Homegain.com wants REALTORs to blog on their site.

HomeGain's business is to connect home buyers and sellers with real estate agents and brokers. The recently added Agent Profiles and Agent Blog are simply additional ways for HomeGain agents to get exposure. HomeGain gets over 5 million unique visits a month, a good portion of those users connect with a HomeGain agent.  The new Agent Blog features the agent and displays all the agents contact information so home buyers and sellers can contact the agent directly. While your thoughts are understandable, they're really not accurate.  HomeGain has the consumer audience and is merely trying to get those folks connected with it's real estate agents.  Even if you are already blogging on other forums, the more the merrier. More Exposure-->More Readers-->More Business!

I appreciate your comment Shawn, though if you are going to speak with authority as you did, and give numbers as fact, it sure would be nice for you to identify yourself and qualify your facts, as anyone can just through things out their. I question your numbers just as i question Active Rains numbers or the FSBO websites numbers.  How am I or anyone else to know that your supposed 5 million unique visitors are consumers not just mainly other REATLORS  like is the case with Active Rain, and especially the different FSBO sites.  I have seen statistics that show that as much as 60% of the traffic at the FSBO websites are REALTORS as well as Mortgage Brokers looking for people who have stood up and said I need help.  On the other hand 5 million visitors a month for a well funded national site in this field seems kind of low actually.

Hi James I am not sure what your point is. Are you trying to convince realtors not to use HomeGain? There are 1.4 million real estate agents. About 7,000 of them are homegain customers, most of them highly satisfied. You wrote "Are not most of the homegain REALTORS who are willing to blog, already blogging someplace else? " I would think there are not yet 1.4 million realtor's blogging at the moment,. There is a market for HomeGain, just as there probably is for your realtor services.  Would you think it appropriate if someone was incessently posting and explaining to people why they should not use your services?  

Hi Louis,  I am not asking REALTORS not to use your services in this blog post, though I am wondering why REALTORS would want to make your company any stronger than it already is.  After all why make yourself even more dependent on a company you are already somewhat dependent on.  Seems like a valid question to me anyway.  How about spelling out what the great advantage to the REALTORS is to blog on homegain, rather than on their own domains where any leads they generate are free to them, and they are continually building up their own sites rather then homegain's site?

The answer is the same as the question why sellers and buyers of real estate would  use James Boyer. Sellers could sell their homes with out a realtor, but they chose to engage a professional because they have neither the time, inclincation nor expertise to do it on their own. Its the same with home gain, nothing is stopping any one from setting up their own blog and trying to gain notice in the search engines. With a homegain blog you get some built in HomeGain.com traffic as well as traffic from more than 300 affiliates who drive traffic to homegain and search engine marketing traffic that we buy-all which is sent to the realtor's page where they have their blogs. Also you choose to have your own blog AND a homegain blog so you can occupy two positions on google too. Of course you can blog without homegain, just as one can sell a house with out James Boyer. But if you want professional marketing you might chose HomeGain and James Boyer.

James I am not sure if my last comment took,  so here is another crack at your answer The answer as to why a realtor would use HomeGain is similar to the answer you might give as to why use James Boyer to sell your house. You want the process professionally managed. With HomeGain your blog gets professional management of search engine key words that drives traffic to HomeGain, you get the benefit of HomeGain.com traffic and 300 affiliates who send traffic to homegain.  This way you can focus on blogging and not waiting to  rise in the search ranks to build an audience or  learn to "write for google" Sure someone could blog on their own, just as they could sell their house on their own. I think it also makes sense to have as many oars in the water as possible, why not have your own blog, a homegain blog, an active rain blog etc. If you are successful you could get three slots on the front page of google.  

thanks for the comments Louis Cammarosano.  I still think that REALTORS are much better off in the long run building themselves up, and not building up some third party website who's main goal is to collect 30% off of every deal they possibly can.  I believe it was you who tried to tell me that homegain agents are among the highest earning agents out there.  From what I have seen I would not at all guess that many are in the top 20% and we all know that the top 20% do better then 80% of the business.  This competing for leads from homegain is a joke as well.  My latest listing was on homegain, I know because 2 agents in my office wrote proposals to this client as well as several agents from other offices.  That is a joke, give the lead to one person so that he / she can run with it and win.  In this case all my client had to do was google each of us and she know who had the best presence and who was paying attention to web 2.0 and where the buyers were.

I do not use homegain, so the latest home listing customer decided not to go with any of the homegain agents who were all writing proposals to her.  I know because she showed them to me after the listing was signed.

James There is no referral fee connected to our blogging product.  Also we have thousands of customers and have closed through the referral product about 10,000 transactions over the last two years. Your anecdotal evidence of what you see is not indicative of  our overall success. You have a right to believe that Realtors may be better off not using homegain, and you can post about it to your heart's content.. Many homesellers also have a right to believe that they would be better off not using James Boyer or a realtor. Given the vast size of the market, James Boyer doesn't need every homeseller to use his services, nor does Homegain need all 1.5 million realtors to use ours. James Boyer posting about why agents should not use HomeGain is about as useless and futile of an activity as HomeGain posting to consumers about why not to use James Boyer.

I think we will have to agree to disagree but I think that your going around and making sure to comment  on blog posts having anything to do with homegain is evidence that you do not totally believe what you have said.  "posting about why agents should not use HomeGain is about as useless and futile of an activity as HomeGain posting to consumers about why not to use James Boyer."  I think that statements that have been made about Trulia "Trulia needs REALTORS but REALTORS don't need Trulia" also applies to Homegain.  If these same realtors who pay homegain monthly to be members and then hand homegain 30% of there commission on each deal that came though homegain, put similar efforts into lead generation outside of homegain, they would likly achieve similar or better results in the short run, over the long run well you know the story.  Just like housevalues.com and others there is an attempt here to force your way in between the REALTOR and the consumer.

James I agree with you. And I will conclude with the same could be said that realtors try to force their way in between a willing buyer and seller. Fsbos if they put the effort in themselves CAN sell with out a James Boyer or a realtor ( I don't believe in FSBO but if you make the argument that third parties should not exist and people can do everything themselves better, you are arguing to eliminate the realtor as well)

Louis, I agree with you except that your ideas about FSBO's well it is fairly well proven that they do need us.  The other part of that analogy that does not wash is that REALTORS sell houses,  FSBO's want their houses sold, Homegain does not sell houses, so homegain is the true third party trying to force their way in the middle of things.  I know that Homegain is not going to giveup anytime soon, just like Housevalues.com will not give up and stop trying to get in the middle anytime soon, though if they keep losing money how long can they really go on?

Realtor's don't need to work with HomeGain they chose to work with us and most are very satisfied. HomeGain provides marketing services, we don't sell houses.  If you look up Housevalues SEC reports you will see while they lost money last quarter- about a million dollars, I think, they have $63 million in the bank! Whether its trulia, zillow housevalues or HomeGain there will always be companies that will provide marketing services to Realtors. The questions for Realtors to ask are: Can they get value from their affiliation with any of these companies? Is realtor success built into their business model? Do they have any other customers other than realtors (i.e third party advertisers)?

I have to question any real estate agent that does not support using lead selling portals like HomeGain but would consider using their other "free" services.  Again, I understand that there will be services like this and there's not much we can do about it but not participate.  I'm still questioning agents using Zillow's new offerings as I don't care for Zillow, either.  I spend time, effort and money to bring my own websites to the top of the search engines and have received much more in return than the $1,000's wasted on lead generating services (used before I ever launched my own sites).  Louis, we know some agents use HomeGain and it's an individual choice.  I had a record year last year (25 yrs. in the business) without using lead generation services and my expenses were actually quite low given what I earned.  There are many agents that are not net savvy and need to pay for leads in other ways.  If that's what they have to do, that's their business.  I will not provide content to these lead selling portals and if it's with the possibility of losing a potential buyer or seller client that might have found me on the HomeGain sight, so be it.  If HomeGain thought blogging there would provide agents with so many clients that agents would no longer need to purchase HomeGain leads then they wouldn't offer this "free" service.

You are right Louis, they don't have to work with anyone just like consumers don't have to work with anyone if they don't' want to._______________ I actually like the idea of my competition putting their time into trying to make something out of working with Homegain, I believe they are perpetuating and addiction, and not taking care of themselves and their future, only looking out for the now.  ____________________ I am sure that you have your own opinions and PR spin on things but I have seen your systems and talked to many people who have used your services and have to say, I do not think that it is the future.

Thanks for commenting Judy,_________________________________________ I have never met a REALTOR who has used one of these services who was very happy with them.  I even spent some time talking with the housevalues agents for a little while last year.  it was easy because you could see who was using the service, and they all said  they wished they had not done it.  ____________________________________________________________________________________As to Homegain, I have talked to a number of their users as well, and have not talked to a one who raved about it.  In fact the number one thing they say is the business of having to compete with other REALTORS on homegain for leads by writing proposals to these potential leads was the biggest waist of time ever.

Jim, I lost hundreds of dollars on, what was it called, "Service" something.  Bad leads, some truly bogus.  They did refund on one or two that admitted they weren't really looking and didn't understand what they were filling out.  I think it was $40.00 a lead.  At least I got a few bucks back before I realized how lousy these leads truly were and was not stuck in any kind of contract - I just refused to accept any more leads.  I lost $1,000's on HomeGain and fell for a pitch which I swore I was offered a special one-time offer which turned out to be completely false and when I wanted to cancel I was told I was too late for that month and would have to then pay for the next month, blah, blah, blah until I was out over $1,000.00.  Not one decent lead was provided and my record in the business shows I can convert real leads.  I have never met an agent that has been happy with any of these services, either.  Sure, they sell to thousands of agents, probably the majority who fight to get out when they see what they're really getting.  With an influx of new agents falling prey all of the time, they can quote some high figures but I'd really like to know about retention. Actually, I don't care.  But I won't be participating on their site so they can say, "It's your loss" while I know better.

I totally agree with you on not participating in their system.  They can say my loss all they want but I think it is my gain.  _________________________ This sounds kind of nasty but from our point of view the more REALTORS who waist their time with these lead generation services, the fewer who spend time working on the things which will allow them to compete with you and I over the long run.  The longer it takes for these people to figure things out, the further behind they fall.___________________________________  In the mean time I don't really like the idea of a bunch of the less informed providing all kinds of free unique content to homegain and polluting the search engines with a bunch of longtail homegain stuff which was given to them for free.

Perhaps I should change my attitiude and become a cheer leader for Homegain.  After all if I can convince the most competitive real estate agents in my area to try homegain, they will fall behind otherwise and while they are doing that, I will become stronger and more competitive and harder for these agents to compete with.  ______________ Not likely to spend my time doing that though.  Might write an article here and there telling the truth as I know it.  If Louis or others want to comment on them, they are more than welcome to do so, after all they are entitled to their opinions as well.

Frankly James You spend too much time worrying about HomeGain-go sell some homes! Regards Louis

Sure Louis, In the time I was responding to this blog post I was also working 4 potential new clients who came in off of my website and main blog this afternoon.  In the mean time, possibly I will check out Homegains new blog futher, should you wish to invite me Louis.______________________  Jim

James You are always welcome. One thing you should know irrespective of whether you think our products work. Our business is to support the realtor and help them transact. Unlike other 2.0 companies who take your listings and then sell advertising around them, we do not do that. All of our products feature realtors prominetly and exclusively in an ad free enviroment. We only get a single digit percentage of our traffic from SEO, the rest of it comes naturally to HomeGain.com or we spend millions on Google Yahoo and MSN to get it- LL either goes towards leads or directly to agents' web sites where THEY display the listings not us.. Think of us as a marketing coop for realtors http://blog.homegain.com/what-about-customer-service-employee-satisfaction  

Another interesting take on the HomeGain blog is -.why not have as many oars in the water. You have an active rain presence and your own web site. If you add a homegain blog chances are you can occupy three spots on Google.

Thanks Louis,  Actually in some cases i already take up 4 spaces, and in one case I have 8 spaces but that is not a very competitive term.

I suppose you dominate for "James Boye real estate agent Morristownr"

Well of course that one, but there was one that did not have my name in it.  But there are a few more competitive ones that I can already tell I will have 2 sets of doubles + a possition from REW.   Always trying to pull as much for Morristown NJ Real Estate & Chatham NJ Real Estate as I possibly can.  Have doubles in both of those but more is better.

Louis If you want even more visits to your web site you can probably get a low price per click from HomeGain-probably cheaper than you could buy on google and our customers tell us the traffic converts 2x.  James you can always email or call me. I am sure you don't really know what we do and how we can help. Louis

That last message does not seem to have come from Louis,  at least it does not read like it is from Louis of Homegain.