How does that expression go? If you want to guarantee failure, try to please everyone. Homestore now has an important decision to make, how to grow its business without alienating its agent customer base on Realtor.com.

Broker Deep Throats at the NAR's mid-year governance meetings this week have confirmed to Realty Times that Homestore CEO Mike Long has asked key brokers to ask NAR to take the contract handcuffs off Homestore, and allow the company to pursue alternative revenues for Realtor.com.

To paraphrase Long, it was suggested that if Homestore weren't around, then the brokers and their agents would have to fend off companies like LendingTree by themselves, and that Homestore is their best chance of competing against LendingTree.

LendingTree is spending millions building its brand on television as a service where consumers can search for homes, get a loan, and find a Realtor. (Funny, that sounds just like a real estate brokerage, doesn't it?)

Realtors are doing business with LendingTree because they see LendingTree as a lead generation tool, an alternative source of business. What they don't see is LendingTree has the power and speed and patience to get to the consumer before they do, using their inattention to the Internet consumer as leverage.

Most Realtors don't realize it, but on the Internet, there is a heated race to get to the Internet consumer first and hold on to them until they complete a transaction. The trouble is, despite strident claims by NAR that over 71 percent of homebuyers use the Internet to find a home, many Realtors still don't think of online consumers as legitimate leads.

However, they are happy enough to take a phone call from an Internet lead generator that they have a "live one."

Many brokers and agents only want to work with people who are buying or selling a home immediately, and they have no patience with the Internet consumer's reluctance to turn their business over until they have learned to trust the agent. They don't have lead management systems in place to sustain a relationship with the consumer while they navigate the arduous process of deciding to buy a home, cleaning up their credit, getting qualified for a loan, figuring out how and where they want to live, and then finding the right home. They just want to work with the customer at the find-a-home stage, but by then, it's often too late. The Internet consumer wanted help earlier than that. Confused by agents who don't answer their emails, they turn to lead generation companies that guarantee results with "certified agents."

Third parties such as Homestore and LendingTree have figured out that the time to capture the consumer is when she is in the early stages of homebuying - the very period Realtors tend to ignore. If they can gain the consumer's trust and help her navigate how to buy, she's that much closer to buying and being a genuine prospect for a Realtor.

So, essentially Realtors are in a race with third-party vendors to capture the loyalty of the consumer and lead her to closing. Each has a lane - third-party lead generation and referral fee-based companies (LendingTree), third-party advertising companies with privileges (Homestore and its contract with the NAR to operate Realtor.com), brokers big and small, and their agents. The finish line isn't closing - it's getting to the consumer first.

Realtors failure to understand the importance of being the first to capture and nurture the consumer to closing baffles the greatest minds in real estate. It's so simple. Yet, most don't want to do it.

According to Bob Goldberg, NAR's senior vice president marketing and business development and president and CEO of RIN, a wholly-owned subsidiary that has responsibility for the operating agreement with HomeStore, as many as 55 to 70 percent of Realtors never bother to follow up on consumer leads that they get via e-mail. That's astounding.

Yet it is often these same Realtors who bitterly complain that Realtor.com is built on THEIR listings, so the exposure they get should be free. They don't seem to realize the incredible loss of confidence in the Realtor brand, Realtor.com, the broker, the agent and the industry at large when an agent fails to answer an email inquiry.

Agents want the exposure of their listings, and some are content to buy enhancements, but not enough agents are ponying up to make it profitable.

And that's the conundrum. Homestore wants to expand its business model, but it can't kiss off tens of thousands of agents who are buying Websites and enhanced listings, but those agents aren't enough to sustain the company. And the only way to expand its business model is to include a way that brokers can capture leads and pay for them.

Homestore can't make everyone happy so it has a PR problem to deal with, but that's because the emphasis for far too long has been on the listings. Realtor.com needs to reinvent itself as the place to find a Realtor, and not just through a passive directory. That's not proactive enough.

Realtor.com has the potential to coax the consumer, do a little problem-solving, qualify the consumer, and then turn them over to the broker to process to closing. If Realtors don't want to hand-hold a customer early in the transaction, why shouldn't someone else do it? It's this disinterest that allows third parties like LendingTree and others to get to the consumers and then charge back large referral fees for doing what Realtors didn't want to do in the first place - take care of the consumer early in the game.

If Realtors want to squawk that Realtor.com would essentially be no different than LendingTree or other middle-men, that's absolutely true, but it's also true that they have no one to blame but themselves. The difference is that with Realtor.com, protecting the Realtor brand and providing choices in how agents can be found are NAR-mandated.

That's what Long has to sell.

Realtor.com by its very presence is promoting the Realtor brand. Beyond that, it doesn't owe anything to individual agents as an advertising medium because they are already collectively promoted as the brand. Realtor.com has to recoup the costs of exposure - those deals with AOL and MSN, for example, that puts Realtors in front of consumers.

Many Realtors fail to understand this subtle distinction, that in order for Realtor.com to be strong, it needs the individual support of agents and brokers. Just like the individual membership dues are a pittance compared to the collective buying power of a million agents at the national level, individual Realtors must be asked to buy "American." They have to be asked to buy the Realtor brand.

The business model for this to work has yet to be announced, but one thing is certain. If Realtor.com can convince Realtors that it is not only the place where consumers can see aggregated listings, but it is also the place where Realtors are exposed to consumers in a number of ways and that the agents have a choice in how they are exposed, they have a better chance for success.

Agents should be able to pick and choose from a graduated scale of exposure VS cost.

For example, if they want free exposure, they can be in the NAR directory.

For a minor cost, they can bundle their exposure with Market Conditions Reports, which Realty Times partners with Realtor.com to provide for additional content and exposure for agents.

If Realtors want their listing exposed without enhancements, then the broker becomes the contact, again at no charge.

If the broker wants more of a qualified lead, then he can agree to pay Homestore for a qualifying and lead retention process.

If Realtors can be made to understand that what they are choosing is the amount and type of exposure and that there is a cost associated with accelerated exposure, then they have a better chance of accepting Realtor.com in a new business model.

And the ones who don't get it? Well, you just can't please everyone.

Published: May 13, 2004

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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.