I received the strangest phone call last night . . .
Someone called me about Radiant Lake – a man-made lake in Rathdrum Idaho – it’s becoming quite beautiful there actually (I’ll run out and take some photos and post them in the next day or two).
Anyway, apparently this person had driven around Radiant Lake and found it beautiful. Then, they found our website and were looking up listings on Radiant Lake (via our link to the MLS). The individual called me and expressed their disappointment about how I market beautiful areas such as this.
?????
They left a name and phone number (it rang through on my cell so I had the number) – but when I called back, it went to a spanish voice system (I don’t speak spanish so I have no clue what it was saying) so I wasn’t able to speak with this person directly unfortunately.
Why am I perplexed? Well, because I do not market Radiant Lake directly. I will work with individual sellers there (don’t have any current sellers in Radiant Lake) and Chuck will work with buyers there.
In other words, the individual was seeing another agents version of marketing and thought it was my marketing (or rather, lack thereof).
This is NOT good. Not good that another agents sloppy representation of a real estate development is being looked at as MY representation of the development.
So, the question is, how do I communicate this to prospective buyers and sellers? I do excellent marketing, just take a look at our virtual tours, and feel high quality photos are the first line of marketing of real estate (one of many avenues used in marketing properties).
How do I communicate to buyers that when they see properties for sale, although they are seeing them by accessing them through my websites, I am not actually the person responsible for marketing those properties??
It disgusts me how few agents actually utilize beautiful photos in promoting their properties. Considering that fully more than 80% of buyers utilize the internet in their search, you’d think it would be a priority. With a digital camera – taking a ton of photos is FREE – utilizing maybe 45 minutes of the agents (or photo takers) time to actually take the photos.
Anyway, I’m posting this to clarify to everyone, what you see in the MLS as available for sale – is simply that – available for sale. I am not necessarily the listing agent on the property, although I (and Chuck) am(are) here to help prospective buyers on any property in Kootenai County.
Filed under: For Buyers, For Sellers | Tagged: north idaho real estate, radiant lake, real estate marketing
Hey there,
This is interesting an interesting post. It’s understandable that it’s frustrating, too.
The great thing about IDX is that it helps generate exposure for your properties on hundreds of web sites. Your properties are listed on other agents’ sites and other agents’ properties are listed on your site.
But, the interesting part here is the problem it creates: Users don’t understand how it all works. They don’t always understand that they’re searching listings from all agents in their area. Many of them don’t know what MLS or IDX are, actually.
I always suggest a couple of things for agents:
1) Always host the site search directly on your site. Don’t send someone off to search the MLS on some other site. You lose control of the user, and as difficult as it can sometimes be to get that visitor to begin with, the last thing you want is to lose control.
2) On the default search page, show your listings under the search form. Then, make it clear to the user that they are searching all homes in the area, even homes listed with other agents.
That may help alleviate some of the confusion as well as preventing occurrences like this where you get blamed for someone else’s poor marketing.
Cheers,
Dave