouri
6,044 posts, read 24,038,943 times
Reputation: 5182
In my experience realtor.com is really out of date. Many times a house has been closed on/sold for weeks and it's still listed. I have found a local realtor's website that is very up to date for our area so I monitor that closely, if an offer is accepted on a home it usually is marked "pending" within 48 hours.
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Old 10-06-2007, 05:34 PM
 
610 posts, read 2,721,542 times
Reputation: 128
I don't know if Realtor.com is out of date because of the MLS. In our MLS all agents have 48 hours to input status changes or we are fined. I have had listing closed and pulled from the MLS the next day and it will show up on Realtor.com the next month. I was told Realtor.com checks our MLS every 46-60 days. I'm not sure how other areas work.
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