Forums on RE web site? Good, bad, ug-leee?

[wsharp]

Hey guys-n-gals,

Considering the benefits of putting a discussion forum on our web site. Wondering what the opinions of the members of the REW forums is. Worth it?

In my opinion it would be very easy to set up, but take considerable time investment to moderate. If the rewards are great enough, though, I could do it since I would have the help of others in moderating.

Here was the general thought process:
In addition to us, MH&K REALTY, we would have vendors of other services moderate their own areas such as Home Repair, Lending Info, Landscape, etc...

So the questions I have are:

1) Is it worth the effort to build traffic (do we have a chance of getting some real clients?)

2) What about liability? I would have proper disclaimers in place, but we know how that works sometimes...

3) Other thoughts I haven't brought up here.

Thank you all

[Micheal Pannell Realtor]

i just added one, i will let you know how it goes. it is on it own domain but will be put in all directorties and on every page of all my sites.

Dallas Fort Worth real Estate Forum

[ResaleBroker]

What would the rewards need to be for you to consider the investment (time, money, hassle, etc.) worthwhile?

[VRI]

Forums, IMO, are generally not a good idea for most sites... which would include agent sites. Unless there's a very good reason for the people to check in, that are in your targeted demographic, and it's well publicized I find it's mostly a drain on energy that could be better spent elsewhere.

The spam bots have got the process down for most applications so that you'll be spending the better part of your time deleting automated posts to porn and pharmacy sites, making sock puppets and talking to yourself.

What would be the "drawing card" for a regional agent's forum? One that would compel potential buyers/sellers to check in.

[wsharp]

Well, as far as my investment, I would be putting in time and effort. The broker is picking up the cost of the site.

What would I like out of it? Considering I would have to put in between 20-30 hours a month just in moderating/promoting/updating then I suppose I would want at least one closing a month that could be determined to have come about because of the forum. Eventually.

I know that for quite a while there wouldn't be enough traffic to drive sales/listings, but then again moderating would not be much of a chore at first, either. So any business derived from it early on would be gravy.

On the other hand, I was thinking that once people got what they wanted out of a forum like that, there really isn't much reason to continue visiting/participating so keeping it populated would be a chore in itself.

Hmmmm... just talking it out keeps the thought process going. I appreciate your input.

[ResaleBroker]

What would I like out of it? Considering I would have to put in between 20-30 hours a month just in moderating/promoting/updating then I suppose I would want at least one closing a month that could be determined to have come about because of the forum. Eventually.

20-30 hours a month moderating/promoting/updating can turn into 20-30 hours a WEEK easy.

[wsharp]

I agree it could, especially if I were to get drawn into long conversations. I estimated about an hour an evening reading/responding to posts.

[VRI]

Most new forums are hard pressed to get any visitors, let alone ones that actually have something productive to add to the dialog. One of the big problems with forum burnout is just that... frustrated owners creating aliases to make the forum look busy (sock puppets).

[Tsena]

I agree keeping forums going are difficult! I had a local forum for Las Vegas and after a year of operating it, most of all my forum posts were spam. I have since taking down that forum. I spent a minimum of 30 hours a week on the forum, promoting it, posting, and removing spam! If you are going to go forward, you need to find a few good moderators, without moderators, the forum will have a hard time being successful as you cannot do it by yourself!

But on a positive note, I have been successful with my national forum

[wsharp]

Well, that pretty much settles that. I don't think I wanna take on another time-sucking-sponge of a project, I already have more than enough on my plate. :S

Thanks for all of your input on this!