Mortgage Calculator Script

[Charles Sweeney]

Of course, that's just my humble opinion...

And very well put, you almost had me convinced!

About going to the competition. This is something I have wondered about. Lets suppose you have decided to buy in a certain area. Wouldn't you check every possible site you could find that listed properties in that area?

Wouldn't it be the house itself that would attract the buyer, rather than the vendor? Or in other words, it doesn't matter who's selling it, so long as it is the ideal property?

In that sense, the agents aren't competing against each other, the houses are!

Along the same lines. I have seen offers on real estate sites where you pay more for a more prominent listing. I don't think this has any value. If a search returned 3 results, 10 results or 30 results for a property that matched my needs, I would look at every listing in detail. The fact that one had been highlighted, or presented at the top of a list would make no difference. Or to put it another way, I wouldn't disregard my dream home because it was presented to me near the bottom of a list.

Or featured listings on a homepage. Yes everyone gets to see it, but if it was a 2 bed and I was looking for a 3 bed, it might as well not be there. If I was looking for a 2 bed, I wouldn't finish my search on the featured listing, I would look at every 2 bed on offer.

[Jnazareno]

Yes, I have noticed Google greatly widening its offering. To their credit they have still kept the homepage clean. However, I am less impressed with the things they are presenting in the search results, books etc.

I have to agree with you on that one..even the Adsense ads are getting to be adsense websites...

[judyo]

And very well put, you almost had me convinced!

About going to the competition. This is something I have wondered about. Lets suppose you have decided to buy in a certain area. Wouldn't you check every possible site you could find that listed properties in that area?

Wouldn't it be the house itself that would attract the buyer, rather than the vendor? Or in other words, it doesn't matter who's selling it, so long as it is the ideal property?

In that sense, the agents aren't competing against each other, the houses are!

On my sites I offer full MLS search. Northern Illinois does require registration to use this & there's no ifs, ands or buts about it. If you want the entire MLS inventory here, you have to register. And guess what, many do.

So once they get on my site there is no need to check out other websites since my site offers every home listed in the MLS in whatever area they want. And my contact information is on all of those listings. They should work with me so I can give them full representation (unless they want to see one of my listings which would be dual agency).

Sure, they're going to choose one or more homes to view. I want to be the agent showing them those homes. So I don't want to lose them to another agent that is associated with some mortgage site that sells their leads to other agents.

Hence, I offer calculators on my site so there isn't a need to go to these other mortgage/portal sites. As I've said before, maybe they have found one home but are not sure if they can really afford it. Why make them search for another site to find out? I also offer a link to a site all about mortgages that also has my info, as mentioned in a prior post. I try to have my bases covered as much as I possibly can.

I'm making it so prospects can hopefully find everything they need on my site. No reason to check out any other sites. In fact, I bet if they did they wouldn't have the full MLS access as most sites in my area don't offer it (they offer our terrible IDX which only has a percentage of our full MLS listings as so many brokers opted out).

Now, as far as paying more for prominent listings such as those offered on Realtor dot com, I do agree it's a waste. To me, it is no more than a listing tool as sellers don't realize that it probably will not help in selling their property. Same as Talking House and the call capture systems or even brochure boxes with the nicest brochures possible. Simply marketing tools. Heck, print advertising is a marketing tool as that rarely sells a property, at least not in my area. But sellers expect it and we must keep them happy so if their listing expires, which is a possibility now more than it has been in a long time, they will gladly relist.

Featured listings are the same thing. It's a marketing tool to impress a seller to list with me. Of course, I don't feature all of my listings and don't have that option on my main sites, anyway.

But believe me, when I have a seller's listing as a featured listing on my one site I send them the link because it sure does impress them! Same thing with the Showcase listings on Realtor dot com.

I still think that a properly priced property will sell because of the MLS, without any other kind of marketing. Most of the marketing I do is to get buyer clients or to make my sellers happy and to follow through with what I promised them (or go above what was promised) during the listing presentation.

My full-service web site is to capture clients before they actually start looking or to take over if they are unhappy with their current agent. This has been fun!

[Charles Sweeney]

Good stuff, judyo.

[rms7design]

here an other one I am using

http://dave.imarc.net

[Memphis]

Aaron,

Is there a snippet for this mortgage calc? That one looks pretty good, is that a different calc than you were using before?

http://www.realestatewebmasters.com...c/custom_calcs/

[Scott.Hack]

I realize this is a SUPER DUPER old thread. But I was able to download, modify and seamlessly install the calculator from page one of this thread. I believe ResaleBroker posted. BIG thanks. It looks awesome on my site.

[missroark]

I might try this...