Best Practices When Syndicating to Renter Websites
Renter facing websites come in all shapes and forms, but they also share many commonalities when it comes to the type of data they prefer. If your data is not up to their standard you run the risk of not having info displayed properly, or worst yet having your listings being rejected.
Below are some best practices.
Account Name - Having a real account name. This can be your office name or your own name. Names such as No Fee Apartments or Best Apartments are what you don't want.
Agent Name - The name of your user will need to be a real person's name. Stay away from names that are the office name or names such as Top Agent.
Street Name - A valid street name and number is required. Unit number or other text cannot appear in the street name field. Street names should be complete with street suffixes.
Unit Number - Unless renting out the entire house, otherwise always provide a unit number. Do not append additional info to the unit number.
Photos and Description - Photos and description is required for the majority of websites. Good and unique descriptions help.
Features/Amenities - Commonly used names work best. Checking some renter facing websites to see what features they display to get ideas. Websites tend to ignore names that do not easily match to what they have.
Update Frequency - The listings need to be updated frequently. Non-updated listings will lower the quality of your placement priority or could even be excluded completely.
Respond to Leads Quickly - Many websites want to make sure their renters have a good experience by measuring your response rate. Not responding in time or at all can lower your placement priority.
Changes to Illinois State MLS (MRED) Integration
MRED has long asked third party vendors like us to move to MLSGrid.com to access MLS data. However, because of their much higher pricing structure, and manual authentication and management of each user, we have tried to hold this off for as long as possible. Unfortunately MRED has now set a cut off deadline of the data if we do not move.
At this point we are asking all users who would like to continue utilizing their MLS data integration to read the below. If authentication through this new process is not completed by June 30th, 2021 MLS integration will be removed for your user.
PRICING:
Integration is no longer a flat fee for third party vendors like us. We are now being charged on a per user basis. Our current automated user authentication through MLS ID is also no longer applicable. We will now need to add/update/remove each of our users manually through MLSGrid.com's interface.
Because of these changes and additional expenses that are incurred, we will be passing this along at cost for users looking for MLS integration. This will be an one time $10 setup fee and $10 per month after.
AUTHENTICATION:
1. Fill out our request form.
2. An email will be sent to the admin of the account for authorization of the $10 setup fee and additional $10 / mo. charge.
3. Upon approval, we will submit the request to MLSGrid.com.
4. You will receive an email from notify@mlsgrid.com to sign the Data License Agreement. If you are an agent, after signing the agreement an email will also be sent to your Broker for their signature.
5. Once all documents are signed, you will be notified when MLS is activated for your account.
Please Note: When signing the Data License Agreement, you must input the requested information exactly as you have entered into the initial request form with us. Fields are case-sensitive.
If you have any questions, please reach out to us at support@yougotlistings.com.
Tracking Your Zillow Syndicated Listings
There has been a number of inquiries regarding how you can track your paid listings that are syndicated to Zillow. Questions such as what listings are displayed? How many days the property was displayed for? What is the performance of each property?
Good new is that Zillow provides their Rental Manager account that can be linked with your syndicated listings from YouGotListings. There is an Analytics tab that will answer all of the questions above.
If you do not have access to this functionality, please contact your Zillow rep to have them help you set it up.
Post to Craigslist for Free "real estate - by owner" Section Added
When posting your ad to Craigslist using PennyPosting, you can now post to the "real estate - by owner" section. Craigslist does not charge for that section along with "real estate - by broker".
User Friendly Personal Site URL
Based your feedback, we have added the ability to customize your Personal Site URL to make it more readable and user friendly.
You can customize your Personal Site URL under User Profile:
Please note that once the URL is changed, your old Personal Site URL will no longer work, so if you have sent people listings recently, those links will no longer work.
Posting to Craigslist "Real Estate - By Broker" Section Available
By request, Penny Posting has added the ability to post to the "real estate - by broker" section on Craigslist.