As the drama over consumer traffic between Realtor.com and Homes.com plays out in the media, I cannot help but wonder, who cares?

The homes sold in America each year are around 5-6 million, distributed across about 500,000 real estate agents and 85,000 real estate brokers. Yes, more than half of the licensed real estate agents do not complete any trades in a given year. When you look at top line numbers where portals get 50 Million, 100 Million, or 150 Million visits a month, it’s irrelevant. But there is data that matters, and that is where Listtrac comes in.

If you want to track listing engagement for sellers, you need to look at Listtrac. The company has partnered with listing publishers like the portals, along with MLSs across the country to track the data that matters. They literally track your listing across just about every website where it is published.

screenshot taken from ListTrac homepage

Listing views are like candy for sellers

It’s sweet and tasty to see that their home popped up 150,000 times in front of the eyes of a consumer, but it does not really help sell the house. You need to cast a wide net and make sure that the property is omnipresent on the internet.

Leads matter. The number of consumers inquiring about a listing or requesting a showing, matters. The scrawny number of 10, 20, or 30 consumer actions on a listing shows the relative intent to potentially buy the home. That is very indicative of the buyer pool and impacts pricing and days on market. 

Plan your paid marketing efforts

Homes are not trading as quickly today as they have been over the past few years. Prices are high and buyer competition has waned. Many markets are seeing the number of days on market extend past 45 days, which was unheard of over the past few years unless the house was really not priced right. If you are going to launch a paid marketing campaign, take a look at the Listtrac report to see where sites offer the most leads, not impressions. Impressions are for brand building, but lead conversion is for boosting sales. Every market is different. You may find some local sites that generate a lot of leads per dollar spent, outperforming the portals. Social media sites are great examples.

Having the conversation with with your seller

If you ask most consumers today, they think that portals sell real estate. For decades, consumers have told their agents that their listing must be on Realtor.com, or must be on Zillow.com, or on Redfin.com. The folks at Homes.com are trying to get added to that consumer list so they demand that their listing be on Homes.com. The Listtrac report allows the agent to explain to the seller that portals are popular media content, and usually the top of the funnel for homebuyers before they get serious and start working with an agent. If you want to see the number of leads and views generated by Homes.com vs. Realtor.com on your listing, check the Listtrac report.

What real estate agents know is that the listing must be in the MLS. Show this to your seller. The MLS is the walled garden where real estate agents research list pricing, and their clients deeply scour the inventory for the home that best meets their needs. What consumers do not know is that CoreLogic is the #6 portal for homesearch – and they are only one of a host of MLS vendors that include Rapattoni, FBS, Black Knight, Stratus, Navica, Remine, et al. This becomes blazingly apparent when you look at a Listtrac report that shows consumer engagement in the MLS. MLS traffic in most markets is typically tied with Zillow, especially when you add in IDX. More than that, sellers can see the value of the IDX network of broker and agent websites and buyer agent tools that are getting low traffic numbers but the highest intent buyers. Basically, the Listtrac seller report shows that the listing is everywhere, and that is the goal of marketing a home for sale to reach the widest possible audience. If the listing is in the MLS, you can check that box for your seller. As days on market grow, sellers will want to see the efforts of your marketing. Listtrac is the easy answer.

screenshot taken from ListTrac features page

How to access Listtrac Seller Report

As you can see on this page published by Canopy MLS, you can access your Listtrac Seller Report by clicking the icon on the Single-Sign-On Dashboard of your MLS. Just click the link and you are signed into the reports for your listings. Reports can be downloaded and sent to your seller – or you can subscribe your seller to the report and they can click the link anytime to see what’s happening. 

Here is a cool tip. You already know that a price change will trigger an alert on every saved search that includes the listing. Show your seller the report on listing engagement before the price change, and watch the traffic spike up after the price change. Thousands of email alerts for changes to a listing drive a lot of clicks.