Realtor.com to offer free mobile listing sites
Site builder automatically generates single-property sites, marketing materials
By Andrea V. Brambila, Thursday, January 12, 2012.
Image via Iryna Rasko/ShutterstockNEW YORK -- Realtor.com is about to roll out a free tool that will allow real estate professionals to build single-property websites optimized for mobile devices.
Realtor.com president Errol Samuelson introduced the company's Mobile Listing Site Builder on Thursday to attendees at Real Estate Connect in New York City. The platform will launch in about two weeks.
The company decided to offer the tool after realizing that up to 45 percent of Realtor.com's traffic was coming from mobile devices on weekends, but many listings linked to agent websites that were not mobile-optimized, Samuelson told Inman News.
"It's just a terrible user experience. It's bad for our customers. It's bad for us because we send them there from our site," he said.
Screenshot of a mobile listing site built using Realtor.com's Mobile Listing Site Builder.
Because Realtor.com contains listings from virtually every multiple listing service in the country, the company reasoned it would be "easy" to provide agents with a tool they might otherwise have to pay a monthly fee for, Samuelson said.
After signing up, building a site is a two step process. First, agents choose their MLS and type in their MLS ID to validate their status as an MLS member. Secondly, agents choose a listing. The mobile website is then instantly generated and populated with listing data, including photos.
The tool also automatically generates a shortened, shareable URL for the site, an embeddable QR (Quick Response) code for marketing materials, and PDFs for listing fliers and postcards.
There will not be any advertising on the mobile sites, Samuelson said. "This is strictly for the agent."
| Contact Andrea V. Brambila: | |||
 Facebook |  Twitter |  Email |  Letter to the Editor |
All rights reserved. This content may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this content without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.
You must login or register to post a comment.
Submitted by Amanda Cornelius on January 13, 2012 - 9:46am.
A good idea for Realtor.com as it will generate even more mobile traffic for Realtor.com. Have the agent do all the marketing of the QR code, and drive traffic to realtor.com. Shouldn't agents be creating mobile sites that drive traffic to their own website? Free is not always free ...
Submitted by Deidre Woolard on January 13, 2012 - 3:33pm.
@Amanda: We want to help agents spend time working on their business instead of working in their business. Agents have their time split into what we call class "A" time and class "B" time. Class "A" time is revenue producing time – time spent meeting new clients, working with existing clients and closing transactions. All the other stuff falls into class "B" time – stuff agents need to do to run an effective business like marketing, administrative tasks, creating listing collateral etc. We designed our app to help agents free up a lot more revenue-producing class "A" time. Listing agents can now create a complete set of property-specific marketing pieces with just a few mouse clicks instead of spending hours behind a computer. And if they choose to, they can use the extra hours they save to meet new clients and build their businesses.