Columbus Ohio real estate

Good morning, Maureen....our listings are on Realtor.com, Trulia(pro) ActiveRain and Craig's list.....I like to blog about the listings on both Wordpress and ActiveRain.....it's a full time job.

Interesting statistics, Maureen. I had no idea that Trulia's popularity was growing so rapidly!

Hi Maureen,

We also submit our listings to all the above sites, but you post them on one site and they spider down to all the rest.  We usually start with Hotpads.  Love that site!  Go Blue!  :)  Cindy

I am addicted to Compete. 

Maureen - I enjoyed this post, thanks. I need to spend more time looking at compete data and charts... thanks for the reminder. I find it interesting on the chart you show the trending who decreasing who increasing. Notice that they are starting to converge. Nevertheless, realtors should be doing as much as they can in all three to check out their listings and create an interesting profile on those sites hoping to generate new consumer leads from the effort.

Great post! Thanks for breaking it down.

Maureen, it is interesting to see that Trulia is fast becoming a Realtor.com competitor. Thanks for the update.

Amazingly not a single mention of a newspaper! OK, I jest...Interesting that Realtor.com is becoming less of a factor. I wonder what they are doing about that.

Very interesting, Maureen. I've never even heard of Compete. It IS interesting that Realtor.com is down - wonder why? I post on realtor.com, postlets, realbird, trulia, zillow - do NOT post on Craigslist anymore after someone stole my listing and advertised it as a rental.

So frustrating to see non-techie agents list a home with three photos and little verbiage on any internet site. And the Sellers have no clue how little their agent is doing to market their listing.

Hi Maureen, Very Interesting Post.  I just posted the following comment on a re-blog of your post so I thought I would add my comment to yours, since you originated the Blog. But alas it doesn't seem to want to let me copy and paste the comment.  But you can find the comment on John Benson's Re-Blog of your Post.(Sorry)  Correction- I had to delete the comment on John's blog.

I'd like to think that they would find the listings on my websites! 

But I'd have to give up selling Real Estate just to look after keeping my websites, blog, FaceBook Pages, Facebook Groups, LinkedIn and LinkedIn Groups , Realtor.com Trulia, Zillow, Point2, Owlio, BrokerAgentSocial, Twitter, Yelp, FourSquare, Smaller Indiana, and many other networks up to date.  Because I think it actually requires a full time assistant/clone to do it properly! Either that or you have No Life!

I've worked very hard to get my positioning all through Organic placement, and it's starting to pay off.  But I started all this work 3 years ago! It's an ongoing process.

I don't like Realtor.com, Trulia or Zillow for one reason specifically, the ability for Poaching! By other Agents through no fault of theirs, but by the network itself.  So its far better to try to have listing viewed on personal websites. 

 

In Seattle, the real estate market for years was centered on the Sunday newspaper and the Sunday open house. Now that that is dead, your question about where are people going to see the listing is pertinent. But you didn't answer the question. Eventually there will be a greater number of people looking at just one thing. We've noticed that our MLS based but company displayed "open house website" is starting to be the place people go to see all of the pictures, and then to see when the house will be open. The interesting part is that our ads cost nothing. There have been more Saturday opens and they seem to be drawing more people than the Sunday opens. This may be an important trend.

I have gotten a few leads from Zillow and I am pleased, at this point, with the results. It has paid for itself. After reading your article, I may expand my Trulia footprint. Trulia is the online real estate provider for our local paper so I have at least a minimal presence there. I am planning on cancelling my Realtor.com account soon. It seems to be a waste of marketing dollars thus far. hise dollars may be moved to Trulia or an expansion on Zillow.

Hi Maureen, your post echoes a lot of what Ben Kinney recently taught at Rain Camp Houston. I think it's great that you note how internet traffic at some of the sites (Realtor.com specifically) has declined. Consumers are no longer going to those sites as much to look for homes - they're going directly to the search engines and GOOGLING what they want. As long as you continue to market the way you are, you should be doing just fine!! Congrats on the feature!

Maureen - great post!  We post our listings on all of the sites that you mentioned plus a couple of others...for instance we are using Listings to Leads now and getting a lot more traffic through CraigsList with L2L.  Very interesting statistics on Trulia also.

Times have changed and keeping up to date on where they will see their home listed surely will be  a big plus.  Stats like yours show where to....

This is excellent informaiton for our seller clients to know...all the places we have listed theie home. Hopefully. It's hard to keep track of where things end us since there are sites that pull the listings from other sources. Google Alerts works well for keeping track.

Nice, Mo. I check Trulia and Zillow regularly to make sure my listings are claimed by me. Luckily, like you, my listings are syndicated automatically by Howard Hanna.

This is an excellent post for your local market. I think I'll steal parts of this for a hyper-local post for my area.

Good stuff Maureen! I get business from Trulia regularly, I wouldn't be willing to part with it.

Maureen,

Unless I pay for significant enhancements at each site, my broker gets the lead and then "refers" them back to me - for a hefty %.  On all, I've found ways to increase the odds buyers will contact me directly.  Probably should post about it...

Thanks Maureen for the great data.  I have always resented REALTOR.com.  At first it was free to post OUR listings.  Then we had to pay.  If it weren't four OUR Listings, there would not be a REALTOR.com.  Zillow seems to be the site most used by Gen Xer's and Yer's.  Thanks again for enlightening us!

Maureen - While many of may "complain" about the information culled by aggregators, the exposure still helps us get listings sold.  Making sure that the information we have on MLS is as complete, vibrant and with as many pictures (with captions if possible) all add to the impact of the property on the web.

As far as realtor.com - I'm pretty much with you.  Not only do they "lift" your data - then they want you to pay for it!  AND ... update with current information ... what, you expect them to be accurate?

An intersting discussion and I think that some of these sites are better  than others.  I think the sellers want maximum exposre, but it is importan to look at the pros and cons.

Syndication is a great way to get the homes out there on the internet to be seen.  I didn't realize how close they big 3 were in terms of numbers.

Thanks all for the comments.  I think I wrote this and saved it in Draft on Saturday,  I posted it before running off on a road trip with some friends on Monday. I really wish AR had where you could schedule a post ahead.

I read comments throughout the day but did not try to comment back on my phone. I thank each and everyone for their comments (well not Ugg boots) although this is written for Central Ohio consumers.

Maureen:

So many people who come to me now say they are looking at listings on Trulia and also Redfin.  I encourage them to sign on to my IDX site so that I can make sure they are seeing the most recent listings and have the benefit of email alerts for new properties coming on the market.

 

Does the graph show how many visits on an individual listing or the amount of total traffic on each site?

Compete.com I used to love a different site for traffic estimates.

Laurie Cain in OK  wrote:

" do NOT post on Craigslist anymore after someone stole my listing and advertised it as a rental."

Does not posting a property on Craiglist guarantee that the property address is not going to be part of a rental scam?  Can't the scammers use of Craigslist come from finding the property advertised for sale elsewhere?  

Martin Dorgan wrote:

"I'd like to think that they would find the listings on my websites! "

Are they?  Is the traffic on your sites?  Compete will tell you if there is traffic.  Plug your sites into Compete.com and show us (write a post!)

Internet traffic on most real estate brand sites is down (about 20%?)  I did not want to pick on a particular brand or even brokerage brands in general.  Is traffic going down on brand websites in general (there is an exception to the rule, "red gogo boots"? ) Is traffic down on real estate sites because of the market?  because Realtor.com / Zillow and Trulia are stealing traffic that is not rightfully theirs (why?) or are buyers not on the brand sites because they have failed to provide (with some exceptions) a place where consumers want to search / look at homes, find what they need? 

If you don't put photos on your listing on R, Z, T do consumers go to your website (your companies) websites to seek pictues of the home?  Or do they look at other properties on R, Z, T where photos are provided? 

I kinda think in a true sellers market you'd have a better chance of buyers leaving the site they've chosen to search for homes (or landed on) than in a market with a lot of inventory.

Akron Homes David Unfortunately now w/ RL HER  if we enhance our properties on T or Z, we interrupt the feed from Real Living HER. So if we only want one photo on the sites where there is traffic... It will stay automated but otherwise listing agent will have to update.   Yes buyers may go to listing agents site? Or the RL HER site to see the home because there is only one photo of the home  on Z and T.  RL provides a video created by RL Tours now which will show all the photos the listing agent has of the listing (picks it up from MLS) ... and then sell any buyers who see all of listing agents photos  via the RL Tour back to listing agent at X% if the buyer uses the link on the tour which requests a showing or asks for more info.  

Irene Kennedy  wrote: "Unless I pay for significant enhancements at each site, my broker gets the lead and then "refers" them back to me - for a hefty %.

"Due to system changes"  (Kim, the Supra key lady says that to me often when I call in to update my key) I would have to pay for enhancements on Realtor.com in order to NOT pay an X% referral fee on buyers that ask to see or ask for more info on listings there...   I do not have a lot of listings... only one right now.  Even though I do not like REALTOR.com I considered upgrading to NOT pay the referral fee to my brokereage... I will have to look at that again in the future.  With deminishing traffic on Realtor.com ??? and if traffic on the company site is diminishing???

We did have a major change in our brokerage / brand / individual agent sites December 1, 2010 so I will be watching on Compete.com  to see how traffic is.

With my brokerage for Zillow and Trulia they have not put big enhancements in place (YET?)  but the company uses the listing agents photos from MLS (or up until recently our RealTime Listings)  to put a "tour" (a slideshow) which IF the buyer ask to see / inquire about the property using the links on the tour, rather than links on Z or T, the brokerage provides the buyer as "a lead"  to the listing agent.

Claudette  Redfin is in your market? Hmmm. " I encourage them to sign on to my IDX site"  I have to encourage them to sign onto my brokerages because of MLS rules.  Kinda sorta.  I encourage them to use my site to search.  Historically RL HER  has been very good about the leads generated by the agents going to the agents.

Again this was written for consumers...  It's in a consumer channel.  It is on my Outside blogs.  It is about syndication but I don't think consumers understand all the ins and outs of syndication... or know that they are "captured" and sold back to the agents in some cases or care.... I believe transparency is good.

I hate when a sold listing is popping up on Zillow or Trulia says a home is off the market, syndication is cool when it works and aggravating when it does not. 

I think for consumers "Oh look at that kitchen"  or "that's the lot in the neighborhood, we've been waiting for!!!" is what they are looking for, not a series of links that carry them off to another site.  I think when consumers are sellers they sometimes don't know whether their home is being shown to all the buyers that oughta be seeing their kitchen or only those who will go to the brokerage (or agent's ) site or will click on the magic link....  I think based on current traffic. 

It is a chicken or egg issue though for the real estate industry.

Teresa   Individual listing? How would Compete.com measure traffic by a property address within Realtor.com*, Trulia* and Zillow*? or on a brokerage or agents website?

I think it's a pretty simple graph, traffic in the past year on three big real estate sites.  Here's a link tells you what the graph says.  The link to this is there in the embedded info.  The Compete logo is a link to this embedded  graph. A LINK to what the graph is telling you about traffic on three huge real estate websites

and then some!

Again this was written for consumers, in my market about exposure of listings.

*Anyone do Realtor.com, Trulia.com or Zillow.com give consumers or the industry other than the listing agent info on how much traffic an individual property generates?  If you upgrade... become a Pro, get a badge?   Enhance? 

If you enhance doesn't Realtor.com tell you everyone and his brother looked at your listing on their site?  Page views?  Yet most agents say they never get anything from Realtor.com but sellers love it?

 

 

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