I love IDX. Not only it’s a tool I use daily but it looks like my IDX page is bringing more than decent traffic.
I have leads from it every week. I use it to get sellers calling me and I send buyers to use it for search.
It’s very effective. Maybe too much.
Regularly now, I have phone calls from agents. Basically, they call me saying their buyers were surfing the web, got to find my IDX page, made some search and called them with the property details. All they have to do is calling me for more details.
Obviously, my thought is, if you as an agent get to that position, you are not working properly for your clients.
I explain that’s IDX, I’m not necessarily the listing agent, and so on…
Now, some of them, once they get in touch with the real listing agent, they explain that their buyer found it advertised in another agent’s website. And this is when I got the listing’s agent phone call: “You advertise my listing without my authorization, I want you to remove it and I’m emailing your broker because you’re misleading the public saying you’re the listing agent”. That agent has been licensed since 2005, so she’s not new in the business, as I thought she had to be. Plus, we all know that IDX listings always show the famous “Courtesy of [Brokerage's name]“.
So, what gives?
Let’s say you do not what is IDX. Let’s suppose you never heard about it.
Don’t you want to have your listings to be seen in every single Real Estate websites for free? Don’t you want all and any kind of advertising for your listings out there, free of charge?
Of course, I explained that it’s not easy to just remove her listing alone. I sent her an email to apologize but also to explain the benefit of it. Hopefully she’ll get it. It looks to me that more and more agent are working part-time or not at all unless they find a buyer somewhere. Those, I guess, have little continued education and missing few important thing for their career.
Now, fellow Realtors, don’t even think about asking me permission to advertise my Cape Coral listings. Just go ahead. You have not only my authorization, but also my benediction to proceed. Use newspapers, internet, TV ads, put a sign on the moon, hire D. Trump to talk about it, spend millions of dollars to put a banner of my listing with your phone number on every cabs, every cruise ships, every aircrafts, in every cities in the world. Oh, and since you’re at it, try to make my listing in your IDX in bold or, even better, blinking, Las Vegas style. In short, just do it! Because at the end of the day, no matter how was your advertising, I’ll be paid!!
No comments yet.