To attach a lead form or not to attach a lead form -- believe it or not that's still a pretty hot-button issue in the real estate industry. Not long ago pretty much every Web site with real estate listings on it required consumers to fill out a form before they could get access to the goodies. The form enables brokers, agents and lead generation companies to "get something" out of the exchange of information -- you get information, I get to spam you for the rest of your life. Or at least, that's how many have approached this.

But now the game has changed a little. Today's Web surfers are tired of having to give up information all the time and will either 1) create fake accounts (there are even services that will automatically create fake accounts for Web surfers -- see BugMeNot.com); or 2) Move on to the next real estate Web site. Also, there are a lot more sites now that do not force users to create accounts but will show listings or other real estate valuation info (Trulia, Google Base, Zillow, Broker IDX sites).

This "to lead form or not to lead form" debate heated up at a recent real estate conference where LeadQual co-founder Andrew Coleman's take was that real estate pros should get something from the visitor else they have nothing. But Point2's COO Brendan King said it's probably better not to do the lead form because even though you won't have the visitor's info right then and there the chances are pretty high you'll lose them entirely. But even if you must go the lead form route, it doesn't give you the right to spam this person, he said.

What's your take?

Trulia's recent alliance with REBNY has raised eyebrows on more than few real estate blogs. Reading opinions on Bloodhound Blog and FBS over the weekend reminded me of the same concerns about online lead generation that mortgage brokers like myself faced at the turn of the century. Big names like LendingTree are just the tip of the online mortgage leads iceberg. I get at least four unsolicited e-mails a day from lead companies I've never heard of trying to "supercharge my pipeline" from leads they gained through direct competition with me. Gee, thanks. 

Mortgage lead companies know very little about mortgages, and a whole bunch about SEO. The LendingTree model was so simple to duplicate that just about any code junkie that could build an online application and knew how to send spam was fully qualified to join in.  For most small mortgage brokers, marketing through search engine results was over before  originators ever considered it.

Here's an interesting exercise: Think of a small mortgage outfit that you may have worked with in the past, then try to find their Web site on Google without inputting their name. For many popular queries, you'll be lucky to find any actual mortgage companies on Page One results.

Ten years into LendingTree's launch, the mortgage leads industry has grown to a staggering size. Yet, there are now more mortgage brokers then ever before and average commissions are HIGHER today than a decade ago. The technology to effectively parse leads in the real estate world has been more complicated to harness. Because of this delay, real estate agents can look at how the mortgage industry approached the issue for some guidance. While the exact business plan of each mortgage company is a little different, those who have thrived do so employing a mix of two strategies.

The first strategy is to embrace lead generation. I resent what they are doing, and have a hard time with this one, but it's pretty simple. Pay for the leads, and then sit back as the business comes to you. Many brokers do well, and some never bother with ANY other forms of marketing. They look at lead companies like contract marketers. 

For those who can’t stomach paying the competition, the second strategy is to not worry about vast reach of the Internet and focus in the one place where a single sales person has the most leverage against national brands -- go local. For some brokers, this means optimizing their Web sites for the areas they work in. For others, it means not worrying about search engine results. They focus on referals from real estaste agents, accountants, and their spheres of influence.

A real estate agent's idea of local my not be local enough. I mean really local. Not a state, not a metro area, not even a single city. Go hyper-local.  Every real estate agent should have a prospect farm. You mail out newsletters to just these people. You focus much of your market analysis on the neighborhood. You might even walk each block, introducing yourself door to door. But hardly any agents bother to put that commitment online. Why? Doesn’t make sense to me. I've personally reviewed over 400 real estate blogs over the last couple months. Only a handful of them attempt to do this. I look at most real estate sites and see an all inclusive catch all net for Internet fishing. Thats a strategy that works for now, but why not take advantage of the unused Web hosting bandwidth you are renting to build a separate, hyper-local Web site or blog for your marketing area? The alternative is to let people from out of town, who know more about html code than real estate, set up as your competition.

--Todd Carpenter, lenderama

Last week on Transparent,  I sounded the call to action to Realtors about blogging - there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that blogs can soon potentially lock up Google's top page for local search keywords, i.e. "Your city real estate", based on blogs' powerful search ranking qualities. There are only 10 spots on that top page, and once they are taken, it will be tough for a new blog with little "Google juice" to displace a blog occupying one of the top ten. Those top ten Google spots per locale will in effect work like the "Yellow Pages" listings of the future, except they are organic and free.

And Realtors, there's more potential advertising space that have constraints. If you start a blog, you want your readers to subscribe and read your blog via a feedreader like Google Reader, Bloglines or Netvibes. Feedreaders were built for organized "economical" reading so a reader doesn't have sift through everything... by definition these feedreaders have limited space or they wouldn't be economical. Bookmarks, RSS and other tagging systems like del.icio.us are also space constrained.  Athol Kay left a recent comment that reflects the rapidly expanding real estate blogosphere:

 Finally, there's limited space on the blogrolls that other blogs use to promote your site.

Conclusion: Blogging as a real estate marketing paradigm now can't be ignored without consequence... and I'm guessing 90% of America's Realtors have no clue about the impending loss of this online "ad space". Real estate blogging has a proven first mover advantage in the race to occupy Google top page listings, feedreader slots and blogroll links. And as Athol confirms, critical mass of too many blogs is rapidly approaching... blogs that start up in 2008 will be facing a much greater uphill battle as literally thousands of blogs launch.this year (note Active Rain already has 20,000 members who will soon realize blogging's power).

Caution: a few real estate bloggers have commented on how competitive blogging might become as more blogs come online. Today on Transparent, I've addressed how new bloggers should understand that supporting the community and encouraging open communication, especially with fellow bloggers who may even be competitor agents, is the best way to develop their blog property. And it's up to the old timers to show them how.

Pat Kitano, Transparent Real Estate

Homescout was the earliest version of the Trulia idea, dating back to 1996 when a software engineer from Seattle figured out how to scrape listings from broker Web sites. Check out their original Web site. The engineers also formed a company in the online auto parts business called the Cobalt Group and decided to get out of the real estate business. HomeScout was acquired by HomeShark and eventually became part of iOwn, which was started by Ned Hoyt who had a jump on Lending Tree's Doug Lebda.
But iOwn struggled, vanished and sold the HomeScout listing service to HomeGain. The iOwn mortgage service was bought by CitiMortgage. HomeScout sat inside the womb of HomeGain for the last 6 years. In the morning, HomeScout will be relaunched, giving this Web service at least nine lives.