How have you done with appraisers.com, etc.?

[Kathy in FL]

For those of you who pay for internet listings, how do you do with them? Which are the most successful?

Are there any real duds masquerading as heavy-traffic?

Kathy in FL

 

[Pamela Crowley (Florida)]

I refuse to pay for an internet listing. I'm on Wayne's AppraiserUSA.com directory and that's it.

Just my personal thing though.

 

[Jeff Horton]

I am on Wayne's also and got my first call (that I know of) from it last week.

I am also on another one and I have gotten one job off it. Can't even remember who they are but they were free.

I have found that my web site gets me as much work as the others do. I just don't find any of them very effective in my market.

Save your money. If you want to spend money have Wayne or someone build you a web site if you can't do it yourself. I think that is better money spent.

 

[Wally Jones]

Haven't paid to be listed anywhere. Just recently listed with Wayne's site. (Sorry it took me so long! )

I've had over a half dozen referrals from FORUM MEMBERS!! (Thank you!) Two of those have turned into semi-regular clients.

It's hard to focus on marketing when you're so busy you don't have time for lunch, but if we wait for it to slow down, it's too late to do us any good! I've set aside a portion of each week to consider marketing and determine if we're doing enough, where to look, how to improve, do we want to expand, etc. For me, if I don't schedule something, I know I won't get to it.

 

[ccooper]

When they first came out I signed on with one of the companies, don't recall exactly which one but the organizer was j.p. or p.j. Rij ???

In order to properly track the amount of work we received from this we changed the name of the company slightly (...Appraisal to ...Consulting). After 11 months and having received zero work my contact with jp. or pj received an offer of a refund for the unused portion of my year contract; 1/12th. I refused the $15 dollars or whatever it was and instead enjoy the opportunity to throw him under the bus whenever I get the chance.

Our residential business is 50% of our total and residential has risen in excess of 20% each year for past five years. January '03 "slow" month was up 12%. It's been my experience that if you can focus on quality work and shorter turn around times, the local guys will keep coming back even when the fly by night brokers fire you because your not flexible enough. The out of towners you may get from an appraisal directory are the most likely to not pay, pay slow, and not send you volumes of work. Save your money for the IRS.

I have found that my best marketing tool is a quarterly newsletter sent to the REALTORs, local lenders, attorney's, and press. My newsletter is designed as a "tool" for the agents. Here is the top five price categories of houses that are selling and here is a list of the bottom five market segments (calculated as a number of listings vs. solds annually). That way Ms. Real Estate agent can photo copy this and mail it to her 50 listings as a defense of why the home is slow moving. Or mail it to her farm as a listing prospect tool. I have received a lot of commercial and residential work from the Realtors from this continual (eight years now) newsletter. The news doesn't have to be good, just regular. The newsletter has received reprints and quotes from local and regional media which hasn't really increased any business, but it did impress my folks. "Little Johnny is on the front page again."

 

[Dale Smalley]

I am trying the Overture system that charges me per hit. Seems be half working but nothing to rave at. There is a $20 per month minium and a have not surpassed that number in hits yet.

 

[Kali the Boston Terrier]

I have a paid listing with appraisal.com it has paid for itself in about two weeks...however they act like an AMC but give you a higher fee. Just took out an ERC listing not sure if it works yet

 

[Ed Potrafke]

Ignore this, I did read the post carefully enough, and commented about Appraisal.com

 

[Mountain Man]

I've tried several freebie listings. The only one that I can actually track as receiving work from is Wayne's site. After I confirmed that it was worth while marketing, I paid for a premium listing in my area.

Others I have tried seem to just want to sell an ad, no service, no customer or user base, just selling air.

 

[Mike Garrett RAA]

Free listings only for me....but then I have too much work anyway. I did have my own web page but it never produced enough work to be cost effective. Perhaps I should have Wayne design one for me.

One word of advice....if you do accept work from internet sources, consider COD. It appears I just got stiffed on a $2,000 fee (5 non-owner occupied townhomes) from a California lender.