Don’t let E-agent Get as Big as LendingTree!

I see a commercial on TV for E-Agent.com.  Maybe you have seen them too…they have a big red circle with a lower case “e” in it.  It seems they are pretty new so don’t let them get any bigger!

Here is what they say on their commercial.

(TV marketing at it’s finest…)

1. Identify great deals

2. See more real estate listings

3. Shop for lower mortgage rates

4. The new way to shop for everything in real estate

Ok let’s take each one of these and break it down.

Identify great deals…I’m not sure what they are going for here.  I found no way to locate any “deals”.    Do they mean real estate deals or mortgage deals…I don’t know.

See more real estate listings…I also don’t know how they can say “more real estate listings”.  Agents have the ability today to display other agent’s listings on their websites because of Internet Data Exchange or IDX.  It used to be you could only display your own listings as an agent on your website.  Now, agents can offer search options on their websites for homes listed on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service).

The advantage of an agent offering this is making contact with the consumer first.  Many websites offer MLS searches but you have to enter in your information first.   

On  Realtor.com it states “search over 3 million new, existing, and rental properties listed by Realtors®”.  A Realtor® is one that follows the National Association of Realtors® Code of Ethics which can be found here .

So, I gather from that website it only pulls properties listed on the MLS by a Realtor® not by any agent on the MLS system.

On MLS.com, you can also search all over the country for properties listed by Realtors® and other agents on the MLS.  It lets you get to a certain point and then to see the details of a property, you have to register (put in your contact info).

You can always do a search on Google for MLS plus your state for a website that is your state’s MLS.  Then, you can search all the listings on the MLS without having to enter your info.

Back to my point on how e-agent can say you see more listings.  On their website, you click on an area and an agent pops up.  You have to enter your contact information to search and the only criteria you get to use is a price range.  They get their information from the MLS just like all the other websites…it comes from the same place.

Their claim of more listings is really outrageous.  You can’t see more listings if they are using the same data as other websites offering home searches.

Shop for lower mortgage rates…Wow, they actually say on eagent.com “Click on any balloon to see the best Mortgage deals available througout the country”  

By the way….I did not misspell “throughout”….that’s the way it is spelled on eagent.com…isn’t that hilarious?  I don’t proclaim to never make a mistake but I also don’t have a national advertising campaign going on right now either!

I clicked on Colorado since that’s where I live.  First of all, there isn’t that many.  There are only 7 mortgage “balloons” in Colorado.  3 of the 7 are from the same guy and 2 of the 7 are a big national company. 

How can they actually say you get the best mortgage deals available?  That is so ballsy.

Did they check these guys out? Their website makes no mention of any such investigation making that statement possible. 

The new way to shop for everything in real estate…yes you can find real estate agents, mortgage companies, movers, title companies, and insurance agents on eagents.com.

But why are they on this website?  Are they the best in the country as these guys make it sound?  Or did they just paid to be there?  Is all you really need to be listed on this site is write a check?  For a city the size of Denver, one of these companies or agents would have to pay $550 a month to belong and get leads.  Without any affirmative proof to the contrary posted on their site, as a consumer it would be safe to assume this is just another lead generating website for those who paid to get on it.

That’s why it is so maddening when you hear the outlandish claims of these sites like the old “when banks compete, you win” crap of LendingTree.

Don’t be fooled into thinking you found some one stop shop for all your real estate needs….they can’t even spell correctly…how are they going to solve all your complicated real estate needs.  It is still up to you to find someone who you can trust…not just an easy out (or what appears to be an easy out).

UPDATE 8-15-07: I got the following rebuttal from the CEO of E-agents and I promised him I’d post it in it’s entirety unedited for our readers to view. So here it is.

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Hi Terri,

I have a number of factual items that I am going to point that are inaccurate in your story. Since it sounds like I am not going to get a phone call from you I will be glad to point them out below:

1) The Deals or Offers consumers can identify are very easy to find you just might not have found any in your area for mortgage or real estate - that does not mean you can’t look outside the state you are interested in to find what you want. In fact you can look at deals in the US and Canada and as long as those e-Agents service the areas you are located in, you can become a lead for anyone, anywhere with no commitment. You are also never asked for any sensitive data like SS numbers or FICO scores. Which helps keep our consumers extremely safe since they do not have to disclose any data like that. Even if we did ask for it, which we again we do not do, we have an encryption account with Verisign that scrambles the data.

Also, unlike Lendingtree we do not resell leads to more than one agent, so all of the leads are exclusive to that advertiser (THIS IS A HUGE WIN FOR ANY MOM-POP shop that has been working with or under a Lendingtree style model). Not many other companies give agents an entire geographical town or city for $25/month and allow them the ability to post, change and market any offer they want. The deals or offers in the mortgage area are posted by the e-Agents that represent those locations. So if you don’t like the deal or offer posted (or the consumer doesn’t), you can simply look at another balloon in your state or elsewhere. No charge for consumers to see your offer over and over again. The best part is the consumer gets to see as many deals or offers upfront without having to commit to anything - ie - just like craigslist. You see something you like, you can simply verify yourself which only requires name, email, and a verifiable phone number that is basically impossible to trick. I can show you how it works if you would like to see it in a live environment.

On the real estate side we are converting our existing platform to allow consumers to see the MLS upfront and to allow those representing e-Agents the ability to post any offer or deal they wish, just like mortgage e-Agents. So the fact that you cannot see the offer is definitely a false statement on the part of the article. You can see over 50 currently.

2) e-Agents are showing more real estate listings than other sites because they are granting access to the actual live MLS data base. So unlike Move.com and others that take old feeds (the data in many cases is up to 6 months old hence one of the reasons they have 3 million advertised houses) or markets like Naples, FL that have opted out of sending the feed entirely….consumers coming to eAgent.com can see the live feeds and data in any market where we have an e-Agent in the 800 plus communities around the US.

And as stated above in the new system, that data is completely unlocked - so consumers do not even have to become a lead. Here is an example: http://www.eagent.com/virginia/arlington/ . You will notice that the MLS is open, an offer that the e-Agent has posted is viewable, phone and contact details are also readily available and it is branding that one agent for that one market. Obviously, anyone wishing to become an e-Agent can take as many as they want or as many as are available. In addition to the new system we have 1,000’s of exclusive uploaded listings that the e-Agents have uploaded and highlighted themselves.

3) We appreciate the spelling error that you caught - sometimes things slip through the cracks and we readily admit that one being a mistake on our part. Thanks for pointing it out, and FYI - we fixed it.

4) There are only 7 active e-Agents in the Colorado area for mortgage because those clients chose areas that were ones they wanted to represent and we hope to get more in more states as time goes on, but this service is only 2 months old so we are pleased with the numbers thus far.

5) As for being “ballsy” as you so eloquently put it, we do feel that our advertisers are going to offer the best deals locally, regionally, nationally or even internationally (we are in Canada as well) since they have an incentive to do so. They can change their ad to follow the market and our system will display what they enter. It is up to them as to what they post and what ever they think will jog people in the door. Also, they are bound by our contract to offer only legal opportunities not just teasers that will get people’s attention. This protects the consumers as well as keeps the advertisers from over-selling or putting out bait-and-switch offers which as we both know is what has caused this current fiscal mess.

6) We do not charge for leads for our newest categories which are Home Insurance, Title and Movers. Additionally, all real estate agents and soon mortgage folks will be able to migrate to a flat fee model that does not charge for leads, hence increasing the validity of our claims that consumers can, see, shop and find the best deals because the advertiser will be posting the best reason for them to do that.

While you are of course entitled to your position and opinion I think it would make a lot of sense for you to work with companies like e-Agent who are really the last stand online when it comes to defending the mom & pop shops that are helping represent all kinds of independent contractors, rather than categorizing us as some next evil empire to come. We are nothing like LendingTree and nor do we wish to be at this particular time. Our exclusivity model works out well for the agents and consumers because there is a one to one connection immediately that both can see. We have a 50% retention rate of our original clients over 5 ½ years ago and if you read this link from RealIQ: http://www.e-agent.biz/Announcements/may2006/Announcement_may2006.html . You would see that our lead quality is far superior to those you have thrown us in the proverbial bucket with and that’s not me telling you that is an independent source.

Finally, we have an open-discussion forum coming in September that anyone can participate in and it will allow agents and consumers to generate direct contacts again without paying for leads or lead generation. If you wish to discuss this I provided my phone number to you in the submission.

Thank you,

Joshua Konowe

President/CEO

e-Agent, Inc.

http://www.eAgent.com

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Author: Terri Ewing
Published July 30, 2007
Modified November 26, 2007

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