IDX Solutions for Real Estate Websites

IDX for Real Estate Explained

IDX stands for “Information Data eXchange.” With Trujlia, Zillow and Realtor.com dominating the real estate search market, actual home buyers have developed high standards not only for HOW they search but WHEN they are willing to fill out a contact form.

It’s this request and whether or not your users actually respond to it that determines the success of most long-term social and search strategies.

Which makes having a robust, highly adaptable search tool of your own a “must have.”

Here’s the confusing part: there are hundreds of IDX providers. Some MLS boards provide their own. Some companies provide them for free. Some charge thousands to set them up and hundreds each month to maintain them.

Many maintain their preset search options will generate leads. Really?

After looking at the results from nearly ever major and many of the minor players in the IDX marketplace, we can tell you that is simply not true. If you’re reading this you probably have already come to that conclusion yourself and are now looking for a better solution.

 

IDX Broker for Real Estate Lead Conversion

The company we have partnered with for the greatest success at the most reasonable price is IDX Broker. They are far from the only solution, but in using their tools we have gotten up to a 12% conversion rate on traffic. Most times you are lucky to get 1%.

No one tool is a solution for everyone, however, and we’ll consider other options if your end goal seems to be served by us doing so.

 

What Does IDX Success Look Like?

 

 

Expectations for Real Estate Lead Conversion Using IDX

Conversion for real estate is affected by the affluence of your website’s users. The highest conversion we have ever seen was in St. Joseph, Missouri. Property prices ranged from $20 – 150k. The website routinely converted about 20% of its visitors into usable leads, which the website owner used to convert those leads into 5 million in property sales.

We also have a client in Barefoot Beach, Florida where home prices start at 2 million. We routinely get .75% to 1% conversion using IDX Broker and the client only makes a few sales a year off those leads. But guess which client makes more? Hint: they’re in Florida.

As a general rule, 1-3% of unique visitors to a real estate website should convert into a lead. We define a lead as a usable name, email address, and phone number. 1 in 10 leads  should turn into a transaction or referral for a sale within 60 days of generation. If you have a second tier marketing operation (such as an email newsletter) that nurtures your pitch and miss list, that number could grow to 3 in 10 depending on the market you service.

In the Missouri example above, the client generated 100 leads in the month listed, so they should realize ten sales. Like many of our clients, however, they don’t track lead source to sale. But they assure us they have realized sales off the increased lead generation.

Are you getting sales from your web strategies? Or are you stuck with a website and marketing plan that rarely makes your phone ring and gets you zero emails?

A 30-minute phone call that will cover your current marketing strategy, competition, goals, and budget will determine if Inbound Real Estate Marketing is a good fit for you.