ListingPress.com Rolls Out Premium WordPress Real Estate Listing Plugin

They’re supposed to be formally rolling out a product in the DC metro area soon. I know of some folks who are banging around on it right now – will keep you posted.

“AgentGenius.com is not affiliated with ListingPress.com or Real Estate Tomato.”

I take this at face value. But can I ask? Why then do you link to the listingpress.com website via a forward through agentgenius.com/lpcom? Are the days of spreading link love through blogs officially over?

Hey Ben!

Thanks for mention!

Here is a little background around the concept:

Back in 2006, I helped start a company called the Real Estate Tomato with Jim Cronin. We make custom wordpress sites for real estate agents and help train them on how to capture leads online. Before that, I worked at a company called Z57, also consulting agents on how to market their business online using a real estate website they purchased through the company. The most common question I have received from agents the last 6+ years of working in this industry is: “How can I create a custom website with listings.”

Using WordPress and ListingPress, we now have the ability to create those types of sites for clients.

ListingPress is currently in version 1, meaning this:

The core engine is very stable and usable, but the current plugin is missing many bells and whistles. Over the next couple weeks we will be releasing more versions of the plugin with cool new features. Some of those features include:

1. Capturing leads using Facebook Connect (I am personally very excited about this one. I believe we can tremendously increase lead capture by adding a facebook button for consumers to click, instead of a dreaded online registration form.)

2. I need a couple things to happen, but I am working on making searching for homes using cooliris a reality. If you have ever browsed a cooliris wall, you know how much fun it is to search through images… Now imagine this with listings: https://www.cooliris.com/tab/#cs=11&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftest.listingpress.com%2Findex.php%3Fzip%3D92119%26showlistings%3D3%26showlistings%3D1000%26display%3Dmediarss

3. Of course google maps. The trick here is making it as easy as possible for agents to add them. Think widgets.

4. Widgets to customize the search forms: https://listingpress.com/lp_search_form.png

Besides the plugin, we are also launching WordPress related themes that already incorporate the plugin so an agent can purchase a “complete” package and not just the plugin. The themes are very cool and I am in the middle of an article I will eventually end up posting titled: “How to create your own Trulia in 10 minutes using ListingPress.” I am also closely working with other current theme artists. For instance, we will soon have a studiopress.com ListingPress enabled theme.

As far as price goes:

You have to kind of understand that ListingPress is the just the middle man. A mashup if you will of different services.

I love wordpress and what I can do with it. I am intimately familiar with it after running a WordPress driven company for the past 3 years. I see the benefits and know how powerful an application it can be for a real estate agent.

But ListingPress in the end is an IDX solution. A complete IDX solution. I actually think the pricing is very competitive in the IDX world. I don’t see ListingPress as being a second add on type of IDX solution, but the main and only one an agent needs. After I get some Tomato sites up using ListingPress, I believe an agent will see the power of it (both seo, but also lead generation) and will have enough confidence to competely drop the current IDX they are using.

As far as a lite version:

I will toss this around in my head for a while, but I just don’t see the upside to that. I would much rather run a 30 day free trial which has been tossed around, then a lite version.

But as far as a company goes, we are very transparent. After all our plugin is open source!!!

We also have killer reseller prices cause I know that most agents won’t have the savvy to set it up on their own. Therefore a developer is needed.

I would also be very happy to issue demo registration codes so you can play with the plugin and get your hands dirty. Email me at jason (at) listinrpress (dot) com for information about that.

One last thing, Come say hi to me! I will be at Inman in San Francisco in Start-up Alley. Come check us out and let us know what you think. We will have our themes ready to go as well as newer releases of the plugin.

Hey Bob,

Absolutely!

The plugin is free to download:

https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/listingpress.1.0.21.zip

What you do with it is up to you.

Furthermore, I would be more than happy to create an option for people to select which IDX service they want to use. So if you have the data, we can display that data in wordpress, with the plugin. Feel free to contact me if you would like to chat about it.

Jason, Thanks. I’ll be in touch.

Sure email me: jason (at) listingpress (dot) com and we can chat about what type of data you have and how we can integrate that in to your blog.

Paula,

Cad asked if NAR has a problem with this product. The answer is no. I can’t speak to what local boards will do.

LISTING PRESS demonstration site online at PAHouseQuest.com

It only has test data but should have fully TReND MLS information next week.

I’ve done a lot of customization to integrate it with a StudioPress Streamline and Agent themes for a Realtor friend of mine who owns the website.

The Listing Press plugin works really, really well…and allows us to do some really awesome designs for maximum lead capture.

Take a look and shoot us some feedback. PAHouseQuest.com

I would like to us this plugin but can you get signed up with my MLS? We are part of mlspin.com in Boston. They are easy to get the data feed from.

I went to listingpress.com and they seem to have site issues. Can anyone update on the listingpress availability.

Whatever, Ben.

Why don’t you try taking a look at what people are offering before whining about them offering it.

If you take issue with the product, that’s fine and worthy of debate.

I’ll restrain myself from commenting on what I think of “social media consultants.”

Cordiality is key.

Some time ago I posted a comment on AG that included links. I was curious as to why there was a delay in seeing my comment appear so I inquired as to the policy and Benn explained it exactly as he did above. I respect both his approach and wishes.

As the phrase “Real Estate Magazine” indicates that something – notably advertising – is being offered for sale, I wouldn’t think it appropriate to make too detailed a selling proposition here at AG; we have are own site for that.

That being said, I am damn tired of all the hypersensitivity about what is “right” regarding “selling”. I may not see the sea-change Benn sees regarding selling in the modern world, but I am willing to be wrong and Benn be right if it helps make me better at what I do. Discovering *how* to be effective in getting and keeping customers may change, but *that* getting and keeping customers is our intention has not. Are we really more sophisticated now than we were in the 1950’s? (I can’t answer that with certainty as I was not yet an adult at the time.) Perhaps so, but surely all accumulated knowledge regarding business-building did not pass away with the advent of the internet.

As I’ve seen other blogs eviscerate their guests while demanding perfect civility from them, I think Benn has offered a reasonable balance for valuing vendors for what they bring to the industry while offering good, objective analysis of tools that may be useful to readers.

A few years ago we participated in the-industry-biggy trade show. I climbed some stairs for an extensive view of what struck me as a showroom floor full of crap. So, I can’t really blame real estate practitioners from being vendor leery. I can, however, state that some provide real value, obviously.

We’re all in this together to some degree and cordiality is key.

Blatant sales pitches stopped working because the pitch-ers had nothing of quality to sell or lied about the quality of their products.

This is true in the Real Estate industry where very few agents could actually claim and prove that they could sell homes for more or help clients buy for less better than other agents.

So instead of helping agents to focus on their Unique Value Proposition which has to do with Product Selection, Quality, Service, Price, Likability/Trust and reflecting that via a good copywriter and a little work collecting statistics and testimonials – vendors first sold people on lousy technology gizmos.

Now vendors are selling agents on Social Media strategies.

Most of what I see is not “respect” for the consumer – that should be about improving the quality of your product/service – but rather fooling the consumer by focusing on the “Likability” part of the UVP and/or communicating things that have nothing to do with why an Agent’s service is better.

For example, Agents are told to post about local market statistics. That’s fine for generating traffic, but doesn’t say a thing (usually) about how the agent will use those statistics to help, for example, a seller realistically price their houses, or proof that the agent knows how to do this better than her competition.

It used to be that your friends were your friends and the sales guys were sales guys and you could tell the difference. Now courses are being taught on “how to pretend to be friendly and helpful so you can sell your junk.” I understand it and even have advised on people how to do it when I couldn’t get them to improve their product/service…but it’s a little distasteful.

(BTW, my last home sale after 1.5 years of being an “agent” was a 1.25 million home but I soon quit working as an agent because I thought my taking business away from really experienced/great agents was a crappy deal for consumers i..e my product wasn’t the BEST and I didn’t have time to improve it, so I Stopped Selling It.)

If you are not doing at least 6 transactions per month – stop worrying about Wuffie and Twitter and Blogging. Learn how to improve what you offer so it is better than your competition, how to succinctly communicate that (hire a copywriter), and get yourself a Home Search site “that captures leads,” and then follow-up instantly and constantly.

I’ll get off IDX sites for a moment, and recommend Matt Jones Favorite Agent “Listing Presentation” and a few of his Calculators that can help you show Sellers why other agents are lying about the effectiveness of their marketing strategies and when they say the home will sell.

Ari Galper, who is not a real estate guy, has the best way to offer a service or product in a straight-forward way without either False-Relationship Building or coming off as a sleazy salesman.

And yes, pick up a book or too on Usability in website design like “Keep it Simple”, subscribe to Marketing Experiments, hire a $15 php programmer out of India, and download the ListingPress plugin and design your own search website.

At any rate, my apologies for my spammy “sales pitch”. I actually really care about helping people and have seen a lot of agents hurt by bad advice and so when I see something that has the potential to “democratize” and “effectivize” realTech then I get excited.

Matthew and Diane, I really appreciate your comments.

P.S. Are “ideas” forums really about sharing good “ideas?” I can’t stand Bloodhound Blog’s nasty libertarian politics and bad business advice…but at least he’s honest about saying agents are stupid for building his business by posting on his site rather than on their own websites.

Ben, I am very curious. How much of your business comes from how this blog positions you as an expert? Are the ads a money maker…or is all this just a break-even thing?