It has been a year and a half since we released our “Top 10 Real Estate Brokerage Websites in America” report.
Nearly 14,000 people have viewed or downloaded it on Scribd. Many more have viewed the report on our own Website. Brokers and brokerage marketing executives we meet for the first time tell us they’ve read it all the way through.
This is all very cool. And honestly surprising given the cursory nature of the analyses contained in the report.
I’m thinking about this because Marc and I spent about an hour looking at big (we’re talking the ones in the top 20 of the various brokerage ranking lists that come out each year) broker Websites this week in preparing for a talk.
What we saw was shocking. I am not being gratuitously dramatic. I want to be very clear about this:
It is quite literally shocking that large real estate companies persist, in the face of indisputable documentation of the Web’s primacy in the consumer’s real estate experience, to maintain sites that fail as a coherent brand expression, fail to articulate a unique value proposition, fail as exercises in user-focused design and fail basic usability tests the rest of American business passed a decade ago.
In today’s common parlance, WTF?
The harm being caused these brands, the revenue lost, the agents not recruited and leads not converted are inestimable. And yet…the same old patterns: poor vendor selection, design by committee, the lack of a web strategy. It’s a miasmic soup from which the industry cannot get clear.
Yes, we have helped many clients get it right over the past three years. But we’re not going to touch everyone.
So here’s our constructive response: every couple weeks going forward we’re going to post a detailed breakdown of a large real estate brokerage website home page – an annotated screen shot with suggestions for improving design, usability, information architecture and content.
We hope you get something out of these. You’ll be able to download and share them too. And while we could just go out and critique a site without a brand’s permission, we’d much rather do it collaboratively.
So: If you’re interested in having your home page critiqued here on 1000watt Blog, please shoot an email to info@1000wattconsulting.com with a link to the page. Have no fear – this will be constructive, good-natured criticism from which you can glean actionable takeaways.
Let’s get it right!
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Brian, based on the sites you guys have reviewed, do you have 3 brokerage sites that you would consider most effective?
This should be interesting…
One problem you are likely to run in to with the “Big” broker is their confusion over who is THEIR customer. Many of these BIG brokers are tryting to serve two masters; buyers and sellers, and agents. Each are looking for something different. So they try and split the difference.
They first need to decide who the website serves.
This should be a really great series! I’m looking forward to the insights that emerge!
Barrett-
IMO, ultimately, brokerages should have multiple websites in order to target entirely different audiences. Trying to do everything with one is tough.
This is great. As a small brokerage owner, I’m always working on my website and trying to figure out what is useful to consumers. I sent you my link. I’d love feedback!
Drew,
Agree. That is my point. But with budgets cut and unqualified personnel stretched…well you see what the result is.
The other challenge is this…most Big brokers want control. If you really think about it, the Big broker site would simply be a syndication of the individual agents in the firm and THEIR expertise, not the firms. The site should bring together content from agent experts and then pass traffic to the agents site where the buyer/seller can work with the “expert” for their needs.
But this would require giving up too much control to the agent. So instead, these firms build behemoth sites with everything piled on top to try and be everything to everyone. Then they give the agents a “landing” page that will NEVER get found and does NOTHING to promote the agents personality and expertise. What a loss.
Drew, great timing too. I tried tracking you down with your Zillow address but no can do. I was trying to find out who was looking after LME these days. Sometimes it works, some not, then all the sudden new stuff shows up (NileGuide). LME has lots of promise.
Barrett
Barrett-
Email David Gibbons (davidg at zillow) about the Local Market Explorer.
This should be interesting…
One problem you are likely to run in to with the “Big” broker is their confusion over who is THEIR customer. Many of these BIG brokers are tryting to serve two masters; buyers and sellers, and agents. Each are looking for something different. So they try and split the difference.
They first need to decide who the website serves.
Now that realtor.com just announced their vow, why build an extensive website. Every realtor will have stats, detailed listings, vow capability for their clients all for free.
What a great article! I couldn’t agree more. As an independent broker i consider myself in direct competition with the big boys (and if net neutrality isn’t destroyed by the idiots in Congress, hopefully that will endure in perpetuity). That being said, I really do get a kick out of taking business away from the big box brokers as a result of their cluelessness and lack of a website strategy. Please check out my website at Lake and City Homes dot com. I’ve worked hard on it, strive to continually improve it, and welcome any and all feedback, good or bad!
I don’t see many sites that have anything for a value proposition, and what that means to consumers is that they have no value other than they’re alive. I’m one of the 14,000 who downloaded your critique and studied it and visited and revisited the sites, and what I found most interesting and bothersome, was the fact that every home on every site was listed the same exact way. Realtor’s miss the fact that people search the web looking for info about homes, and what they find least of, is something that personalizes the home and tells them why they just found their dream home. Only a brokerage company and their agents could love their sites, consumers hate them because they don’t provide what THEY ARE looking for and they do nothing to make the process easier for them. There’s nothing that makes them say…”wow, I can see myself living here”…quoting you. They leave everything for the buyer to figure out…no where else in business does that happen to such an extent.
I look at all these site and wonder why this is the best they have to offer, and always come to the same conclusion…they don’t know any better and they don’t care to. I can’t wait for some outsider to come in and blow the doors off of the industry. We deserve it.
You have the best thought leadership in the biz, but why isn’t brokerage listening to you?
Btw, one of the people who commented to check out her website, and I did. I immediately click off of any site that makes me register before I can see the info I’m looking for. Don’t make me HAVE to contact you then have you bother me…rather, make me WANT to contact you because I see your value and love your content.
Brad,
There are many reason’s our industry doesn’t have all the best websites and bells and whistles. It’s called money. The average agent doesn’t make enough to even stay in the business. The 20% doing 80% of the business do so leveraging their “network” and referral base, not their website. So why would they?
There are pockets and markets where this is not the case, and those areas have seen agents and firms invest in their online presence. Many to great results, but not all.
This is a fragmented and diverse industry. There will never be one size fits all, not even web site preferences. Nothing will make the industry, Realtors, and Firms invest more than success will. Show me the “Best” website generating the most return on investment and I will show you other firms and agents following suite.
But not much will happen until this market either stabilizes or the industry is “right sized” with the right number of agents and firms for the current market.
Barrett, all good points, but that’s exactly the problem. We’re in an industry that’s so far behind the times with product and approach. Leveraging your network and attracting buyers and sellers to your listings is key to being successful. If money is an obstacle then the person/firm can’t be successful in a world driven by technology.
More important than using something that makes us successful is to do something innovative that enables you to become successful, and you rarely see that anywhere in residential brokerage. Forget all the search and navigation stuff…consumers search for information about products they want to purchase…in our case the product is a home. Why can I find more valuable information online about a $200 camera, than I can about any home in any price range on any website. That’s a crime for an industry who wants to tout itself as being professional. We’re the most uncreative and uninnovative industry on the planet. Again, your statement about waiting for the market to stabilize points to the problem…that we wait for something to make us better rather than creating something on our own that makes us better. It’s sad that this is the best we can do for ourselves.
Brian help!…somehow all this great conversation has to make it to the market place
[...] week we announced that we were going to do periodic analyses of real estate brokerage home pages here on the blog. We [...]
Brad,
I volunteer on both my association technology committees; Triangle MLS for residential and Triangle Commercial Association for commercial. In both cases, it is very frustrating. Having spent many years in new technology at HP, IBM, and a number of start-ups, I am more accustom to understanding a challenge and finding the best technology to help solve it. For the most part, those actually making technology decisions don’t know technology. In fact most don’t even have any idea what they are doing. Problem 1.
Add to that the fact that the real-estate industry is made up of about 1 million independent contractors, each with their own agenda and competing with the next. Problem 2.
Now about the camera…playing the devils advocate here, they will sell millions of those cameras. So even though it only cost $200, they sell a lot of them. And because they are made in China, they have about a 200% markup. Apples and oranges here.
The average house in my area is $250k. So let’s say the average listing agent has 10 listings. How many of those listings actually sell? Half? More like 25%. But they had to spend money marketing every house. So the agent sells one house. Makes $7500 commission. Gives their firm 30%. That leaves them $5,250. Out of that they have to pay taxes, insurance, fees, other expenses…pretty soon that gets dwindled down to very little to invest. And this person is actually doing better than the average agent.
For the firm, it’s not much better. I don’t know what the answer is. Obviously if I did I wouldn’t be here writing this reply. But to do my part I always share what I know and write about some pretty good free applications and technologies in various blogs. My hope is that if we at least get more agents using technology to make their life easier or better serve their client we can begin to change how we view technology; as a benefit and not just an expense.
Look, I agree. I love technology better than anyone. It all starts with a good website and good website design. How we get there from here has always been the challenge.
[...] is the second in our series of posts presenting critiques of real estate brokerage home pages. Our objective is to offer constructive [...]