My father in law is a real estate agent, and I've noticed that the city he lives in is not very competitive. Is it worth it for an agent to get a web site listed highly for a small city - like "sacramento real estate"? Or is this kind of a site more suited for people looking to make referral income or agencies? What sort of costs are involved in collecting MLS data? I don't want to spend a year building a site for him, but if I can put something up in a few months that will get him ranked and perhaps get him 2 clients a month it might be worth it.
You can never expect immediate results from a site. You will most likely be sandboxed by Google. A realistic expectation is to start seeing the fruits of your labors after one year of work. You may be rewarded sooner but to expect that from the get go is wrong.
The first place out of town buyers look is the newpaper classifieds. So if his normal ads contain a link to his website, he will get traffic and calls from that. As buyers become more internet savvy I suspect searching for a realtor will become more common. In any case, he needs a site now and its value can only increase.
Most of the time MLS data is offered free to agents, but the agents have to get the MLS data through their broker. There are compainies that offer IDX (MLS raw data), for a large fee and continued maintenance fees. Again, most states offer basic IDX data for free through the National Assoc. of Realtors, so why would you want to pay a bunch of money. Check out my site in my sig. I have two types of MLS searches. One search is just a framed MLS search offered through my local MLS, for free. The National Assoc. of Realtors, more specifically the Florida Assoc. of Realtors offer a framed type search as well. I also have a second MLS search "Advanced MLS Search" that is really there to create tousands of static spiderable pages for the search engines. I paid a programmer to write the code for this. The raw IDX data is taken from the Florida Assoc. of Realtors and feed to my site. My costs were minimal. I paid a programmer in Russia to write the code so his prices were very fair. If you want his email PM me, but first you should have your relative do some research and find out if the IDX raw data and/or a Framed MLS search is available to his broker and if so, is the broker willing to let him use it on his web site. My site has been active since November of last year. I get an average of 3 leads a day, and convert about 2 leads a month from my website. It's worth the effort.
I read somewhere that over 50% of all real estate transactions in California started from the Internet.
Since when is our state capital a "small city"? By the way, "sacramento real estate" returned over 4 million results...the top few being very good and large... I hope the sacramento issue was just an example. I think you could see results within 6 months. Brandon
Your numbers are incorrect according to NAR. 70% of people searching for homes are now starting online. As a licensed realtor, I have noticed that there is very good 'business traffic' online, but the tire kickers also increase. Sacremento is fairly large area. Backlinks and good unique real estate content should help. I would say 6 months if you don't get sandboxed and you apply a proper linking structure. As for MLS data, each MLS is different. I believe your father's area it is free. He just has to apply and send in the proper documentation for approval. Once approved, it is just a matter of integration. Your next big question will be "forms before or forms after search results"... Let me know how it goes...
To answer your question, I think it would be worth it. I don't think you are talking about Sacto are you? They have been one of the hottest markets in CA if not the country for the past few years. I think you know a framed solution would not be good for SEO. Many MLS boards offer free ftp access to listings (IDX access) on a daily basis and you can easily build a SE friendly setup using this data.
Getting MLS data depends on your county and that county's MLS provider. Some MLS providers make their data dumps a pleasure to work with, while others can be close to nightmarish. The county board handles MLS data dump requests and some are cake, while other back-woods counties are a complete pain. We spent six months getting the data for the county our company is based in, even with multiple brokers in that county requesting the dump. Other counties we've gotten the data dumps started in as little as 2 hours. As posted elsewhere, I think you'll find the programming to be cake compared to getting the data dump. And if you're dealing with multiple counties, you'll be dealing with multiple MLS providers and generally you have to write a filter for each providers CSV file. You'll also have to write a new set of procedures for each providers data dump -- some upload the files to your ftp server, others have it befind a password protected page, etc, etc. In the end, it's *all* worth it however. We *stomp* our competition by having SEO friendly data dumps, and often appear in the serps for companies and realtors above their official websites.
Your right about your statement. I was unable to retrieve the MLS raw data through a "cron job". I have to manually download the data (listing info and photos), unzip the files, then upload the files onto my servers. With two sites it can be pretty time consuming. P.S. I removed my real estate site from sig so if you are interested in how my MLS looks, P.M. me. (in an earlier post I said to look at my sig for an example)
A large percentage of the traffic I receive is from these types of pages. Based on that I would say, "Yes."
Sorry... I've been meaning to respond here. It's not Sacramento, I just didn't want to point out a low-competition city to all you real estate gurus out there This isn't something he's asked me to do, just a thought I've had (because I have sooo much free time these days ). I appreciate all the advice. I'll look into an IDX implementation. I'm pretty sure things will be fairly easy, since it is California. If I can help him get a few sales or listings, then maybe it will make up for all the babysitting time I've been having him put in
A website is very powerful in real estate. More and More people are turning to the internet than print advertising now. Lets also not forget that a website can offer many more uses for your father in laws business. Such as using it for a listing presentation or even helping with branding his name in a small city. As for the cost of getting the MLS data feed from your local association of realtors, that will depend on the board. If you are talking about taking the raw data feed and using it to create a database of your own. That can run $200 or more per month. If you just need some type of MLS system for his real estate site, that is cheap, maybe $25 to $45 per month.
Right now we have our real estate blogs in beta. It will be one way to put up listings and content on an everyday basis.
I see you are in Florida. You can get the raw data feed for free from planetrealtor.com Why pay for something offered for free. If you read my earlier post I stated that a few times. Pay a programmer a one time fee. You would be suprised how much cheaper it is than paying someone a montly fee.
Hi everyone. I am new to your site and am finding it very helpful. I am a licensed REALTOR in Arkansas. Our MLS is not framed. They say "that way everyone can have their own look". I have gt the site address and password to access the ftp file data. I would like to do my own site and include an IDX/MLS search. Any suggestions on how or where to start on getting the coding written for the search?
I believe that building custom websites with MLS searches, and Featured properties is the best way to go, however my opinion is slightly biased because I specialize in designing/programming MLS search sites for realtors. When I say MLS search I am referring to the ability for anyone to go to a local realtor's website, and perform a search of the local regions Single Family Homes, Lots/Land, Commercial properties. When I say Featured Homes I am referring to the ability to list only the realtor's properties for sale on a separate page called Featured Properties. The user is able to click on a featured home, or MLS search home to expand a listing of that properties features. When you think about it, its a great idea. The customer gets to search their local area or future area realtor's website, for free. They get the capability of easily searching an updated database of homes for sale, and they even have the capability of filtering the results by price, style of house, number of bathrooms, bedrooms, fireplaces, handicap access, the list is endless. The beuty of my solutions is the fact that when a user finds a home they like and they have clicked on the home to expand the listings features, there is a menu that allows them to contact that local realtor/broker about the specific home/property that they are currently viewing. Think about how much work this saves the realtor/broker of trying to find a house for a potential client. Granted, your not going to sell 50 houses per month just by putting a website up. And people do seem to be able to find the sites within their local region. I engineer this specifically by focusing on keword relevancy of local city names, and states so that google can index these sites optimally. The theory behind designing a site for a local realtor is sound, and it does indeed work. I have designed a custom MLS Search script using a PHP MySQL solution. Basically if you are subscribing to the MLS to list your properties that you are selling online, I can build a custom search for your area. It requires that you sign a Broker Reciprocity agreement with your local MLS office, so that you can get access with a username/password to the local FTP server, but after this is accomplished its rather straight forward to implement my script. The nice thing also is that I have programmed it to be customizable, so you can have any search/listing options you want.
Like the previous poster I too am biased because of my long term development of custom realty sites and have some very definite opinions that will save REALTORS money and time. Briefly, if you believe the NAR that over 70% of new home buyers make their first contact on the internet and this figure is increasing then you already are aware that web design should be both present and future oriented. What do I mean by future oriented? No matter what your needs are today you can anticipate that they will change making it smart to be prepared for the future by choosing a design for: 1. Scalability -- your site will grow 2. Accessibility -- to reach the largest number of potential custormers your site needs to be compatible with all browsers, not just IE, and with a with the ever increasing internet devices such as smart phones and handhelds. 3. Efficiency -- take control over your design and content to make it easy for minor to site-wide changes when necessary. We have a site in developmet with the goal of assiting new and not so new REALTORS choose wisely. The site contains a mixture of free and value added services. For example, we are readying several free high quality css/xhtml web designs for real estate agents. The designs will be available for download within 2 - 3 weeks when the site is completed. I am going to put in a feedback form and would appreciate comments on what you would like to see. More information at: realtyvisions.com