What to do with $500 per year?

Even though a $500 budget won’t get you much further than $300, Dollinger says you “may” be able to afford some of the entry-level products for enhancing your listings and preventing competitive advertising from appearing. He recommends using some of the featured listing packages that Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com offer.

“You’ll also be able to use this in listing presentations and some of the analytic tools to better communicate with your sellers during the transaction,” he said.

Keeping in mind that a $500 annual budget won’t get you very far, Borden recommends spending it on personal marketing and suggested that Realtors use it to design a professional WordPress blog with nice camera equipment. She did that with her own real estate blog, “The Borden Report.”

“I think that’s a better choice than giving it to these big websites,” she said. “You are competing against people with a $5,000 budget a month. You won’t be able to purchase adequate zip codes and those types of things. So why not look at a neighborhood and sponsor an event with your $500? This is where you work, play and live. That will get you more action and traction than throwing it to the wind and hoping.”