Listing Syndication? Not for this Broker!
May 19, 2009
Curtis Reddehase, a real estate broker in Austin Texas recently wrote announcing his decision regarding Listing Syndication
and why his brokerage will no longer be participating in that form of marketing. Several reasons were cited, but the 2 main reasons boiled down to:
1. He doesn’t want his listings to be utilized by the national sites, as a means of generating advertising revenue. He goes on to explain that the national real estate listing aggregators take his listings, use that to drive up traffic to their website – and then sell that traffic to advertisers for profit.
2. He has NEVER had a productive lead generated for as long as he has been participating in real estate listing syndication.
The use of real estate listing data, and determining what are the long term impacts of listing syndication, continue to be topics that are heating up and gaining momentum within the real estate industry.
Future questions that the real estate industry will have to deal with regarding this topic include:
Does listing syndication establish these national listing aggregator sites, or the local broker as the authority for the local real estate market?
If the national listing sites become established as the authority – what sort of fees will they start charging back to the local brokers?
Is it worth it in the short term to try to pick up a deal today by syndicating to these national aggregators? Is it worth it in the long term?
These and many more questions need to be answered. The real estate industry will have to continue to evolve to stay current with the ever changing technology that becomes available.
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion divx
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11 Responses to “Listing Syndication? Not for this Broker!”
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Good content! What is the best and cheapest form of advertising listings? I like syndication because if a customer does find it and call me I don’t have to pay the co-broke. Any Ideas?
I find this blog post so good, I just have to comment again. I do agree fully that a national site could almost be taking the place of an mls just on a national level. To put an end to the national sites, I believe is to hire Eric Blackwell as an seo coach get more organic exposure through seo rather than simply uploading a listing that syndicates nationally which seems like the lazy thing to do.
The really important point of this article is how your basically helping your competition and yes national real estate sites are your competition in the SEO arena.
The more content they get the stronger they can become. They are designed to sell traffic and or banner ads on there sties.
These are some great points. I never saw listing syndications this way. It looks like it will hurt us in the long run and I will talk to my broker to see what he thinks because he likes the idea of listing syndications.
The useful article and have a great points in it. The Curtis Reddehase, a real estate broker in Austin Texas recently wrote announcing his decision regarding Listing Syndication.
I think the answer is where does your fiduciary lie? If your fiduciary is with the seller, then the seller’s best interests are served by making sure potential buyers can find out the home is for sale. I just plan my business model for “one side” of the transaction and charge accordingly. Buyers are using the internet to find houses. They may or may not bring a buyer agent.
My practice to do both syndication and have a strong SEO presence. I have a few hundred first page rankings for various key word combinations, and it depends on which search engine buyers are using, whether they find me or my competition.
At the end of the day, who are you working for, are you compensated for your work and expertise when the house sells and if so, then do what will sell the house.
If the syndicators didn’t make money they would not exist. Just like a brokerage firm or any other company. They promote our listing for no charge to us and they get to sell ad space. No skin off my nose. Don’t buy the leads or participate in PPC if you don’t like it. If find those to be effective and will continue to use them.
Thanks!
@ Ken Jansen – Obviously you view syndication as just another means of marketing your listings. Allow me to play devil’s advocate for a bit…..
If your #1 priority is the seller’s absolute best interest, then why don’t you:
A) Refund 100% of your commission back to them, and work for free? After all, that would benefit the seller the most.
B) Place FRONT page ads on the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, etc to promote your listings? That certainly would help your seller get more exposure! Cause it doesn’t matter if its cost effective – as long as its good for the seller, right?
The point being is that you have to take reasonable measures to ensure your long term viability to have a business in the first place.
Listing syndication at the very least, creates additional competition for you for visibility in the search engines. And it has potential to create “bills waiting to happen” (through enhanced listing fees, etc that would get implemented at a later date). And if you add in the additional “features” that those sites provide by answering questions, etc – it all collectively helps establish THOSE other sites as the authority for your market instead of you. If a client has a question, they go to THEM and get the answer. Not you.
Everyone knows what it means to Ebay or Google something. If the national listing syndication sites can establish themselves as a “verb” in people’s vocabularly, they can then start charging you whatever fees they want, and your clients will insist that you pay it.
Think of it like a crack dealer giving away “free” samples – does the crack dealer expect to make a profit? Absolutely. Listing syndication is most certainly not “free”. It has a high price that just hasn’t been paid – yet. Right now, its all about jockeying for position to establish themselves (or you) as the authority for your market.
I agree with Roberts first comment. I want to double dip on my listings. So the more places it is the better chance we have at that. I out rank all those sites anyways
@ Mike – if you read Robert’s 2nd post, it actually shows a deeper understanding of the situation – and a change of heart.
And I just googled Dallas real estate: You don’t outrank them. Trulia & Zillow both are on the first page. You are on page 2.
Coincidence? I think not.
And while you may lay claim to some of the secondary markets & long tails (for now), all you are doing is setting the nationals up to establish THEM as the authority, not you – and allowing them to hand you a BIG bill later on down the road.
Huge cost long term for :cough: “free” :cough: advertising today.
I dunno, as a consumer – I go to Trulia and Zillow so i can search, get more data and find a broker to do business with. I find it funny that brokers think that not being on a syndication site gives them better SEO ranking. Oh well, I guess I’ll never understand the brokerage model – then again, by the comments I read here, looks like some brokers don’t understand consumers. Shame.
@ Mike – You bring up 2 issues:
1. SEO
2. Brokers not understanding consumers.
@ SEO – Since there are only 10 spots on the first page of a search engine like Google, it is quite competitive to rank on the 1st page. The nationals you mention ARE COMPETING for high ranking & placement at a local level for the various real estate searches – and are competing against the individual agents that are striving to achieve a presence within their local market.
They are competitors for search engine visibility. And the listings are the ammunition for them to achieve those rankings.
@ Brokers not understanding consumers – As a consumer, how would you like to have a FULL FRONT PAGE ad in the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, on park benches, bill boards and a SuperBowl Ad on TV for your $50,000 condo that you have for sale? As a consumer, you’d probably like that, right?
So, why doesn’t your real estate agent provide that for you? Because if they did those kinds of advertising expenditures, they would quickly find their costs in advertising outstripping their net revenue – go broke and out of business.
The national listing aggregators are looking (primarily) toward the real estate agent’s wallet as their chief means for revenue generation. See this article here about the new “enhancements” that Trulia just rolled out: http://www.realestateindustrywatch.com/e0-editorial-and-opinion/
Syndication, whether it be sooner or later, creates a bill waiting to happen.