We have an amazing guest on this episode of the Mail-right show. We have Chad Barczak, the CEO of IDX, LLC, in Eugene, Oregon. Even before co-founding IDX, Inc. Chad was a seasoned entrepreneur with a proven record of developing and implementing strategic marketing plans. He’s an experienced business developer and has worked with several companies in the technology space. His extensive knowledge of the real estate space both in technology and the actual market makes him one of the most knowledgeable guests we’ve had on the podcast. Today he shares the inside scoop on IDX Broker, one of the most popular tools that realtors and web development companies use for their website.
IDX Broker
So for those of you who are not familiar with what IDX Broker is, IDX broker is a company that provides realtors and web developers the ability to create unique widgets of listings from the MLS and embeds it into their website. For example, Real Estate Webmasters has developed its proprietary system that converts the data from the MLS into user-friendly widgets that their customers can use. IDX Broker, allows smaller real estate professionals and developers to do the same without having to spend time and money into developing their tool. It’s an excellent way for people like Jonathon and me to compete with the larger real estate platforms without actually having to spend the same amount in technology development.
WordPress Integration
WordPress Integration is one of the best ways to use IDX Broker, and my team, and I use IDX exclusively on WordPress for our clients. Chad understands that over 50% of all realtors have their website on WordPress, which is why they’ve made it easy to integrate with IDX. If you’re one of my DIY followers and are planning to build a real estate website for yourself, I highly recommend using WordPress and IDX Broker together.
Expanding the Developer Network
Right now, the IDX Broker has a developer network of about 1,300 people. That’s all developers that build real estate websites using the IDX Broker tool, which is why the platform is now the 6th largest in traffic with over 4 million unique users every month. That’s why IDX Broker is focusing on improving their developer relationships by working with the 800 MLS’s in the country and making their data much easier to use. There are no standardized data set for your MLS, so you can imagine if there’s 800 of them how much work it would take to make a platform that can integrate it all for you.
Future Development
During the interview, I heard some pretty fantastic news from Chad on a developer stand-point. They currently have a three-year development plan designed to help make the platform more robust for their partner developers. They work well with their partners and try to avoid making features that directly compete with them. They avoided providing services such as SEO, PPC, and many other monetized features as these are typically services that their partner developers offer to their clients.
