This article is part one of a new whitepaper from ListHub:

Do Brokers Know What They Want?

The research presented in this paper explores the foundation decisions that a broker must make regarding the advertising of their listings online, and specifically provides insight into the reasons why brokers choose to send their listings to the maximum number of available publisher websites.

More than 200 broker-owners or principal brokers of real estate firms provided their detailed input to help us understand why they use the "Maximum Marketing" button in the ListHub application to select all sites for advertising their listings. Various industry participants have publicly voiced skepticism about whether brokers who use the blanket feature for sending their listings to all available publishers "have a clue" what they're doing. The data indicates they do!

"ListHub's study takes a look at the reasons why brokers make their marketing choice, and underscores ListHub's continued commitment to support broker choices and control. From an MLS perspective, it is encouraging to know that many of the brokers who choose the broadest possible exposure for their listings are doing so with eyes wide open."

- Russ Bergeron, CEO, MRED, LLC

Introduction

Debates continue to surround the advertising of real estate listings online. There is a wide sphere of topics and a broader range of opinions. One mantra, though, typically brings a collective nod of agreement:

Brokers should be able to do what they want with their own listings.

ListHub provide managed platforms where brokers have choice, information, flexibility, and control over where they choose to advertise their listings online. Ideally, they have a wide variety of options including major real estate portals, niche sites, local options, up-and-comers, and any other legitimate site or app that attracts consumers. Brokers also need resources that conveniently compare sites based on features, practices, consumer traffic metrics and other tools that support the ability for brokers to make choices. All of these tools and resources are available to brokers through ListHub.

The Debate

At ListHub, our philosophy is clear. Brokers should be offered a wide variety of options. If there is a legitimate online advertising venue – one that agrees to manage the listing data appropriately under the basic contractual protections that content owners expect - it should be available through the ListHub platform.

Others have argued that brokers should not be given a choice that distributes their listings to all sites within the network because brokers are not paying attention, and others have gone further suggesting that the MLS should remove Publishers from the network so that brokers don't have the ability to choose a certain Publisher.

Given The Options, What Do Brokers Actually Choose To Do?

Given the breadth of the ListHub Network, we have visibility into the choices that brokers are actually making. Here's how it works.

By default, once the broker first completes registration for their ListHub account, there are no publishers selected for distribution.

ListHub presents brokers with two clearly described options during the registration sequence. The first option presented is, "Selective Marketing" (where the broker individually chooses each site). The second option is, "Maximize Marketing" (which automatically subscribes the broker to all available destinations).

Two key statistics result from brokers making decisions associated with Selective or Maximum Marketing:

1. 50% of the listings in the ListHub platform are part of the Maximum Marketing program.
2. Even removing the large custom brokers and franchises from this statistic, only 69% of MLS Connected brokers listings are currently included in the Maximum Marketing program – It's Not Everyone!

Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow, when we'll take a more in-depth look at survey data.