Done with zillow and trulia

[joehayes101]

plenty of leads on $30,000 properties...man, they make it difficult to cancel!

[JasonPatton]

What does it cost to become a "preferred agent" with someone like trulia?

[joehayes101]

It depends on what zip codes you want to advertise in. My market is pretty rural and I was paying a couple hundred bucks per month. I did get one sale from Zillow right when I started and thought it was worth it, but I think I can generate better leads with PPC for the same money (and try to keep working on my organic SERPs in the meantime)

[JasonPatton]

Thanks for that info. A guy in my office has a deal with realtor.com and seems to be getting some decent leads off of it.

[Kjmendy]

A guy in my office has a deal with realtor.com

I don't like the idea of being able to pay money to Realtor.com to get an advantage on that site. Don't you pay enough in your annual dues?

Mind you it might be the best investment if you can get it for you market.

[First Time Home Buyers]

Zillow and Trulia are like the "big box stores" of real estate websites. Sometimes they can be helpful, but if the info is not localized, it is usually very inaccurate for prices.

[joehayes101]

What I found frustrating is that they really make it difficult to stop your ads once you start them. The only payment they accept is a recurring credit card charge and there are no monthly invoices or notifications. They make it hard to find information about stopping an ad and you have to call in during their hours and when I finally got around to calling, my agent claimed she was too busy and, could I call back later. If your ads don't expire at the same time, you have to then call back when the other one expires, or they automatically bill you for another month and the only way around that was to cancel the ad for time you already paid for.

Point being that clearly go out of their way to make inconvientent to stop an ad. For that reason, I will be more careful if I ever advertise on one of their sites again.

[phake]

I hate that I have to compete with them in the SERPS. They seem to dominate the top positions along with homes.com, yahoo, Realtor.com, etc..

I'm fine with the competition, other than the fact they are funded by selling stock, while I have to actually earn a profit to fund my efforts.

I won't give them any of my money, so they can turn around and use it to compete against me.

-Pat

[Daniel Beer]

I have come to find that some of the listings that I have seen on Zillow don't have all of the updated information needed. It has been a while since I have used Zillow and or Trulia due to insufficient information needed in order to present a home to my client.

[realatrends]

Realtor.com is pretty cheap, it's different for all agents. To showcase / feature my homes I pay $32 a Month.