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Featured news & tips — posted
September 21, 2004
It's your listing, we'll fight for your
right to keep it
As an agent,
either you own your listing and the data advertising it, or you don't.
That, in a
nutshell is the question presented last week when Homestore, owner and
operator of REALTOR.com®, forced a la mode to disable its REALTOR.com®
listing import feature.
a la mode's
Agent XSites
are websites and contact and schedule management tools, primarily for
individual real estate agents like you. Smart agents invest in
securing an online presence which they use to market themselves as the
real estate agent of choice in their area. In addition to
consumer-oriented content, mortgage and budget calculators, and the
like, Agent XSites obviously allow agents to showcase the properties
they have listed for sale in their area.
Agents may
upload photos, property information, listing prices, etc. on their
listings directly to their Agent XSite. However, since many Agent
XSite users have already uploaded all this information to REALTOR.com®,
Agent XSites included a feature which allowed the agent to type the
MLS number of their listing into XSites' listings wizard, hit submit,
and have all of the information already uploaded to REALTOR.com®
displayed on their personal Agent XSite. This was a one-time download — each time the property was viewed on an Agent XSite, the photos and information were residing on the XSite, not "scraped" from REALTOR.com's® servers. Our market research indicates
about a third of the thousands of Agent XSites users took advantage of
this timesaving feature.
Homestore
demanded we disable the feature claiming (among other things)
"copyright" to your listings data, and that Agent XSites using this
feature are violating their Terms of Use.
We were puzzled,
to say the least. The Terms of Use they cited require that the agent
uploading the listings data be the owner of that listing. If you own
it, can't you use it as you see fit? Aren't you uploading it to
REALTOR.com® in the first place so you can sell the house? Why then,
rather than helping you sell it, is Homestore/REALTOR.com® making it
more difficult to market the house in another, non-competing medium —
your own personal website?
Think about what
would happen if you put an ad for a listing in the local paper. Then,
you tried to put the same ad in another paper in the area — and the
first paper sued to stop you, claiming "copyright" and violation of
"Terms of Use." That would be nonsense. REALTOR.com® is an advertising
medium. Nothing more, nothing less.
We shouldn't
have been surprised. After all, REALTOR.com® charges $599 for
"Showcase" websites — a price that would never be supported in an open
market, but for the fact that REALTOR.com® "Showcase" websites are the
only ones agents can link to in their REALTOR.com® listings.
Similarly, the only
virtual tours (complete with "spinning house" icon) agents can link to
from their REALTOR.com® listings are REALTOR.com®-sanctioned virtual tours — which REALTOR.com® will sell to you for $40 a pop. There are just as functional, effective virtual tour
creators out there that are far less expensive, but again, REALTOR.com®
has created an online monopoly and is exploiting that monopoly for all
it's worth.
We have never
heard of a successful business model that treated customers as
competitors. And we marvel at a mindset whereby a company induces
agents to upload data to its site for the purpose of helping sell a
home, then makes it more difficult for those agents to sell that home.
But that's what Homestore is doing. You want to showcase your listings
on REALTOR.com® to help sell a home, you want to use other tools — your
Agent XSite, virtual tours, etc. — to complement, not "compete" with,
that effort. And Homestore could threaten legal action if you do.
We offered to pay for a license — for you to use your own data — to allow the REALTOR.com® import feature to continue. We were rebuffed, for reasons that still frankly puzzle us. Homestore
says it's in the business of helping agents sell homes. Its CEO, when
he took the reins in 2002, promised his top priority would be healing
strained relationships with and better serving REALTORS®. That begs
the troubling question – why is Homestore digging its heels in so hard
and relying on legal recourse?
While
we may have disabled the
feature, rest assured this is not the end of the fight. The issue is too important
— it boils down to who owns your data, like we said above.
What you
can do
Start off by
complaining to your board directly and demand that they raise the
issue with REALTOR.com® that their Terms of Use agreement be quickly
changed to not restrict your private use of your own listing.
Second, raise
the issue with your friends and associates — this affects all agents,
regardless of software brand.
Thirdly, let
Homestore executives know personally how you feel. Homestore’s CEO,
Mike Long, said when he took the reins at Homestore in 2002 that he
would work hard to repair damaged relationships with the boards and
the membership, and we have to take him at his word. We think some
leadership on this issue would resolve it to everyone’s benefit.
Mike’s asked on many occasions that REALTORS® feel free to contact him
directly, so here’s his e-mail address:
mike.long@homestore.com.
Let
him know what you think.
Further, you can also contact the
Federal Trade Commission and explain the situation.
Click here to locate your local
office.
Your rights and
your profession will be affected if you and your associates don’t take
a stand on this broader issue now and assert once and for all that
nobody else owns your listing or the advertisements for it.
We’ll continue
to be your advocates, even when it’s difficult and expensive. We’re a
large and highly profitable company, and have the means to pursue
issues such as this for your benefit — and we will do so.
Personalized, useful
e-mails to current customers can boost your referral business
Last week, we explained how to make
sure your e-mails are
compliant with the CAN SPAM Act.
After verifying that they are, you may want to begin a savvy e-mail
marketing plan to new prospects … but what about those customers and
friends with whom you still keep in touch (and could be potential
referral sources)?
In a recent Jupiter Research (a Jupitermedia Corp. division) Webinar,
analyst David Daniels reported that only 4 percent of marketers
personalized messages. That’s a small number for something that takes
only a few minutes to do. And, the more you reach out to those
customers with important information they can use, the better the odds
are that they’ll refer their friends and family to you. Here are a few
ways to reach out to your prospects with a personalized message.
Direct them to your website.
Agent XSite users can choose from more
than 60 pre-written content pages to put on their website — much of
which is valuable to your customers even after they’ve settled
into their new home. Eventually, they may want to refinance, as many
Americans are doing during these dog days of low interest rates. They
can figure out how much they’ll save by using the refi breakeven
calculator available on your XSite. You can provide information on
living trusts, bi-weekly mortgages, Mello-Roos districts, how long it
will take them to pay off their mortgage with the “Mortgage Payoff
Calculator,” tips on reducing their mortgage and Inman News. You can
even create and customize your own “post-closing” pages for your
customers.
But more importantly for new business, your customers’ friends may
also be looking to buy a home and an Agent XSite can provide a wealth
of information for first time homebuyers, who are often apprehensive
and unacquainted with the process. Some good content pages for first
time home buyers are "Mortgage Shopping," "The Home Buyer Check List,"
and "Nine Steps to Owning” Also, include links to tools like our rent
vs. buy calculator. That “send to a friend” feature built into your XSite page will come in handy should your customer have a group of
friends looking to buy.
Be your customers’ welcome wagon. Did your customer recently buy a
home in a new city? Help them get acquainted with their new community
by sending them website links to local newspapers and entertainment
guides and Chambers of Commerce. And, help them get settled in their
new home by providing them with contact information for local gas,
telephone, electric and cable companies.
News they can use. Send them articles on home improvement
and decorating ideas to help them make their new home truly “theirs.”
Or, send them news happening in their area. You can even e-mail them
articles you get in your weekly Agent e-newsletter from a la mode! The
personal touch of "I read this and thought you would find it
interesting" adds value, too.
Tips to improve their quality of life. Send them information on area health clubs,
salons, grocery stores, movie theaters and malls. For families with
kids, why not send them information about area schools, daycare
centers, children’s sports teams, YMCAs or other types of kid-related
information.
It only takes a little time to maintain communication with your
customers. And the results can be profitable.
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