Don’t be a lead, be a client

January 17, 2008

When real estate consumers use the Internet to search for homes, a number of websites require registration in order to search the MLS. With so many sites available to search for Charleston South Carolina real estate, a lot of people might just go on to the next site where they might gain access without providing their name, email or phone number or on really restricted sites, be required to provide even more detailed and private information.

I understand this because I Google everything when I’m looking for information and when I find friendly sites, I stay, unfriendly, and I’m on to the next. By a friendly site, I mean one that provides a significant amount of information without requiring anything of me other than to click around and find lots of helpful content. I consider a site unfriendly if they require immediate registration to learn anything without a hint of what I might find.

There is a difference between sites that exist to help you with your future real estate transactions and those that simply exist to obtain your information and resell it as a lead. In the real estate industry, these are called lead generator companies.

When searching for a home, it’s important to know who you are going to be working with, a real estate agent of your choice or one who is “assigned” to you.

I talked about this idea in the blog on my original website almost a year ago and it is just as relevant a subject today. My friend, Larry Cragun of Real Estate Undressed, realtor, mortgage broker and blogger extraordinaire wrote about lead generators then and why to watch out when you search, written with Larry’s great sense of humor.

Please read, Lead, Lead, Lead, Lead.