HomeGain - Agent Marketing Opportunities

Web site: http://www.homegain.com

Overview

HomeGain.com is an online lead generation source for real agents.  According to their Web site, HomeGain has more than 300 online partnerships, including MSN, AOL, and USAToday.com, to help drive customer traffic to their Web site.  HomeGain is typically a top five Web site in the real estate industry, attracting nearly 5 million visitors every month.  HomeGain provides free services to anyone buying or selling a home, and offers real estate agents and brokers the opportunity to connect with these customers.

Based in Emeryville, CA, HomeGain is a division of Classified Ventures, LLC, a strategic joint venture formed by Belo Corp., Gannett Co., The McClatchy Company, Tribune Company, and The Washington Post Company. Classified Ventures' also owns and operates Cars.com, an automotive Web site where consumers can find information on new and used cars and shop for a vehicle, Apartments.com, a national apartment guide and relocation resource, and Homescape.com a national network of local newspaper real estate Web sites.

Advertising Options and Rates

HomeGain offers three primary products to agents: BuyerLink, Agent Evaluator, and Source4Sellers. 

BuyerLink is a cost per visitor program that takes customers searching for homes on HomeGain to agent or broker websites.  Visitors to HomeGain first determine which city they would like to search.  Once they have determined this, they click on that city name and are taken to the sponsoring agent's or broker's Web site to search listings.  There is no upfront cost to join this program, instead agents and brokers pay for each visitor that HomeGain sends to their site.  Pricing on this program will vary by geography.  For more information, visit http://www.homegain.com/buyerlink.

HomeGain's Agent Evaluator is featured as the "Find an Agent" tool on many of the Internet's largest consumer portals and Web sites.  The way this program works is that for $30 per month, an agent will receive (according to HomeGain's site) an average of 30 buyer and seller leads per month.  The seller or buyer first enter some information about themselves and the property they are interested in buying or selling.  This information is passed off to HomeGain subscribers to the Agent Evaluator product.  Any of these agents can then submit a response to the customer.  If an agent closes one of these leads, they then pay HomeGain 30% of their commission (on the side(s) of the transaction that the agent represents, calculated on a minimum of 2% gross commission).

Source4Sellers is HomeGain's home valuation product for agents.  The way this works is that an agent signs up to be the exclusive recipient of Source4Seller leads in a particular zip code.  Pricing per zip code will vary depending on the zip code.  The leads the agent receives come from customers who are looking for a valuation on a particular property.  Customers first fill out some personal contact information and about the property they are tying to value.  Once they've completed all the steps, including entering a valid e-mail address, the customer receives an e-mail with a set of comparable sales to the target property.  This e-mail also includes the name, photo, and contact information of the Source4Seller agent in that zip code, as well as a message indicating that the agent will be contacting the customer with their custom home valuation. 

Related Links

• Online Marketing Opportunities for Agents