NAR partners with Placester to offer members websites for $5 a month
“Nearly every Realtor can now get a personal website equipped with a listing search tool for just $5 a month.
The National Association of Realtors has partnered with real estate website provider Placester to offer the deal, which is available to all Realtors operating in markets where Placester has Internet Data Exchange agreements with multiple listing services.”
$5.00 is pretty cheap. When Zillow announced IDX websites for $10 a month, I quipped that many IDX vendors might have “pooped their pants” well now I think they shit their bed.
I’m curious if NAR guaranteed Placester a minimum number of sites. That would make sense to me. So that would mean NAR dues are paying for IDX websites whether or not you are utilizing this service. Also what if the MLS has a surcharge on IDX feeds, does Placester eat that cost or do they add it to the $5.00?
Three things strike me about this deal.
1. Big brokers are gonna be pissed. The Realty Alliance has made a big kerfuffle about MLS providers providing agents tools (like websites) for “free”, when brokers would typically want to charge their agents for those same tools.
2. Nice win for Placester! You gotta wonder if MOVE had the option to put a similar deal together.
3. IDX has officially jumped the shark.
Greg, you will appreciate this comment…..
Several months ago I thought to purchase a Placester website for my wife Kayelin…as a backup to her custom website. At the time, I think Placester’s monthly fee was $20 or so, but Placester informed me they did not have the HAR data feed and so my wife would have to pay HAR $800 per year for the IDX link. Really?
Then I learned from HAR that our local Houston Chronicle newspaper had licensed the IDX data feed from HAR and would be offering Placester websites with IDX to HAR members as part of the Chronicle’s ‘Agent First’ program.
So just this week, the Chronicle began marketing its website offering to HAR Realtors for $10 per month….with full IDX. Well, I purchased the deal online and began the website setup….which, after three days, two emails to the Chronicle, and two calls to Placester support….I still can’t login to her new website to set the dang thing up.
And then today…the announcement that Placester has partnered with NAR and will offer the site for $5 per month. Funny, eh?
Down here we call that a Goat Rodeo. TW
My 2 thoughts:
1: You get what you pay for
2: I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when Zillow heard this
This is only available where Placester has IDX agreements with MLSs, and it only has those with 200 MLSs. That leaves Realtors in 75% of the U.S. MLS regions unable to take advantage of this, does it not? And even in the other 25% the difference between $5 and $10 is NOTHING if the services of the $10 offer are in any way better. Not saying they are, just saying this might not be the competitive product it looks like at first glance.