PAULA'S SOUTHAMPTON BLOG

WHY DO YOU PAY BIG BUCKS FOR INTERNET LEADS??...A Need to Know..

I am going to ask you 4 questions. You may not see the importance of the answer to these questions right now, but you will soon, maybe even at the end of this post! Please do not think these are trick questions---these are being asked because we NEED TO KNOW what is driving the trend of agents who are paying for leads and in the process, destroying the very profession they are part of.

In my opinion, if an agent who pays for leads sits down and really analyzes his/her business to see exactly how profitable it is to pay Zillow thousands a month, then they may find out it really does not pay to do it!

We have agents everyday here who find out that those leads they are getting are mostly worthless calls--these agents are dropping Zillow faster than you can say Zillow!

• Do you pay big bucks for Internet leads?
• Are they good leads?
• Do you see the damage "Pay to Play" does to the delicate relationship between the consuming public (whom we are licensed to protect) and the licensed real estate agent?
• Do you care?

A NEED TO UNDERSTAND

The questions above come from the "Need to Know": What are we going to do when the brokerage business and the life of an agent changes so dramatically that you won't know what hit you when it arrives?

There is a need to understand the thinking behind buying leads instead of doing your own research and your own work to get buyers and listings. It may not seem important enough to those who pay because, of course there is a plus to "Pay to Play"; that is if you don't really care what happens to your profession and if you are looking for an easy way to get the phone to ring.

The "Need to Know" is what we are going through right now in The Hampton's as we deal with a career ending invasion of technology, namely through Zillow and its subsidiaries.

The "Need to Know" is what we are seeking when we are dealing with the consuming public and the ramifications of what it means to be a homeowner here and not be able to rent or sell your property through the normal channels.

We are being bombarded with questions, complaints and irate attitudes from the buying and selling public, about the state of the listing systems here in the Hamptons and we have no answers for them...

UNWORKABLE WEBSITES DURING OUR SPRING MARKET

Zillow has seen fit to undercut the brokerages since they bought out all existing listing platforms in the Hamptons and Manhattan. They have doone this by making changes during our busiest season AND during a major slowdown of sales!

They now have full control of our data, our listings and our content and they don't care what they do with it as long as they continue to bring in revenue from the Premier Agent who pays thousands a month to get the generally worthless leads from Zillow.

The unworkable Out East (a new platform by Zillow) system has put an end to the rental business here--No one can figure out how to search, compile listings for showings and gather data for our clinets/customers...They are missing all levels of search proceedures needed in order to make sure we are satifying the consumer..It is a completely unworkable mess!

THE LEADS ARE WORTHLESS

This sales market in the Hamptons has an average price point of about $2 million---the properties on Zillow that generate the most leads are $500k and under--they are foreclosures and short sales of which we have very few.

It is a very rare thing indeed to get a lead over $1million here.Combine the antics of Zillow and the issue of  a market adjustment on the same order as the recession of 2009-2012 and you may have a sense of what is going on here. It is in a complete meltdown.

Agents are frightened and the public is confused, to say the least!

If you have had or are having the same issues within your real estate communities, Please respond with your comments below. It will be helpful to all of us if we can see what is going on in other communities with regard to Zillow and how they are destroying our collective brokerage businesses.