Certainly the impressive figures cited by listing aggregators such as Realtor.com, 460 million page views a month, and HomeSeekers with over 30,000 visitors a day would indicate that people are definitely coming to the Web to view homes. But how many come to the Internet to find agents? Conventional wisdom is that the real estate agent has been lost in the listings shuffle on the Internet., but evidence is starting to mount that consumers definitely seek agents on the Internet, too.

Until the National Association of REALTORS® come out with their bi-annual housing survey next year, it will be unknown how many people actually buy a home from using the Internet. Only anecdotal evidence from agents and brokers will tell the story.

Meanwhile, Sandy Lockwood, a Traverse City, Michigan broker, has done a survey of her company's customers, and has discovered that 26% of her sales/leads are coming from the Internet, right behind yard signs. The indication is that the Internet is slowly overtaking traditional means of finding a home for consumers.

So where do agents fit in? That is something many service providers would like to know. In fact, Realtor.com is in the middle of researching that question themselves.

David Rosenblatt, vice president of marketing for Realtor.com, believes agents are sought by consumers on the Internet. Compiling data from the site's "Find a REALTOR®" button and other means, Realtor.com is attempting to discover how, why and how successfully consumers search for and engage agents on the Internet.

"We know that right now, two-thirds of the people who come to the site do not have an agent," says Rosenblatt. "That's why we are tracking the value proposition of Find a REALTOR®."

Because the agent home pages are a revenue generator for Realtor.com, Rosenblatt would not comment on how many agent pages have been sold or renewed. He did say that information concerning agent searches would be available in several weeks at the conclusion of their research.

On daily searches, consumers click on HomeSeekers' Agent Finder button about 3,000 times. They click on homes about 30,000 times a day.

According to John Giaimo, president of HomeSeekers, comparing agent searches to listings searches, or even agent searches from one site to the next isn't a fair test.

"We find that consumers may visit a group of homes as many as 15 times in the home search process, but they will only click on the Agent Finder button once," says Giaimo. "Of those, we don't know how many are agents checking their own sites."

"On HomeSeekers, the agent's photo and contact information is featured on every listing, which is not necessarily true of other sites. So the results may be very different from site to site," explains Giaimo. "Since the agents are viewed along with their listings, it is hard to say what tips the consumer to call."

There is some evidence that consumers call agents directly. Dean Nicolaides and Lawrence Schoeffler, owners of Best Image, an agent marketing firm, maintain that they have proof that consumers are "hungry to find agents."

Best Image sells banner ads that proclaim, "#1 Real Estate Expert." Consumers click on the banner and are transported to the site's participating list of REALTORS® organized by region.

"We market the top REALTORS® across the Web," says Schoeffler. "Our banners say if you want the top expert in your area, click here. Consumers want to be pointed toward an expert. Not just an agent - an expert."

"You can look at homes all you want, but you still need expert advice about neighborhoods, schools, new local laws, community developments, shopping centers, services, special interests, child care."

"The product is a home, but people also buy service."

"Our click through rate demonstrates that one out of five or six people who click to the banner go straight to the banner and skip the rest of the page they are on. Not many banners can make that claim," suggests Schoeffler.

"Our business has been personal marketing to REALTORS® for 15 years. We want to debunk the myth that if consumers have plenty of information about homes and listings that they can make the best decision for themselves without a REALTOR®."

"People are toying with the idea that the Internet will replace REALTORS®. We think the opposite is true. The Internet will enhance the REALTOR's ability to help consumers. If you find a reputable REALTOR, it is worth every penny," says Nicolaides.

"We support the shakeout of the part-timers and dabblers. They do more harm than good. That is why we promise only Top REALTORS - the experts. The average REALTOR on our site is a 20-year veteran, averaging $20 million in sales. They have infrastructures, assistants, and they can process a lot of information better than someone who is new or part-time.

"These REALTORS® are selling more of a percentage of the market than they used to. More transactions are being carried out by fewer people. We are placing them under one umbrella. Then we noticed a market increase in our banner ads."

"Banner ads will typically spike and then die off, but our banner ads have been consistently performing for over a year." One other interesting thing is that our banner has been there for over a year."

As proof, Schoeffler and Nicolaides provided Real Times with numerous testimonials from satisfied agents along with a copy of a letter written to him by Matthew Calvert, Account Executive with Excite Inc. The letter states that "the #1 Real Estate Expert banner ad by Best Image continues to impress me with both its high response rate and its durability on the Excite Network."

According to Calvert, the banner averaged "about a 20% click rate on our Home and Real Estate Channel and almost 6% in our Classifieds/Real Estate section. This response rate by far outshines the average for these sections, which is about 5% and 2%, respectively. In fact, I believe that the Best Image banner enjoys the best average click rate of all ad creative on Excite--of the countless banners that I have seen, even the best performing burn out after a few months."

Calvert concludes that "this success can be attributed to the fact that the banner provides a valuable service to our users."

In other words, people are seeking agents on the Internet.

Published: March 25, 1999

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Blanche Evans is the award-winning senior editor of Realty Times, the Internet's leading independent real estate news service. She is featured daily on the Realty Times Video Network in the "Realty Viewpoint" segment. Blanche has been named one of the "25 Most Influential People In Real Estate" by REALTOR Magazine, and has been twice recognized as a "notable." In 2005, she was named "Top Reporter Covering the NAR" by Delahaye-Bacon's. Blanche is a renowned author of five real estate books. Her newest, Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money In Any Real Estate Market, McGraw-Hill, was rave-reviewed by The New York Times. She was also selected from hundreds of real estate experts to contribute to Donald Trump's book, Trump: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies, Rutledge Hill Press, and is featured on page 68. Order Now Review - Honors In 2006, Blanche was selected among scores of candidates to author two consumer real estate guidebooks for the National Association of Realtors: The NAR Guide to Home Buying, and The NAR Guide to Home Selling, Wiley & Sons. She is currently planning two new books for the NAR and its members.       Known for her keen insight into real estate industry issues and for her ability to make complex subjects easy to understand, Blanche is a sought-after keynote and continuing education speaker. Real estate organizations from MLSs, to brokerages, to franchisors, to associations hire her to provide up-to-the-minute analysis of real estate industry news and advice on how to improve revenues. Her passionate delivery, peppered with stinging wit, is a huge hit with audiences and fans. Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, Blanche Evans, Richard Courtney, president 2007, GRAR "The GNAR membership meeting last week featured Blanche Evans as the keynote speaker. Her comments and insights resonated extremely well with those in attendance and we have had many requests for copies of her PowerPoint Presentation. She was a terrific part of the membership meeting and convention program!" - Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors Coverage from WSMV, Nashville - 8-14-2007 That Interview Guy - Get Inside The Head Of Today's Generation 2007 AE Institute Session - To purchase 2006 AE Institute Session - Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 HouseValues Mastermind call - Parts 1 2 Blanche's fireside chat with Jeremy Conaway, HAR - Click here. To contact Blanche, email her at . For more articles by Blanche, click here.