Real Estate Agents Rebel – Realestate.com.au – Enough is enough

With the latest round of price hikes dished out by   www.realestate.com.au  – Real estate agents are mad.  No…  They are furious.

Last week, together with 2 others, we set up a Facebook page on behalf of all agents, to register our protest.

Within a 4 day period,  2500 agents joined to be counted as a voice on the social media page.  A big voice.

The Facebook Page is called Real Estate Agents Rebel – Enough is enough.  Join The Page  Here.

Real Estate Agents have also gone out to other social media outlets and filmed their own videos in protest.

Adam Flynn from Biggin and Scott , who is a big voice in the industry,  took to Youtube to get his message across.

See his video Here.

Yes.. they are mad.

Agents are now looking for leadership, they are looking for direction and they are looking for answers.

Having been in the industry for over 20 years, the great thing that I see happening now, is that in a very short period of time, agents have united –  Finally they are working towards being one voice.  In 20 years, I have never seen this happen.

Don’t get me wrong, not all agents are worried, not all agents care.. some are happy letting someone else control the media space and their intellectual property.. they are ok with someone else having a very powerful database of potential clients –  They are OK with someone else having the industry power.  Some agents are not worried about the latest price hikes at all, some say it’s OK because they’ll pass the costs on to the sellers anyway, so it’s business as usual.

For those that ARE interested, what is the answer?

There’s been a lot of talk on the Facebook page.. Some have suggested that all the state REI’s  (Real Estate Institutes) should join together to form a national industry website.   Is that the answer?  Is this possible?  From what I have learnt in the last week, it seems like there would be a lot of politics involved and it seems like it would be a very complicated task.  Could they do it?  Yes, I guess they could.. but would they?  To look from the outside in…. REIWA is located firmly ahead of the pack, enjoying massive support from its members – its new website will be launched soon. REIWA have committed to invest a fortune in upgrades, and from all sources, it promises to be an eye opener.  REIQ and REIV have their property portals established and they are going along just nicely.

The trouble with merging the REI’s websites as some have suggested, is that the REI’s, are separate and different entities.  Could they join together to make something happen?   Yes.  Is it practical?   Probably not.   However if they don’t look at doing SOMETHING…. while they are quiet, others ARE  taking action.

If you are a member of the REI, and you want to see change, send them a letter and tell them what you need help with.  If you would like them to approach REA on behalf of all the members and say their prices are too dear.. Ask.  For any change to happen, it has to be the members driving it..

I have tried to think of a very simplified easy alternative for the REI’s to appear as if we have a unified front as our national portal.    Yes this idea is very simplified and kind of basic  And.. There might be all kinds of reasons why it wouldn’t work??   But in the interests of arriving at  some suggestions… Here goes.  They could have one national based website,  for example called REIAustralia.com.au??   When users land on this page, they could have a state by state directory.  The user would then click the state and be diverted to the individual REI state website.   It would be a little messy and there would be cross branding,  however it could be one national name that people get to know.

The other point with the REI’s,  is the discussion about what percentage of the sites are owned by members..  ( I have not yet confirmed percentages)

In America, the leading portal WAS  www.realtor.com – It is an industry owned website.   In saying this too, they are having their own issues trying to retain market share from Zillow and Trulia.  Read about this here.. 

Meanwhile on the front, some agents are opting to stay with REA, however they have only re signed for the basic minimal subscription, with no upsells.

How does Domain rate in this?  Domain and REA have been the dominant players for a while now and it’s relevant to keep in mind that both were born through the media. Some agents have indicated that they are swapping to, or increasing their presence and spend with Domain.   Obviously agents are a little nervous and hesitant about swapping everything over,  for fear of empowering another potential media monster.  This is what Antony Catalano CEO of Domain, has to say about REA.  Here

It’s obvious that currently REA has massive power over our industry and what do they have in store for us?   We know that by the year 2017 they have plans to have  no subscriptions payable by the agency and agents will be charged on a ‘pay per property’ basis.   Agencies that don’t charge vendor paid advertising,  could either be up for a lot more money, or they will have to start charging VPA.  Either the agent is going to have to pay these huge costs, or the seller will.  Simple.  The only one guaranteed to win, is REA.

What’s true and what’s not?  There is a report floating around that suggests that REA may go direct to the consumer,  aiming to leave the agent out of the transaction.  We do not  have any confirmation of that happening, however some agents are extremely concerned  about the potential damage to our industry  if this did occur.

For those that are outside of our industry, the answer seems simple. Tell the agents to pull their listings from REA and put them somewhere else.   That, in practicality sounds easy.  This is where it gets hard.  REA has done a great job, of encouraging agents to push their product.  The agents have happily participated in pushing REA’s wares.  Because agents have pushed REA for many years, buyers and sellers have now been trained to ask for  www.realestate.com.au.  Now, a big proportion of sellers want their property on this site because they  THINK  that’s where ALL the action happens.   Keep in mind too, that sometimes other portals massively out perform REA and yet the subscriptions to REA, are as far as I have experienced, are much higher regardless.

The fear agents feel  –  Some agents have said they will consider withdrawing all of their listings from REA.   Warning – Be careful doing this, without a solid marketing plan in place and a firm way to educate your sellers on the alternatives.   If you as an agent, can’t or won’t provide the facility to advertise there, and you don’t have the confidence from your seller that you don’t need it, you could lose the listing to your competitor.    That could be a deal breaker.    Yes, we as agents can feel stuck and actually feel pressured to use a product that may be virtually useless in the area where we trade.   This is where some agents have opted for the basic REA subscription.  They can still provide the service, yet they are not spending a lot on all the bells and whistles REA spruiks.

Yes,  I understand that News Limited is a public company and their loyalty is with the shareholders to increase the share price and dividends.  That’s their business and their outcome.   Of course Rupert Murdoch is an extremely smart business man with a huge media empire who makes sure he gets his outcomes.    On the other side of the equation, is the real estate agents.  We are talking about in a lot of cases, small family real estate businesses, Mums and Dads with children..  Sometimes they are struggling to make ends meet.  They don’t need these huge extra overheads.

What do the sellers think about all this?

At this point in time, they don’t know in the future that they will be expected to pay the huge advertising costs to sell their family home.  This is the most important point here,  I don’t care who is paying the bill, if it’s too high, it’s too high.  Obviously agents believe REA’s  costs are ridiculous or we wouldn’t be here even talking about it.

So….  With all this talk… Has anything really happened?  

Yes progress is happening –

1)  Major franchises and independents have signed off on developing  ‘A national industry owned website.’  A CEO has been appointed – Nick Christian, Former Co-founder of PriceFinder

2)  Agents are saying NO to REA upsells.

3)  Agents have reported they are negotiating subscription fees.

4)  Other real estate portals are scrambling for the business – Competition is always healthy.

5)  Best of all, Agents are finally realising that they need to spend their time, money and effort on their own brands, their own websites, their own databases and their own profile.

It’s seems hard to believe, but I have heard about some Real Estate Offices that spend $1,000,000 with REA a year, and some that spend more than that!

All I can think is, imagine if they spent that money on their own website and  their own localised profile.  Their own Google presence!  They would have their area covered. Wow.. the possibilities.

I would suggest that they start to focus on THEIR OWN business, and consider the value of their website and the intellectual property they  COULD account for online. It would have to be a healthy asset to anyone looking to buy a real estate business.  For those agents, currently  a large portion of their content and databases are stored on REA –  As agents, we need to store this on our site –  Believe me, REA does not need your support.. They will do just fine without you.

My main point I would like to make at this stage,  is that the balance of power needs to be brought back in favour of us.. It’s our industry and we are losing control.

We need to pick ourselves up,  we need to  gain confidence in ourselves first, in our own listing ability and our own marketing ability.  We need to show owners we have a detailed marketing plan that works.  We need to get better at listing and better at marketing.  Our listing kit is our tool box.  Our tool box needs to be sharp.

There will be a lot of questions with the new industry site.   Questions like;  how will they pay for it?  How will it work?  What colour will it be?  🙂  We need to be open and give it a go.

So, What do Buyers think of all this talk about REA?

Buyers will go where the listings are.  If a town of 10 real estate agents got together and formed their own small combined real estate website and did not list anything on REA, what would the buyers do?  They won’t wait for something to be listed on REA, they will go where the properties are listed for sale.

What can we do to make a difference NOW?   Work on your online profile.   Work on your presence in the community.  Real Estate offices are localised businesses.  When buyers are looking to buy a property, they search for property in the area they want to buy.  They will start their search by searching an area – they will then search something like  ‘Houses for sale Brisbane’ or ‘Apartments for sale Toorak.’   Whoever or whatever is on that first page of Google, will get that enquiry.  We don’t know where the buyers are coming from, but we know where they are coming to.. If they want to buy in Toorak, they will search in Toorak.  Make sure you are dominant in Toorak on Google.

Aim to get on page one of Google for your relevant Keywords.  Get famous in your area, make sure people know who you are and where you work.

Finally, we need to stop this madness with REA and get the power back.

We need to stay united as an industry and work towards the best thing for our sellers, buyers and our offices.

Lisa B. helps real estate agents to use the internet to kick butt online.
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Real Estate Agents Rebel

Lisa B. Social Media Real Estate Trainer