These people keep calling and calling. Does anyone have an opinion of them or has anyone had any successful leads that generated through them?

Jan Marie,

Please run the other direction.

Very few agents ever have a positive experience with these so-called "lead generation" companies.

Why? My theory is that their "leads" are people who by and large have little interest in buying or selling. Many are surprised to be contacted by an agent.

I've previously related being at a large national event with about 200 people in the room where the question was asked how many had had success with these kinds of companies. Not one stood.

In my mind, these are a plague on our industry and should be shunned.

Jan Marie; Do you know how they got your number, or how you got on their list ? I ask because I'd like to avoid it !

About 5 years ago, I went on housevalues.com impersonating a prospective Seller; just to see how this system worked, and lie in wait to discover which Real Estate Agent would be calling me to do a Free CMA for me. (I would not be cruel enough to have someone actually come and waste their time doing that).

There was about a month delay. I only received 4 or 5 calls; all from some eager fresh young Brand New Agents and all from 50 miles away or so. They do sell the same name (like mine) multiple times ! I did not receive multiple calls from the same person.

I had been hoping that I wpold get at least one call from someone I knew and then I could just strike up a Conversation about their Parents or Kid Sister or how deep the snow was in front of their house . . . . but it was just strangers. And now silence.

one of these places called me and said "I wanted to offer this service to you" and I interruped him and said "What makes you think I want this service? Did I send you an email asking you to call my number and use up my minutes to pitch this scam to me? No, I did not, and I will thank you to NEVER call me again or I'll be forced to contact the FCC." (this was in the middle of the store, and the cashier was surprised at my tartness...lol)

Now, I just hang up. But I was expecting a customer call and that's the only reason I answered it, and I was quite annoyed to have my day interrupted with nonsense.

I don't know how they got my number, unless they pay mindless drones to troll the internet looking for real estate agent sites and collecting their info...

I do not know how the obtained my number. But I have told him I was not interested. He has called me 3 times. This last time I asked him not to call anymore. I have better things to do with my time. Like sell a house! I don't like being rude to others, but it has gotten to that point.

Thanks for the imput everyone it is much appreciated!

When in doubt go to google and ask if the company is a scam.

http://www.google.com/search?q=house+values+scam&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_en__176US231

Is Realestate.com the same sort of company? If not, what is the general opinion of Realestate.com?

IMHO any company that sells you leads is the same.

what they do is subvert your website visitors to their site and then they're going to sell their info to other agents.

charlatans!

My office voice mail has a call capture system that provides the phone number of the caller, so even if someone calls and hangs up, I have their phone number. That is the phone number that I use to promote my business. If someone like HouseValues.com calls (and they do frequently) that I don't want to speak with, I simply don't return the call. If I get a questionable call, say a toll-free number, I'll google the phone number. I give my personal numbers to clients and those to whom I want to speak. These other losers can just drop off.

You can find a number of entries on HouseValues.com at http://www.TheRipOffReport.com.

They have various sources to acquire numbers. Often times they troll the internet looking for numbers to spam.

These places are a ripoff.

Call up the newbies and pitch best thing since sliced bread. Then suck them dry and spit them out.

As a matter of policy, and in the interest of self preservation, I do not do the pricing FSBOs.

There are better options available than HouseValues, LandVoice wasn't bad.

I would not relay on this kind of companies. I have very bad experience with them.

Hi Jan Marie,

This will be a mixed review - I used HouseValues for a year, and did get a lot of leads, most of them not so great. However, I'll admit that my follow-up was not great either - I really hate committing time to people who I feel have zero loyalty to me and ended up not looking forward to new leads.

One thing though, is that it did more than pay off. Despite myself, I ended up with two really nice clients, one who did a buy-sell transaction and who also referred me another transaction - so 4 transactions total.

The new agent who sat next to my office at that time turned into a HouseValues superstar, by calling and following up with every possible person. I think she made over 60K her first year through them - but she is definitely the exception.

When I was using it, the software was not so great on the agent end as far as setting up searches with specific criteria - kind of frustrating. Overall, most of the agents who tried it in my office no longer use it (I don't either) but the flip side is that if you try any service like this they can work, as long as you commit yourself to quality follow-up - that is the key.

Hope this helps. :)

AVOID HOUSE VALUES. Worst lead generation company i have ever worked with. no guaranteed leads. no phone numbers. no customer service and good luck trying to get out of their contracts when the leads dont turn out.