We’re in the business of offering a flat-fee for buyer’s representation, we have been for a while. Cathy and I have both written contracts with the flat-fee language. But where policy can be fast, promotion takes time, and it is not until midnight tonight that we will begin to promote the flat-fee idea.
Even then we’re kind of a slow roll out, because we want to make sure that, even if we end up with a tiger by the tail, we manage to stop that tiger, as it were.
I know there are people following this all over the country, so if you want to see all the flat-fee features we have built so far, click away.
As with everything Bloodhound, there is a philosophy. Either we hate the way everything else is done or we simply love to do things differently, but, either way, nothing is done the way anyone else does it.
For the print ads, we are deliberately violating the visual style of these kinds of things — in two different violations. I don’t see any way for a reader to regard us as being something different if we look just the same. The same goes for the content of the ads — and each is also radically different from the other. We don’t have an unlimited amount of money, so we’re starting with something akin to a binary tree search to see what works.
There are two Realtor.com ads that will work together. These may not seem to be as radical, but we put a lot of thought into getting the reader’s response, if we can but once get the reader’s attention.
Finally there is one web-based landing page, so far. I have a killer alternate within me somewhere, but it is killing me to get it out. The idea of the landing page is to get people who have voluntarily come in from the ads to take the next step, filling out a home search form and setting an appointment. The appointment will be the actual close, but our plan — for now, at least — is to have no hands-on involvement with people until they fill out the form. The idea is to cherry-pick the prospects who really work in the online shopping world, so we’re deliberately not making it easy up to this point.
Anyway, take a look and see what you think. A month from now we’ll either be buried or chagrined, we’ll have to see which…
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CJ, Broker in L A, CA says:
For my own curiousity: On the Realtor.com banner/skyscraper – how long a contract do they require and what is their cost (roughly)?
October 25, 2006 — 6:01 am
Greg Swann says:
One year, I think it was something less than $5,000 total for the western third of Maricopa County. Cathy handles Realtor.com.
October 25, 2006 — 1:58 pm
Phil Hoover says:
Greg ~
Check out the article at CNN Money about flat fees in the legal profession:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2006/11/01/8391415/index.htm
Do you see any parallels there?
Phil
October 25, 2006 — 4:55 pm