It's time that real estate agents learned the difference between listing a home and marketing one, says Realtor.com President Allan Dalton. He's putting Realtor.com's money where his mouth is -- on seminars that will help brokers to train their agents how to list more homes and sell them for higher prices. And he has the hair-raising consumer behavior stats to back it up, courtesy of Internet technologies that track consumers' every action on the site.

This insider knowledge makes Realtor.com uniquely qualified to provide this type of training and consulting.

"We have both the experience of interacting with millions of consumers every month on Realtor.com," says Dalton, "and we have relationships with thousands of top producers throughout the country who are using our marketing solutions."

Throughout 2004, Realtor.com, using the services of 22 strategically placed educator/trainers, will conduct a national series of symposiums/seminars to teach "our fellow real estate professionals the techniques that will help position their services at a higher level with the consumers and deliver higher results for themselves," vows Dalton. Brokers will share the costs, and Realtor.com will take on the daunting job of explaining to classes of 100 agents at a time how marketing works on the Internet.

While the company obviously hopes to sell more products and services, the training isn't going to be as Realtor.com-centric as people might suspect, promises Dalton. The reason for that is that selling Realtor.com is putting the cart before the horse. Realtors have to first learn how to market their listings. Buying Realtor.com products comes later.

For example, Dalton maintains that agents need to understand why it is important to enhance listings, before selling an agent on enhancements.

He says that in a climate where consumers are questioning the value of Realtors, less than 10 percent of Realtors are providing the most basic marketing tool for listings -- photos. "We divide the number of customers we have into the number of members," says Dalton. "About 100,000 Realtors are enhancing their listings, while the remaining 870,000 aren't."

That means on a $300,000 listing, where an agent can potentially make about $18,000, most agents won't spend $50 for a virtual tour or provide multiple photos to enhance their listings.

No wonder sellers don't want to pay as much in commissions. Are we really that cheap?

Of course, not all Realtors are listing agents, but about 95 percent are. And they feel their job is done when the home gets listed. That's where the disconnect takes place, says Dalton.

Training agents to prioritize getting photos made and delivered to the Internet means getting them to realize that listing a home in the MLS is not the same thing as marketing the home to the public.

With today's quick datafeeds, that listing could be broadcast across the world on Realtor.com within hours of reaching the MLS. If an agent hasn't enhanced the listing, he or she could appear to be lazy or uncaring. Buyers aren't going to understand why a listing doesn't have the most basic piece of information -- what it looks like. And sellers would be furious to know that their homes are being put before the public without proper marketing. Neither buyers or sellers will be impressed by an agent who markets a home as poorly as that.

And they are -- to the tune of about 25 percent of all agents.

How do we know? Realtor.com tracks the viewership of all listings. According to August 2003 internal data, Realtor.com received 970,845 new listings. Of those, about 25 percent, or 241,348, had zero photos.

Properties without photos had 12.7 listing detail page views per listing. Homes with six photos or more had 83.6 listing detail page views, or a whopping 558 percent increase in page views over homes with no photos.

The lesson here is that enhancements to listings (multiple photos or virtual tours) has a return on investment.

Realtor.com relates those findings to the productivity of its customers vs. the non-Realtor.com customer. Realtors who don't use Realtor.com average $6.3 million in production, while Realtor.com customers average $9.6, a 53 percent increase. They also list more expensive homes -- $336,181 list price to non-Realtor.com customers' $270,319 -- a gain of 24 percent.

"The discovery of this is the backbone of the program," says Dalton. "What we have to do is get across that we are not just helpful on the lead generation or buying side, but we are also helpful on the listing side.

"The biggest threat that agents face is their value to sellers," he says. "On the marketing side, they feel fees are being pressured. We feel it is a responsibility to homesellers that we are an important listing tool that satisfies a marketing need for agents."

Published: October 31, 2003

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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.