The short answer, according to the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), is no.
NAR’s research indicates that real estate websites generate few, if any, leads for which agents can follow-up. Specifically, NAR found that in 2013, the peak year for which websites generated leads, real estate websites generated an average of one lead for the agent; in 2016, an average of 1 lead was generated and; in 2017, zero leads, nada, were generated by real estate web sites.
The longer answer, according to Real Estate Webmasters, a real estate site provider, is yes, a real estate website CAN yield an average of 500-6000 leads /year for agents provided that the agent
- pays a one-time set up fee of approximately $5,000
- pays a monthly subscription fee of $499/month
- spends $6,000 – $18,000/year on marketing, search engine and Face Book ads
NAR found that there to be some 900,000 personal real estate websites in the US for the some 1.36M Realtor agent members in NAR. Of those 900,000 websites, NAR found that 26% were developed and/or maintained independently by the Realtor and 42% of those sites were provided to the Realtor by the Realtor’s firm.
NAR indicated in its 2018 Member Profile that one third of its members who had a website spent nothing on that site during 2017. 20% of those Realtor members with web sites spent $500 or more on their site. And, of the Realtor members who spent $1,000 or more on their site, 44% had an average of 5 inquiries on their sites and 25% received no inquiries.
NAR has an arrangement with a real estate tech provider, Placester, to provide free personal real estate websites for its members but Seth Price, the companies overseer, said, “It would be foolhardy to expect that a free NAR website would become a lead nurturing machine.”
Price offered that the only way a website, free or paid, could become a “lead nurturing machine” would be if the Realtor were to work consistently and continuously on marketing that website. “Then and only then would a website have the potential to generate a substantial volume of leads for an agent. But only a small percentage of our industry is willing to do just that.”
Rather than producing leads instantly, a carefully conceived and well executed website CAN IN FACT ADVANCE OTHER REALTOR GOALS. A Realtor can help develop her/his reputation as a source of trusted information, market knowledge, neighborhood insights and professional expertise by providing consistent, continuous, and market-relevant content via her/his website.
It is essentially giving away that step by step, day by day quality content on your website that will first engage and then engender your readers to eventually click the contact icon on your website. No need to pay through the nose…just research and deliver top quality, relevant information and expertise to your website readers.
