-rsh

-rsh

The top national site for traffic is Realtor.com. I currently pay about $4,000 a year to “enhance” my listings. There was a time that every 20 leads from Realtor.com equaled a closed escrow on *a* home. Seldom the one they inquired about. Now, the *only* reason I am on Realtor.com is to be able to say to our sellers that “we feature your home on Realtor.com”. That is the ONLY reason. In the past four years, I have never sold a listing because it was on Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow or any of the other sites. I have sold homes to buyers because we received an email lead because we have a lot of listings on those sites. Big difference.

If you are wanting buyer leads those sites may or may not be good. If you want to “impress” you sellers, they can be very good. If you want to actually sell that house I don’t see that they make *any* difference.

The top national site for traffic is Realtor.com. I currently pay about $4,000 a year to “enhance” my listings. There was a time that every 20 leads from Realtor.com equaled a closed escrow on *a* home. Seldom the one they inquired about. Now, the *only* reason I am on Realtor.com is to be able to say to our sellers that “we feature your home on Realtor.com”. That is the ONLY reason. In the past four years, I have never sold a listing because it was on Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow or any of the other sites. I have sold homes to buyers because we received an email lead because we have a lot of listings on those sites. Big difference.

If you are wanting buyer leads those sites may or may not be good. If you want to “impress” you sellers, they can be very good. If you want to actually sell that house I don’t see that they make *any* difference.

You can track traffic from Truzillias but ROI is lacking.

You can track traffic from Truzillias but ROI is lacking.

You make a lot of sense, my friend. Have you thought about law school for your future?

You’re likely right. Thing is, in terms of “how to prove”, I actually don’t think that’s all that difficult. As my friend Matt said, the plaintiff will want to establish that there’s a applicable standard of care common in the industry (expert witnesses, statistical studies) and then say that not posting to TruZillia (or not doing whatever) is a deviation from that.

Damages will be tricky, of course, but I can definitely see that being a battle of expert witnesses as well.

I suppose the real question is whether the case, if brought, would be dismissed out of hand by the court. I don’t think so. I think there’s probably enough there to survive a motion to dismiss. I think there might be enough in many cases to survive a summary judgment motion as well. That means enormous litigation cost for the broker, especially if he’s facing a contingency fee class action suit, as a LARGE broker might.

Safest route is probably to do what Jay said: tell the client in detail about your marketing plan. Get the client to signoff on it.

-rsh

You make a lot of sense, my friend. Have you thought about law school for your future?

You’re likely right. Thing is, in terms of “how to prove”, I actually don’t think that’s all that difficult. As my friend Matt said, the plaintiff will want to establish that there’s a applicable standard of care common in the industry (expert witnesses, statistical studies) and then say that not posting to TruZillia (or not doing whatever) is a deviation from that.

Damages will be tricky, of course, but I can definitely see that being a battle of expert witnesses as well.

I suppose the real question is whether the case, if brought, would be dismissed out of hand by the court. I don’t think so. I think there’s probably enough there to survive a motion to dismiss. I think there might be enough in many cases to survive a summary judgment motion as well. That means enormous litigation cost for the broker, especially if he’s facing a contingency fee class action suit, as a LARGE broker might.

Safest route is probably to do what Jay said: tell the client in detail about your marketing plan. Get the client to signoff on it.

-rsh

The problem may be one of proof of damages. If a homeowner claims the agent only put the home on the MLS and not on TruZillia , having pulled it, and the owner says “hey, that’s a breach of your fiduciary duty” what are the damages? How can the owner prove (1) they would have gotten a better price or (2) sold faster, if it was on truzillia? Perhaps the owner’s sole remedy is to take the listing to another broker.

Consider also that the MLS probably has a greater ROI than TZ or any other ad venue.

The problem may be one of proof of damages. If a homeowner claims the agent only put the home on the MLS and not on TruZillia , having pulled it, and the owner says “hey, that’s a breach of your fiduciary duty” what are the damages? How can the owner prove (1) they would have gotten a better price or (2) sold faster, if it was on truzillia? Perhaps the owner’s sole remedy is to take the listing to another broker.

Consider also that the MLS probably has a greater ROI than TZ or any other ad venue.