Zillow’s $10.00 offering comes at a very steep price for those Diverse Solutions customers that helped build the company and their WordPress IDX solution.
The email came in Fri 6/1/2012 12:04 PM with the title “New! IDX Websites for Real Estate Agents Are Here!”
New?
No, not new, just repackaged into a limited option theme for the not-so-technically inclined real estate clientele.
New for You: Premier Agent Website
If you’ve been looking for a WordPress-powered IDX website, wait no longer! Even better, there’s no set-up charge and the cost of the site is just $10 per month! (Additional IDX/MLS fees may apply.)
This is what Zillow promises its non-premier Zillow members…
Your agent website includes:
>> A free, personalized domain name – Pick any name you want for your site. If it’s available, it’s yours, at no additional charge.
>> IDX-based property search, listings and maps – Link to local MLS listings so home shoppers can search your listings right from your site.
>> A variety of templates/themes – Personalize your site with a variety of choices and your own images and logos.
>> Set your site live on the Internet almost immediately!
Ah yes, we have a travel offering included in this deal of the century: “Tweet about this video and enter to win a trip to Agent Reboot in Hawaii!” Get your website live in minutes! Get started now.
The Skinny
If you are looking for nothing but a pretty, functional real estate website, this could be your calling, but if you plan on making a living off it, think again. Google, which presently sodomites internet searches, hates spam, or duplicates and your website, even with your 6 choices of colors and 4 choices of WordPress themes, will be just like many of your competitions and therein lies the problem for me.
My Diverse Solution’s IDX solution costs a whopping $30.00 in comparison to the feature filled Zillow offering and now owner of Diverse Solutions. So not only do I get less for my money, I have to pay 3 times as much. Wow. What were they thinking?
Badda bing, just cut the hand that feeds you and dump thousands more cookie-cut websites out there with pages just like mine. And you think I’m happy about that? Hardly.
Here are some examples of their new sites: juliereynoldshomes.com and homesbycoco.com
Notice the URL structure? The oh so familiar /idx/mls- of diverse solutions on this website now being duplicated in their templated websites. No difference there and I could go on and on about other similarities, but in short it appears little was done to protect the customized, high paying, historical customers, of Diverse Solutions.
