"e-Lies"

As professionals, real estate agents are not always perceived as being pillars of guilelessness, probity and honesty.

Unfortunately, there is good reason for this stereotype, although the majority of hard working brokers do their best to be honest and forthcoming.

Let's look at one of the most "stretched" assertions made by well meaning but ignorant, (and some neither well meaning nor ignorant) brokers...

"Our website gets 25,000,000,000 hits a week!"
"We have the second most viewed real estate website in the entire United States"
"Behind Google, Yahoo! and ebay, our website gets the most hits on the planet!"

What they're asserting is almost certainly false. Claims like this are made because buyers, sellers and renters are abandoning traditional print media in droves, and going online to transact their business. These brokers are trying to represent that they have a significant online presence.

Technology, professional web design and massive online marketing is very expensive, and none but the largest firms can realistically put forth a first class website that actually draws visitors and qualified customers to their content (i.e. your listing). It is simply too expensive for small and medium sized companies to create, maintain, and most importantly, continuously promote a first class website.

Your property will sell faster and for more money when more buyers are exposed to the property. If you don't know why this is true, you can review the reasons here. Since almost 80% of New York buyers begin their search on the Internet, it behooves you to put a professionally produced webpage of your property in front of those eyeballs.

This is really the big-time. I can't stress it enough. "Part 1" of the real estate business is now conducted on the Web in New York City. Don't be fooled by the fact that listings are shared among all the firms electronically. This is true, but it has nothing to do with your web exposure to the buyers themselves. (Exposure of your listing to the most qualified people is what I mean by "Part 1" of the real estate business. "Part 1" is everything that happens up until contact is made between a qualified buyer and the broker. "Part 2" is the actual sales process, and make no mistake; this is where the quality of the individual broker you use comes into play.)

So how do you separate the wheat from the chaff about website traffic claims?

1. Go to the website yourself and poke around. You don't need a lesson on what looks schlocky.
2. Carefully read the literature the broker gives you, if any. Web "hits" and "visitors" are two different things. One "visitor" can "hit" the website hundreds of times and it's still only one person.
   
3. Ask about international Web exposure and statistics. In New York, there are many buyers in other countries.

Summary:
Real estate today is most effectively promoted on the Web. Roughly 4 out of 5 qualified buyers begin their search on the Web, and during the buying process more than 90% of buyers use the web at some point in their search. As a seller you want to be on that Web, and you want to be in the most likely place those buyers will find you. If you want to find out more, let me know.

Reach me at: michael.sussilleaux@gmail.com