The #1 selling mobile OS in the entire United States…
Over 300,000 new Android phone activations per day…
Over 18,300,000 new Android phone activations by spring…
How many will be buying and/or selling a home this year?
RealtyBaron made a strategic pivot in 2009 with the launch of not one, not two, but three web service APIs. That decision paid off for us in 2010 in the form of three new strategic partnerships. Our first partner implemented a pay-per-lead model using our Auction API to introduce consumers to agents. Our second partner — a licensed broker — is using the same Auction API to introduce consumers to agents based on a referral fee at closing. Our third partner is launching a real estate Q&A service using our Answers API.
Of those API uses, the success of the pay-per-lead model was most surprising in 2010. To be fair, it was the first and had time to undergo several iterations. In fact, it was a downright rocky start last January when it first went live. However, the pay-per-lead model had a strong finish. Here’s a sampling of what agents said after paying for leads from our first partner in the final quarter:
I expect an even better 2011 as we continue refine the process.
Happy new year!
We first opened our auction platform to other websites last year. Inman News picked up the story in July calling it a “widget”. However, it’s more than just a “widget”. It’s a full on, double rainbow web service that can be seamlessly weaved into a website to add any type of real estate agent finder/matching feature you can possibly dream up. Since the launch of the Auction API, we’ve added two partners and have begun discussions with another website whose monthly traffic is consistently above 500K unique visitors about integration early next year.
Our second Auction API partner, ExpertHomeOffers, went live with its integration yesterday. ExpertHomeOffers is using our Auction API to automate the matching of their buyers and sellers with RealtyBaron agents based on a referral fee paid at closing. But RealtyBaron’s platform doesn’t stop at just matching consumer and agent. RealtyBaron also tracks the progress of the referral on behalf of ExpertHomeOffers to ensure referrals are paid when a sale transaction is closed from the referral.
ExpertHomeOffers.com is a company that connects motivated home buyers and sellers with local real estate professionals nation wide. The company was formed in 2007 in an effort to bring quality and honesty to the real estate lead generation industry. Since its inception the company continues to consistently increase its placement on the major search engines and lead volume.
Welcome aboard, ExpertHomeOffers!
Imagine your parents are retiring, moving to Florida, and have asked you for help with “meeting a nice Realtor®” in Naples. Unlike the client referral I sketched in scenario #1, this referral is very personal. A referral fee is your least concern. Your parents are aging and they need to be handled by the best. However, you don’t have contacts in or near Naples, Florida. Here’s how a ReferralAuction™ can help:
#1 – Like I said above, a referral fee is your least concern. Therefore, all three bids—opening, reserve, and stop—remain at 0%. Basically, the first agent who meets the minimum required AgentRank™ gets your parents’ business.
#2 – But submitting a bid in this scenario is easier said than done. The minimum AgentRank™ in this case is 10—the highest ranking available—which means unless an agent has an impeccable sales history and glowing client reviews, he or she will be unable to bid for your referral.
Any questions?
Imagine you have a client who is moving to Dallas. You have the listing in California but the client has not yet made a connection with a buyer’s agent. The client asks for a referral, but you don’t have any contacts in Dallas. You want to ensure your client is handled properly, but you also want to fully monetize a client referral that will almost certainly result in a sale for the buyer agent. A ReferralAuction™ can help you achieve both objectives. Here’s the play call:
#1 – The auction opens bidding at 0%, but the “Reserve Bid” ensures a bid of 20% is received before the client’s contact information is revealed to a buyer’s agent. If the auction ends with a bid less than 20%, your identity and that of your client remains hidden from any potential buyer’s agent.
#2 – Assuming the “Reserve Bid” is satisfied, the “Stop Bid” ensures bidding doesn’t exceed your idea of “fair value”. When bidding reaches the “Stop Bid” amount, the referral auction immediately closes and the referral is awarded to the highest bidder.
#3 – The “Minimum AgentRank™” guarantees bidding is available only to agents who have a proven history of closing sales and pleasing clients. In the scenario above, only agents with a ranking of 8 or above are allowed to bid for your client referral.
Any questions?
….as I outlined almost two years ago in our discussion group:
Today, we’re expanding our patent-pending auction platform to include business referrals among Realtors®. The new product, ReferralAuction™, allows real estate brokers and agents to efficiently find and qualify out-of-town agents to handle their referrals.
As a Realtor®, you likely already swap referrals both on-line and off. However, when referring your client to an agent whom you’ve never met, two questions remain:
A ReferralAuction™ uses the AgentRank™ algorithm to ensure a referral is awarded to an agent who has a proven track record to make a sale.
Both the referral source and recipient have the opportunity to review the performance of each to discourage deceitful behavior.
….is coming soon and it’s going to be BIG!
I’m recruiting volunteers from the RE.net to sit on the inaugural board of governors. A summary of the AgentRank™ Board of Governors:
If you’re interested in volunteering, please contact me for more information: mdugger (at) gmail (dot) com
For several months, I’ve been working on a new listing product for Realtors. An important component is listing distribution. RealtyBaron already syndicates listings to Vast and allows agents to publish to Craigslist. But our listing product launching in early 2008 will require syndication to each and every listing destination site that accepts bulk feeds. And while RealtyBaron was early early-ish to the distribution game, we’re certainly not alone.
Listing distribution has become ridiculously easy. In just a few hours, I added feeds for CityCribs, Citylist, CLR Search, Oodle, Propbot, Propsmart, Trulia, Zillow, and Google Base. Once the feed format is known, it takes less than a few minutes to start churning out an XML file to feed a destination site.
All of which has me thinking about a future where listings seamlessly flow around the web. Can any one destination site gain a competitive advantage and win the listings race once real estate listings are ubiquitous? Probably not, me thinks. Instead, big destination sites will likely continue squeezing more search, more filtering, more analysis, and more data (sales data, demographics, etc.) into the same 1024 by 768 pixel space in an attempt to make sense of it all. Additionally, make room for more banner advertising to pay for the development of aforementioned features. Which brings me to…
Many Realtors continue to fear losing control of their listings. However, I can imagine an ironic outcome in which losing control of listings produces an explosion of information which eventually overwhelms and/or confuses the consumer. As a result, buyers and sellers who once went to Realtors for access to information increasingly use Realtors to slog through and interrupt the overly abundant data.