Internet Real Estate Marketing Will Change the Industry

September 26, 2007 |

Check out this article in last week’s edition of the C-Ville Weekly regarding the Internet and its impact on the real estate industry.

In the article, I was quoted thusly:

Realtor and real estate blogger Daniel Rothamel says that while sellers listing their homes on MLS without a realtor do cut into some of the services he offers, marketing a house is just the first step. “Sure, now your house is marketed,” says Rothamel. “But now you’re also responsible for coordinating showings, doing the open houses and negotiating the contract. I think what you’ll see in the future is that the emphasis in real estate will start to shift towards representation, towards agency, as it becomes a lot easier to market property.”

I meant what I said, but I said a lot of other stuff as well that I would like to share here. I think Jim knows the feeling.

The internet has, in fact, made it much easier for people to advertise the sale of their home. It has made it so easy, and so much emphasis has been placed on advertising your home for sale on all the Web 2.0 outlets, that I think people may be forgetting that there is a lot more to successfully selling a home than simply advertising it.

One key component to selling a home, and I wish it would have made it into my C-Ville quote, is pricing a home. You can advertise a home in every outlet know to mankind, but if the price is wrong, it won’t sell. Professional knowledge and consultation with regard to pricing is one of the most valuable services that a REALTOR can offer. This is especially true in the Charlottesville real estate market, where reliable, timely comparable sales data is almost non-existent outside of the MLS.

While we advertise all of our listings in as many places as we can, Internet, print, TV, etc., that is not the only reason that our clients hire us. They hire us because of our knowledge and expertise in the field, and because of the advice and service we can offer them during the course of their transaction.

With all of the emphasis that is being placed on the ability to list a home for sale for free through so many outlets, I hope one of the side effects of this change will be that it will encourage REALTORS to improve upon the skills that make their services truly valuable. In the end, I believe the ease and proliferation of Internet real estate marketing will serve to enhance, not detract from, the value of true real estate professionals across the country.

[tags] real estate, realtor, charlottesville, virginia, c-ville weekly, internet marketing, real estate marketing, web 2.0, disintermediation [/tags]

Posted by Daniel | Filed Under Buying, Industry Issues, News, Selling, disintermediation 

Comments

6 Responses to “Internet Real Estate Marketing Will Change the Industry”

  1. Jim Duncan on September 26th, 2007 2:57 am

    Amen. :) Anybody can “market” a home. The representation part is where the value comes to the equation.

    [Reply]

  2. Cindy on September 26th, 2007 4:38 am

    Dan-I think our skills are in pricing (when a seller listens), marketing, negotation and closing. I think the more we promote ourselves as professionals and not “house pushers” we will gain respect in the industry.

    Jim-I’ll disagree with the fact that anyone can “market” a home. Anyone can list a home in the MLS and all of the other venues available. Not everyone can go the next step and actually market a home.

    [Reply]

  3. Jim Duncan on September 26th, 2007 10:01 pm

    When I said anyone can “market” a home, I meant (and should have elaborated) that anyone can take pictures, put the house in the MLS for $199, put it on the various sites that (are free) I and many others use …

    Taking good photos, writing effective copy and most importantly, having the relationships, connections and knowledge to sometimes cobble together a transaction to success … and many, many other minutiae is where the value comes in.

    But yes, with vflyer, postlets, trulia, zillow, craigslist, etc. - anybody can market a home.

    [Reply]

  4. Daniel Rothamel on September 27th, 2007 1:24 am

    Jim and Cindy,

    As an English major, I love a good semantics discussion. I think that Jim is talking “advertising” and Cindy is talking “marketing.”

    Either way, I know exactly what both of you mean.

    [Reply]

  5. Jim Duncan on September 27th, 2007 4:30 am

    TomAto, TomAHto. :)

    [Reply]

  6. Amy Warren on October 7th, 2007 1:28 am

    Hi there–
    Thanks for the tips. I’ve been looking for suggested sites to list our condo. Our Real Estate Agent is great–has a lot of wonderful expertise, but he hasn’t taken advantage of any of the online marketing opportunities. I emailed him about vFlyer and Trulia.

    I also listed our condo on MySpace, Zillow and Google. I’m going to check out Postlets.

    This is the MySpace profile I made: http://www.myspace.com/OrangeCountyCondo

    Thanks!
    Amy

    [Reply]

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