5 ms·

Thought I'd throw in my 2 cents since I also explored the real estate market in Canada: Competition is tough here and I had a chat with a few real estate agent

Thought I'd throw in my 2 cents since I also explored the real estate market in Canada: Competition is tough here and I had a chat with a few real estate agents. Many of them told me it's a local market and that they get found through local ads or referrals from clients. Their websites are also suffering from bad SEO - one agent told me that there are other websites taking his properties and are ranked higher on Google than his own website. The #1 thing real estate agents cared about the most, according to my discussions, was leads. The only thing that they wanted to pay me for was leads. And as many other people said, real estate agents are busy people and may not have the time to build their own website. Their job is to sell houses and will gladly pay to have someone else set everything up for them - you might want to think about other stakeholders you can partner with (i.e. marketing consultants) that can help you onboard real estate agents.

etewiah 10y ago
Thanks. Good point about leads - I can see the value of offering a more comprehensive service that could include SEO optimisation and help with lead generation. I am also open to partnering with other stakeholders. I thing I thought of earlier on was to offer a whitelabel service so a third party could offer the online web builder as a service in a market that they know well - I'm just not sure how to find people to partner with.
- drewmeyers24 10y ago
  Leads are indeed the only sure way to build a successful (revenue generating) real estate agent/broker offering. It is possible to sell websites -- but the reality is most agents have no idea what to do with a website to generate traffic. And if a website isn't marketed, it's useless (aka giant waste of money).
  - etewiah 10y ago
    Hey Drew, thanks for the feedback! I guess one thing to bear in mind is that I started this off with the European (particularly Spanish) market in mind. Leads are super important here too but many agents here also have a problem with websites that pretty much frighten clients away. These days a website might not be what generates leads but having a decent one is a good indicator of how seriously that agent can be taken. Again it might be different in the US but remember that in Spain for example a lot of clients might be English speakers who will see a website with an English translation as a sign that the agent will at least make the effort to communicate with them.

etewiah 10y ago

Thanks. Good point about leads - I can see the value of offering a more comprehensive service that could include SEO optimisation and help with lead generation. I am also open to partnering with other stakeholders. I thing I thought of earlier on was to offer a whitelabel service so a third party could offer the online web builder as a service in a market that they know well - I'm just not sure how to find people to partner with.

drewmeyers24 10y ago
Leads are indeed the only sure way to build a successful (revenue generating) real estate agent/broker offering. It is possible to sell websites -- but the reality is most agents have no idea what to do with a website to generate traffic. And if a website isn't marketed, it's useless (aka giant waste of money).
- etewiah 10y ago
  Hey Drew, thanks for the feedback! I guess one thing to bear in mind is that I started this off with the European (particularly Spanish) market in mind. Leads are super important here too but many agents here also have a problem with websites that pretty much frighten clients away. These days a website might not be what generates leads but having a decent one is a good indicator of how seriously that agent can be taken. Again it might be different in the US but remember that in Spain for example a lot of clients might be English speakers who will see a website with an English translation as a sign that the agent will at least make the effort to communicate with them.