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Realtors who actively use the free facilitation solution RateMyAgent can now send their customers’ feedback to the trade group’s home search portal Realtor.com, according to an announcement sent to Inman.
Users will claim a National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) profile and indicate to RateMyAgent that they want reviews shared on the home search website.
This new feature will satisfy a good deal of customer requests, RateMyAgent CEO Michael Davey said in the announcement.
“We’re always working to stay tapped into what our clients want – and this relationship with Realtor.com® was high on the list for United States RateMyAgent subscribers,” he said.
This new feature will be made available to all members of NAR first and will shortly roll out to all other agents, according to the announcement.
RateMyAgent is a web application that assists agents in crafting requests for testimonials and distributing them across the web. Reviews can be pushed to social media channels, Google Business profiles and used in display ad campaigns and landing pages. The software was mentioned, among some competing models, in Inman’s Handbook on Ramping Up Referral Business.
Consumer review media is a tremendous source of business and critical marketing content in the era of instant online feedback and Amazon-driven shopping experiences.
NAR’s 2022 Profile of Buyers and Sellers highlights a number of characteristics about the home-buying public, including how they find their agents. The report found that “the typical seller has recommended their agent once since selling their home, and 27 percent of sellers recommended their agent four or more times since selling their home.”
Thus, it can be safely assumed that broadcasting positive experiences from customers leads to a considerable volume of new deals. Additionally, because NAR also found that 67 percent of buyers interviewed only one real estate agent during their home search, agents would be wise to do all they can to confidently capture every prospect with which they meet.
Realtor.com “is the second most visited real estate listings website in the United States as of 2021, with over 86 million monthly active users,” the announcement notes. Zillow is the most visited.
News surfaced in January that Realtor.com’s owner, Move Inc., may be sold by parent company News Corp to online search rival CoStar. The acquisition could give residential industry upstart CoStar major traction in its very public bid to take on Zillow, the category’s clear leader.
Realtor.com’s lead product marketing manager Marissa Almeida said that partnership is aimed at improving the transaction experience for buyers and sellers.
“This new integration with RateMyAgent will elevate that experience,” Almeida said.
RateMyAgent entered the U.S. market in 2018. Individual agents can sign up for the service, which also has in place a number of partnerships with multiple listing services around the country. It is publicly traded Down Under and was the first review platform to be included in the NAR’s REACH Accelerator Program.
