0
0
0

Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com: Which One is Best?

by Natalie Terchek

What do you do if you have $300 per year?

Especially when they are starting out, agents don’t have a big budget to spend on real estate websites. But there are still some things you can do if you don’t have a lot of money.

If you have a budget of $300 per year, Borden recommends doing something hyper local, that will get your name out in the community. “You’re not going to have enough money to compete, so you can spend the money on a way to promote yourself on a very low level, where the people you work with and your audience can see you and touch you,” she said. “That is money better spent.”

Dollinger agrees that $300 is not a lot to work with, and if that’s what your budget is, it is not worth spending it on real estate websites.

“Don’t do it,” he said. “You’re probably not a listing agent and you’d be better off  spending this $300 a year on mailers to your SOI, thank you gifts, or taking past clients out for coffee.  You can still take advantage of the portal’s free services like ‘Trulia Voices’ or ‘Zillow Advice’ to interact with consumers and build your online brand, but for $25 a month, none of the portals provide a service worth paying for.”

McNitt agrees and says $300 would probably be enough for one chronicle ad for one weekend. However, for $500, he recommends spending the money on a personal website and a blog to promote yourself and help you come up in online searches.

“It doesn’t have to be fancy, but people should be able to do a Google search and find you,” he said.

Read More Related to This Post

Comments

  • Wayne Stroman says:

    I find the information in the article inaccurate where it says: “HAR.com has been said to be the most accurate, but since only Realtors have access to it, most homebuyers will not be looking on there.” The truth is HAR.com is a public site and more home buyers go there than the other sites mentioned. Houston is the only major metro with a highly successful public facing website and when it is the source for all the data displayed on the aggregator’s sites and updated more timely than they can, HAR.com is the place to go. Wayne Stroman, HAR Chairman of the Board, 2012 for the Houston Association of REALTORS.

  • Marie Dierks says:

    Yes I totally agree HAR.com is by far the best for the real information regarding properties.

Join the conversation

Oops! We could not locate your form.