« Who Are The Hot Bloggers?
Real Estate Study Exposes Zillow and Trulia As MLS Lacking: A Call for Local Coverage Disclosure »

HomeGain Launches AgentView Marketing Tool for Real Estate Agents

Published by Joseph Ferrara August 21st, 2008 in Marketing tips.

Don’t look back; they may be gaining on you ~ Satchel Paige

HomeGain is on a roll. First they hit the Web 2.0 blog pool like Michael Phelps. Then they gave their agents free blogs with a blog school . They even unleashed a cuddly gorilla, who travels the world spreading the good news of ‘Gainer Web 2.0 agent marketing. This is definitely not your mother’s lead gen company.

Yesterday, HomeGain released the AgentView marketing service for its agents. AgentView provides a one-stop-shop for, among other information, an agent’s home listings, profile/bio and blog for an exclusive zip code.

Consumers win by having all relevant information in one location, accessible via tabs, with no distracting ads.

Here’s what the consumer can access from Agent View with a click:

  • the agent’s Home Listings (with access to more listings via the agent’s IDX)
  • agent’s profile/bio & contact information (phone/email) and link to their website
  • agent’s blog
  • local information (household size, average income, commute time…)
  • home value ranges and comps
  • access to Home Maximizer, a sellers’ home improvement ROI tool (P.S. free copies of Home Maximizer available here)
  • mapped listings
  • “Ask the Agent” message box (really like this– hope it goes mobile & email)
  • AD FREE space

All on One Page Access

What I find most compelling about Agent View is the “all on one page” consumer view and one click tab access. Instead of consumers having to poke around the site to find different information, it’s aggregated and tabbed for them on Agent View.

For the agent’s benefit, their name/brand is always kept in consumer view. Whichever tab the consumer clicks, the agent pic and their contact information remains at the top of the page. All the studies I have read say that most consumers go with the first agent they contact. Agent View makes it easy for consumers to make that call at any trigger point.

No Ad Nirvana

OK, let’s get this out in the open— I think ads on real estate listing sites totally suck. As a real estate agent trying to market a home, I don’t want some bozo with a flashy ad pulling potential buyers away– they may not won’t come back. The web crowd is A.D.D.-ish to begin with and ads just feed that disorder.

Ads must provide value to the advertiser (or they won’t sell)– which means the ads must attract clicks– which means folks must leave the listings, as a result. A consumer can’t be at 2 places at the same time. Attracting ad clicks means listings are not being served– which means listing agents are not being served. You don’t see third party ads on agent’s websites. Gee, I wonder why? Real estate sites can’t effectively serve 2 masters— listing agents and advertisers. I say a real estate listing site should serve listings not advertisers. Hey, but that’s just me.

The absence of ads on Agent View is refreshing and makes for a clean look where the focus is on homes and agents. Yippee!

All in all, I think the “Gainers understand what real estate consumers want to see—home listings, home values, comps, and relevant content in easy reach. And they put it all in one place for them.

I spoke to HomeGain head honcho, Lou Cammarosano, who told me there are more features coming soon. Oh yeah, I almost forgot— the cost for Agent View is reasonable, starting at $29 for a zip code.

What Good is a Tool if You Don’t Know How to Use It?

What’s interesting is what’s behind the AgentView curtain– HomeGain provides agents with customizable email responses and drip marketing templates to support AgentView:

What I find interesting about HomeGain is it not only provides the tools, it shows agents how to use them effectively. They understand their brand is enhanced, and their pockets filled, only if their agents are successful using the tools. (This is the reason I signed on to help with their blog school.) They don’t brag much about this guidance/training … but they should.

Room for Improvement

The only big negative I saw was in the local information tab– you have to get school information and neighborhood profiles, sweet Lou– may I suggest giving OnBoard a call?).

The default home value tab click-thru was a little confusing to me. I’d rather it highlighted “type in an address to get an estimated home value range” instead of red lighting “The property you requested ( 07746 ) was not found in our records. Here are nearby sales to give you an idea of what homes in this area are worth.”

Also, the transition from the agent’s listings to “Search all listings” can be a bit jarring, since you are taken to the agent’s page — I would prefer a seamless transition to a HomeGain framed/agent-broker branded page. Not a big deal to me but I could see visitors bailing out if the agent page is crappy.

Overall, a Sellsius thumbs up for the “Gainers.

More on Agent View (aggregated for your convenience):

Press release (HomeGain)

HomeGain Throws Down the Gauntlet (Notorious R.O.B.)

Home Gain Releases Agent View, a RE.2 Rifle…Will It Fire True or Shoot Blanks (Bloodhound Blog)

HomeGain Continues to Innovate with Real Estate Agents as Their Focus (The Real Estate Grapevine)

Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

[Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post 

  • Home Gain is primarily for agents who do not have a website that can attract any kind of attention! Real buyers are not interested in looking at only "some" of the properties in an area and be bombarded by advertising in the process. They want direct access to the local MLS that should be available only by local agents - on their own sites.

    Many realtors have surrendered the internet to the big lead collectors! Home Gain, Zillow and Trulia and their ilk such never, ever be supported by realtors.
  • Hi Michael

    Thanks for your comments.

    "Real buyers are not interested in looking at only "some" of the properties in an area and be bombarded by advertising in the process. They want direct access to the local MLS that should be available only by local agents - on their own sites."

    That is EXACTLY what HomeGain provides with Agent View! We only display the few listings that the agent choses to post on our site(exclusively in an advertising free environment) and then provide a click off to the agent's web site where they display the mls listing.

    Indeed our buylink product functions that way as well.
    Visitors come to homegain.com looking for homes in a particular area, they click on that area and we send the visitor dircectly to the agent's web site where THEY display the listings.

    As to HomeGain NEVER ever being supported by Realtors, I have to disagree.

    We have thousands of customers,many of whom have been with us for a good portion of our nine year existence.
  • The new stuff looks great! I look at this as just another piece of the puzzle. There are many ways of both capturing and converting leads. Of course we know our system is probably the best! :) With that saidk you need a good mix of marketing all with the common goal. I have to agree with you Louis, we have been a loyal customer to your buyerlink program for two years now. It makes my life so much easier and my conversion is better. Pretty much all my members of The eHomes Realty Network are also members of the BuyerLink program. Michael, is write, consumers do want to see the MLS. And in reality, it would be a perfect world if only Agents were allowed to display listings....but it's not and I'm not about to fight the world on this, I embrace it and use it to my advantage. Keep up the great work you guys do. For those who have an issue with you, that's ok, more traffic for those of use who sell hundreds of homes per year using this system!
  • Very well written and very informative. I think this could be a great way for an agent to begin to explore the web 2.0 world, but ultimately I agree with the first commenter in the sense that I do not like the thought of creating an online prescence as a sub-domain under somebody else's control. All of your history can be wiped if they decide to shut-down, charge high fees, etc. An agent is better off with their own unique domain and wordpress when they want to start building their real online profile.... IMHO
  • Yes, you make a good point Joe. But for those agents having trouble getting
    leads or who are new to a market, AgentView might provide the boost they
    need. But consider being on Trulia or Zillow -- you are riding their brand,
    putting your content on their site, all for the benefit (hopefully) of
    getting business.
blog comments powered by Disqus
Blog Widget by LinkWithin

Tweet This Post links powered by Tweet This v1.3.9, a WordPress plugin for Twitter.