Reviewer: Janet Krauss
Product: Foreclosure.com
1. Ease. Is it easy to use for real estate professionals? For real estate consumers? How steep is the learning curve?
Numeric rating, from zero to 100 (zero is the worst and 100 is the best):
98
2. Value. Is it helpful and useful for real estate professionals? For their clients/customers/consumers? Cost vs. benefits: Is it worth the cost?
Numeric rating, from zero to 100 (zero is the worst and 100 is the best):
95
3. Power. Would real estate professionals and consumers be likely to use this often? Can it replace existing tools/methods? How much information and how many features does it put at the user’s fingertips? Does it have the power to change the industry? Can real estate professionals and consumers use this on the go? Is it innovative and cutting edge? Is it scalable (can be used by individuals and entire offices/companies)? Does it have advanced features for tech-savvy users? Does it integrate with other products?
Numeric rating, from zero to 100 (zero is the worst and 100 is the best):
93
Explanation for ratings:
This site is more likely to appeal to consumers starting initial research than to agents. It has the potential to be a very powerful tool if it would provide more detailed information, and make sure that the data was current and accurate.
As an agent that has used another foreclosure site for the past several years, I did have a baseline to compare with in my evaluation of Foreclosure.com. All-in-all, I definitely liked this site. It delivered up-to-date and accurate information and was very user friendly with no learning curve required. In my evaluation, I would give this site an average score of 95. During the testing period, I did decide to continue my membership from the seven-day free trial to a paid membership.
From an agent’s perspective, the site was easy to use and well organized. The content was exactly what it should have been, detailed and concise. I was surprised to find the telephone numbers of the attorney’s, trustees and Realtors listed with the properties, which is a very nice feature. I found the links to resources extremely helpful and plan on continuing to use the information provided. The link to a list of banks’ landing pages for in-house REOs (bank-owned properties) was great. I did have to download a plug-in to view the recorded webinars, but I was guided directly to the plug-in without any effort.
Taking a sample of properties and comparing the data to public records and the MLS when appropriate, the information was very accurate. I also signed up for the Alert feature and was pleased to find new foreclosure listings delivered right to my email. I’m not sure how this site could be made any easier to use. The graphic interfaces worked well and I was able to navigate through the site with very few clicks.
In today’s economic and housing market, this is definitely a great tool to have in a realtor’s foreclosure and preforeclosure marketing plan. The preferred agent pricing was much less than a competitors, which was a nice surprise. I did sign up for one zip code to test and am hoping that the results will push the score up to 100. I would definitely recommend this site to other realtors and am already integrating this site into my own marketing.
From a consumer’s point of view, this site ranks high in my opinion. The resources leave you with nothing to think about. If you don’t know anything about the REO market, there is a tremendous amount of information here. The links to vendors are appropriate to the site and well thought out. The graphic user interfaces for searches are easy to use for the experienced and novices alike. The help and terms screen should answer the majority of questions, and coupled with the webinars and boot camp training, this site is definitely designed to keep you coming back time and again. Of course, having a current list of preforeclosures and REO properties is expected. It’s the extras that make this a very user friendly foreclosure site to join.
I looked for weaknesses in evaluating this site, but I just didn’t see any that were worth commenting on. One feature that would have been nice to see, though, would be an export feature; however, I did manage to work around this by doing a copy and paste into Excel. I plan on trying to load the data into a database or perhaps creating one that will make marketing to the Preforeclosures an easy part of my daily marketing and an effective way of tracking my results.
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