When Keller Williams agent Tiffany White saw the big envelope in the mail just before the Fourth of July and saw it was from Homes.com, she had a feeling it was related to a property she was selling.
But she was surprised to find it was a 20-page brochure suggesting she spend $905 to “boost” her own house via Homes.com.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, they sent me a book on my own home,’” White, who received the mailer about two weeks after putting her home on the market, recalled thinking. “They don’t even realize it’s my personal home I have listed.”
The mailer was part of a nationwide push undertaken by the real estate portal to contact homesellers directly and ask them to spend money to help market their properties.
Agents from coast to coast who spoke with Inman said they felt the mailers suggested to their homeseller clients that their agent wasn’t doing enough to market their properties. Some took issue with the fact that at least one photo from their listings was used in the marketing material.
“It’s scammy to use my personal information and my face and my branding to entice my sellers to spend money online,” Andrea Rouse, a sales associate with RE/MAX on Main in Gardendale, Alabama, told Inman.
However, in response to questions from Inman, Homes.com said that it is an agent-friendly portal that sends buyer leads directly to listing agents. The company said the agents who spoke with Inman do not represent many more who were happy with the brochures.
The mailers — which, according to agents, were sent as recently as last week — sought anywhere from $260 to over $900 to move listings to the front of the Homes.com platform, giving them additional visibility.
Individual agents can choose to boost their listings via Homes.com for more exposure. In April, Homes.com said it was preparing to allow sellers to do the same. The mailers appear to be aimed at delivering on that promise.
“When you Boost your listing on Homes.com, it is positioned at the top of search results in front of millions of buyers. It’s featured alongside neighborhood, school, and non-boosted listings, and is supercharged with retargeting and email marketing,” one mailer from Texas, which Inman reviewed, read. “It will get thousands more views, more favorites, more shares and ultimately is likely to sell faster and for more money.”
But agents who spoke with Inman argued that they are in the best position to decide how to market a property for their clients.
“To me it just felt more like a money grab. I’ve had companies reach out to me directly. This is the first time they’ve ever reached out to my sellers directly,” Stephania Weisz, an agent with Anvil Real Estate in Southern California, told Inman. “To me it felt like they went around me to try to make my clients feel like this is what they should be doing. I know how to do my job.”
In recent days, agents from across the country have taken to real estate groups on social media to ask whether others had received the mailer. Dozens said that they had.
Some of those who responded to the social media posts suggested the price sounded like a potentially good investment.
“For $405 on a boost. Seems like a decent ROI,” wrote one member of the popular Lab Coat Agents Facebook group.
However, many others said they were upset by the marketing tactic or felt it cross a line.
“It seems unethical to me,” James Taylor, a broker in Massachusetts whose clients were sent one of the mailers, told Inman. The mailer suggested spending about $500 to boost their listing. “Basically you’re telling the sellers that I’m not doing my job.”
Ed Zorn
Others have also speculated that the mailers could violate multiple listing service rules that require MLS participants to get permission before sharing or using photos.
“The way Homes.com is currently getting their data, it’s as a participant,” said Edward Zorn, general counsel and vice president for the California Regional Multiple Listing Service. “That means they must follow the IDX rules. They have to follow the licensing agreement and the rules of the MLS.”
CoStar responds
Andy Florance, CEO of Homes.com parent CoStar, said the agents who spoke with Inman were a fraction of those who were happy with the mailers.
Andy Florance
“When we market these listings on our site, we are bringing more leads to them,” Florance told Inman. “We’re bringing more exposure for the home for sale, and we’re helping the home sell for more. And to the agent’s benefit, we are the only pro-agent site.”
When asked whether the brochures were at risk of violating MLS policies, Florance spoke about competitors like Zillow and said that the competing portal was not working in agents’ favor.
“Our business model is completely different, but people don’t know that yet. They will,” Florance said. “They will know that we’re in their corner. We’re not against them. We’re with them. We’re the only one with them.”
“We’re getting positive feedback from those agents. We are only sending positive things about agents to these folks,” Florance said. “We are also only sending a picture of the homeowner’s house to the homeowner.”
Several mailers reviewed by or described to Inman included an image of the home. Materials included with the brochures told the sellers they could “sell your home faster and for more with the Homes.com Boost.”
They also included a section that highlighted the agent the seller was already working with, along with positive information about that agent.
“You’re in great hands with Stephania Weisz,” the mailer sent to Weisz’s clients in Wrightwood, California, read. It later added “Boosting your home on Homes.com gives your agent an extra advantage — connecting them with 8 times more leads from potential buyers on average.”
Weisz said she had no agreement with Homes.com to use a photo from her listing. And the mailer’s praise didn’t quite win her over.
“I appreciate it,” Weisz told Inman of the page. “Thank you for telling my clients that I’m amazing. But they’re working with me for a reason.”
