Association Marketing: Real Estate Brokers Join Bank of America Alliance

Real estate brokers are associating with Bank of America’s strong consumer-centric brand to enhance their business and provide added value to their clients, under Bank of America’s Alliance Program. It’s a win-win marketing strategy for both sides.

What a broker gets, and BA gives, under the Alliance Program:

In-house Loan Officer: Bank of America will lease space from the broker to provide a loan officer to pre-qualify clients, offer advice on new products and otherwise provide value to the brokers’ clients by offering the gamut of Bank of America loan products including no fee mortgages for clients who are Bank of America customer. (Clients are not required to use the Bank of America loan products.)

Closing Cost Credit: Bank of America will credit the broker’s clients $500 at closing

Promotional fee: Brokers are paid for promoting the alliance in the broker’s marketing materials

Real Estate Broker Network: Bank of America will send leads to the broker via its online portal, realestatecenter.bankofamerica.com, at no cost. (There are still states available in the network.)

Featured listings: Member brokers can upload their home listings and receive featured status. Don’t know if this costs extra, like on Z-low and T-lia (and Realtor.com). (I’m not a fan of the featured listing farce that bilks agents.)

Mortgage Center: Broker clients can access Bank of America loan products from the broker’s website– the Mortgage Center retains the broker’s brand and is framed on the broker’s website:

This type of alliance may provide a better ROI than hopping into bed with TruZilla.

The “one stop shopping” benefit is an attractive proposition to consumers and serves both parties. The broker also gets the marketing benefit of Bank of America’s strong consumer brand identity AND its enormous reach– its portal gets 25 MILLION uniques monthly visitors PLUS it has 21 MILLION registered online banking customers (the sticky kind of visitor). But more importantly, banking and real estate go hand in hand– each complements (and needs) the other. Not like a Zillow, a self-professed media company, whose business model is geared toward satisfying advertisers.

Your real estate brokerage can better provide added value to your clients by partnering with professionals and brands that complement your business AND help satisfy your clients’ needs — banks, attorneys, title companies, insurance companies, stagers, contractors— not college students monetizing a class project.

Brokerages in the Alliance include heavy hitter RE/MAX of Texas ($16.8 billion in sales). According to Richard Filip, CEO of RE/MAX of Texas:

Our alliance with Bank of America provides our franchisees and members immediate access to a competitive, reliable and consumer-centric mortgage provider that can help them with ensuring their customers have access to the best mortgage products and service in the industry.

Does anyone have experience with the Bank of America Alliance?

For the faithful reader, this BA Merchant Circle coupon for $300 off your legal fees, good til November 16, 2008. (visit site here) It’s from Peabody, MA but if you insist, you may get it in your town too.