Gilbert Real Estate: Listings Between $150 – $200K

Your site requires name and email to search mls = not free. Agents don't know that the mls is freely available on Realtor.com for free with no registration, email address.

Home Buyer -

With all due respect, I think agents know exactly what Realtor.com provides (if you saw what they charge us, you'd understand why we know *exactly* what they provide).

Realtor.com is updated once per day, at best. They are terrible about removing old listings, sold listings, and updating listing info. In addition, unless an agent pays (often significantly), the user won't see all the photos available on R.com. Also, R.com does not provide the level of information on a property that an agents IDX/MLS search provides.

Anyone here is welcome to enter a fake name, and a fake email to gain full access. I won't delete those accounts.

If however, someone wants search updates and new listings emailed to them, then yes, they obviously have to provide a valid email address.

Your timing for your comment is amazing, as I just turned on registration for the home search here literally 2 hours and 6 minutes ago. Before that, I required no registration at all.

By turning it on, I 'll be able to see what parameters people are searching on and be able to use that data to provide all users a better search experience. I *will not* use the email address provided to bombard a search user with emails. I know you don't know me from Adam, but I assure you that is the case. Any of the 309 people that registered before I required it will attest to this.

When I turned on registration, I was fully aware that it would turn off some users. I apologize that I can't please everyone. I think the search here is a valuable tool for home buyers, sellers, investors and the curious. I don't require a phone number or an address. Only a name and email address. That doesn't seem like too much to ask.

To compare the search information available here to what is available on realtor.com isn't comparing apples to apples. It's more like comparing fruits and vegetables (if that).

Thanks for your comment, it is greatly appreciated. Feedback such as yours helps me provide the best service I can with this site (realizing I can't please everyone -- which is tough).

Jay...
On my site, a user HAS to sign up with their email and name. Same thing like you, they can lie about it, but they won't get the daily updates. Same thing about the IDX I offer; I don't bother anyone. Why bother someone?

Realtor.com is a rather lame way to get info and the IDX's, (most of the good ones, at least) provide so much more. The only thing I ask is, of course, assuming the user is a serious user, is that they call me to interview me when they want to physically look at and/or buy a property. If they don't like me they can go elsewhere.

I don't know how much I have to give away, What can I say?

It's been getting a tradition among most of the real estate companies to have updates added to their websites on daily basis. The reason is that the competition among all of them leads the way to have more option added to the websites for better customer response. This is really good from both business and customer perspective.

Jay, I was going to comment on how nicely you are using Thesis, putting many of the extra bits of coolness to excellent use, when I noticed these comments, so I might as well chime in...

You turned on registration, huh? That had to be a tough choice. From your comments, I can see why you did it. I know I used to have registration on, and then turned it off a year ago. I no longer know when someone searches, but do occasionally get the comment, "thanks for not requiring registration." It really is a very, very difficult decision.

And R.com is indeed lame. I have a complete page in my listing presentation talking about many (who could list them all?) of the shortcomings.

Realtor.com- stale updates- I am sent listings from this site and most are usually now under contract or already closed- the data is stale- so if you enter your email to any realtor via their IDX with registration- be prepared for "live" "accurate" homes for sale

"It really is a very, very difficult decision."

May well be the hardest real estate business decision I've made to date. Thought about it for a long time. Honestly, the only thing that enabled me to pull the trigger was knowing I could turn if off with a few keystrokes. Need to give it a reasonable amount of time to see the impact. Next decision is what is "reasonable"?

I don't see what is so hard about the decision anymore.

People who don't even want to give you their name and email are not going to give you their business. If they don't trust you with their name, they certainly don't trust you to handle the largest financial transaction of their lives.

Jay, you have developed a very trusting personality online. If someone doesn't trust you of all people, you don't want them as a client, they will be nothing but trouble.

I turned on registration on my Diverse Solutions IDX sites awhile back and would never go back. I understand so much better now who is using the sites and how.

Interestingly, I added a required registration question asking whether they were already working with another real estate agent. A very high percentage of users of my sites are already working with another agent.

They use my websites, nevertheless, because my sites are so much better than their agent's. That's fine I suppose but if you don't want to register on my web site because you are already using another real estate agent, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

I guess it gets down to this; If you don't even trust me with your name and email, then why would I even want to work with you?

Jay,

I really like how you are making use of the diverse solutions IDX. It is in very good taste. What do you think of their services up to this point.

James

I think your blog rocks.
I was wondering how or what plugin you use to display your listings on the google map??

and also the available listings in the toolbar.

I am a real estate agent hoping to get my blog to your guys type of quality.

Keep up the great work.

You guys really inspire me.
jaco Viljoen

Jay - Thanks for posting a comment to the 'home buyer' about your registration requirements change. I run a real estate listings site in Austin and have never required users registration to use the site. We get a lot of users, and of course, leads from people who call to view properties. With the slow down in the market (yes, it's hit Austin), I've been tempted to do what you did and turn on the registration requirement so we get more leads. Of course, we'll have to start outbound calling but if that's what it takes... Anyway, I would love to follow your experience with this recent change to your process. Please post some follow up blogs or comments about how it goes.

Jay, just like you, I have long held to no registration required but I found when I added diverse solutions as my idx provider, even fewer people raised their hands asking for additional information because they were getting it compared to my previous mls portal. Obviously, I didn't invest a lot of money to meet fewer potential clients so I turned on my registration several months ago.

I don't like to be bothered with junk and spam when I visit a website so I don't want to treat visitors to my site that way either.

I send one email per month to my database, a monthly real estate update. I found that I had so many registrations with the diverse solutions idx I couldn't even add everyone to my database.

And yes, I occasionally get the ogifueir @ bogus . com

From one consumer:

R.com appears to be a viable consumer variable in the internet re market. With all due respect, I had not heard about IDX until I was pi$$ed off at my former RE agent and was turned on to these fine folks @ Thompson's Realty. (Who by the way have earned a lifetime customer as long as I take in air in Phoenix...yet I digress).

I run to R.com now as an auxiliary site, and not primary as I was before. Since I currently have a home on the market, presence is everything...and it (again) would appear that presence equals R.com as one of many internet re marketing tools.

Not the brightest of endorsements for R.com I'm sure, but IDX needs more exposure - and given the assurance of those who drive their re marketing credibility, who would deny sharing minor and benign information to make a tool better?

@John - Appreciate your insight. Excellent points!

@Houston - totally pleased with all aspects of Diverse solutions!

@Jaco - the search embedded in this post as well as the "widgets" on the sidebar are modules provided by my IDX solution, Diverse Solutions. They are teh best, in my opinion.

@Micheal (Reilly) - I will post a follow up after the registration has run for a bit.

@Howard - I like the monthly email idea. So far I've only gotten one obviously bogus registration, which I suspect was generated by the first commentor here.

@Micheal - Thanks so much for the "consumer insight" (and for the very kind words!). And for the idea for a very near future blog post....

Flagstaff and the whole Eastern Arizona MLS is online for free with live MLS available for everyone without a fee. No email required, No names required. Simple use for everyone.

PMS - got a link?

Jay,

The MLS search is awesome and the interactive map is a great bonus. I wish I could get my hands on something like this - it's a great feature to offer your site visitors. If you can convince them that you truly won't spam them, they'd be losing out if they didn't sign up.

@Jayson
I totally agree this is an awsome plugin.

This site is great all round.
Well done guys.

Jay,

Great post on the state of Gilbert $150-200K homes for sale. That is the best price point in the valley. I am not sure why the comments got so far off topic. I agree that anyone who feels "violated" for providing their first name and email address is not a client worth having.

Back on topic - The $150-200K market is where all valley Realtors should be focusing. Those buyers are typically first time home buyers that can pull together the 3% down payment for an FHA loan from savings and/or a family member. Additionally, they don't have to sell a current home to do the purchase.

If the listing is in need of renovating, (new paint, carpet, added energy efficiency and even appliances) it all can all be done with a FHA 203K Streamline loan. The client can borrower up to $35,000 for those repairs plus an additional $8,000 for energy efficiency improvements for a total of $43,000. These types of loans make perfect sense for that price range buyers.

@Jay - Sorry for posting under two user names I cleared out my cookies and was unable to remember what user name I had previously posted with. Would you prefer me to post under HoustonHousingMarket or my name.? As you can merge my two usernames to which ever you would like if it is not alot of trouble.

@Jay - Have you looked into doing a custom IDX search? As I hear that it is a much more google friendly way to go and so am debating on whether or not to use diverse solutions or to spend a little more up front and have the custom search.

amazing!
its not expensive its extremely nicely priced we are moving to Gilbert next year with my wife and 2 kids and we were thinking about getting a house now since the prices are so well, beautiful and rent it out for a little while until next christmas, what do you think?

Thanks in advance,
Cheers,
Edward

SEO - May not be a bad plan. Despite price declines, it's not always easy to rent out a home in Gilbert at a positive cash flow. Depends on the home of course, as well as how much you have to put down.

I like the Google MLS Map. On my site, I have it so users can search the MLS without signing up. If they want to view more information they have to register with their name and e-mail. This allows searches to be sent that match their search criteria. I don't like sites that require registration.