What to do with $1,000 per year?

Dollinger says that with a $1,000 budget, you can begin to “act like a marketer and invest some money in your business.” He said to take advantage of the “featured listings” products real estate websites offer, and look at the opportunities they can give you and ask yourself some questions. Examples of things to think about include, “Is this zipcode, neighborhood or geographically specific?”, “What is the current average traffic to these specific areas?”, “How many agents do leads get sent to at one time?  All at same time?” and “Do I get all the customer information sent to me?” (meaning, do you get the customer’s actual contact information, or a proxy email).

For Dollinger, Trulia and Zillow are the options he would prefer to use, but understanding what the traffic looks like for an area that you want to do business in is going to be important.

“I would focus on the inclusion of featured listings in package, how much of product is focused on getting you in the “lead contact box” (not banners or mobile) and how and how much of the client’s information is provided to me,” he said.

Both Borden and McNitt say that depending on what kind of agent you are, it might be a good idea to have a $1,000 budget on enhanced listings on Realtor.com to advertise and promote yourself. This tends to work well for listings agents. For those who do buyer work, McNitt recommends buying zip codes, or being on a waiting list (since only two or three agents can buy a zip code). For $1,000, you could also hire a company to build a more professional looking website, rather than a GoDaddy site created by yourself.