June 3, 2010
Shocking Statistics About Listings
Filed under: Marketing, Prospecting — Sam Prochazka @ 1:54 pm
You slam-dunk the listing presentation, get the seller’s signature on the contract, enter the property details into the MLS® system, and start selling right? Not so fast: there may be things missing on that listing that could cost you big bucks if you’re not careful.

The Survey
We’ve conducted surveys in the past (see New Year’s Resolution for REALTORS®), but none as comprehensive and revealing as this.

We built some “intelligent” software that went through thousands of random listings throughout the MLS® systems we work with and performed a variety of experiments. Here are the results of our work (in a nutshell):

Listings surveyed: 13905
Errors with mapping coordinates (total): 1% (of these, 87% were rural properties)
Errors with mapping coordinates (rural properties only): 4.2%
Listings with incorrect contact email addresses (extrapolated): 2%
REALTORS® responding to our notifications that their information was incorrect: 14%
Keep in mind that this survey is DIFFERENT from prior surveys in that we’ve actually used the information DIRECTLY from the MLS® data that’s advertised to the public.

“I don’t get it - why is that so important?”

This survey took us a long time to complete because we needed to reference sites like REALTOR.com and MLS.ca that use REALTOR® contact information straight from boards and associations.

“Sorry, I still don’t understand why this is such a big deal?”

Because this is the information 90% of consumers will use to contact you!

The Result
The good news is that most information associated with listings is correct. The bad news is that information on 1/50 listings isn’t. The really bad news is that most REALTORS® we tried to tell about this problem didn’t care enough to fix it.

The Action
We’ve put together a 5-minute checklist that every REALTOR® should use after entering a listing into their MLS® system:

Check the contact information
Go to Realtor.com or MLS.ca (Canada), submit the contact form, and make sure you receive the email
Scrutinize the contact information on the listing
Ensure your website link is working
Make sure the contact information on your website is correct
Though we don’t have actual statistics, we did notice that many listings have incorrect information for the brokerage. Checking this information is also extremely important.
Check the mapping coordinates
Again, go to Realtor.com or MLS.ca (Canada), and make sure your listing appears in the correct location on the map. If it doesn’t, contact your board/association/MLS®.
Check the coordinates on your website.