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The Launch of softRealty’s IDX Service is No April Fool’s Joke
By Carl Martens | April 1, 2008
Following in the footsteps of other free services such as Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, MySpace and YouTube is softRealty. The company is based out of Duluth, Georgia and offers a free IDX service (GAMLS approved and FMLS approval should be soon) with many powerful features. The free IDX solution will include discreet noncompetitive home related ads to offset costs. Ads will include vendors like Crate & Barrel, Home Depot, Lowes, etc. If you don’t like advertisements on your site, the company also offers The Advantage Plan which is offered for $30/month without any advertisement.
I received a product demonstration and had an opportunity to talk with softRealty’s founder and several team members at the REtechSouth event last week. Overall I was very impressed. The navigation and visual appeal is superb, “best in Atlanta”…you can quote me on that! I like that the company is based locally and is actually willing to listen to its customers and make necessary updates and changes…requests that other IDX’s are unwilling to accommodate.
softRealty’s founder, David Carroll has over a decade experience consulting as a professional software architect and developer, specializing in designing and implementing various enterprise solutions. He sat on a panel at the REtechSouth conference where he was able to demonstrate his knowledge of the topic and his vision for the product. I was very impressed with his take on the IDX market and how he has created a niche providing a free, yet robust, solution for agents.
I spoke with Keith Gargano one of the primary programmers and he was very open to improving the company’s product to cater to Realtors’ needs. It was also evident through our talks that Keith was actually an active programmer on the project, not just a “sales puppet” like most that attend these types of conferences. I like that. It gives me comfort knowing that I can contact him directly with requests.
In talking with Keith I learned that there is currently no back office, no way to track leads. Keith explained that they were working on this, but their primary focus has been to be approved by FMLS as a vendor and the initial launch of the product.
I know that not having a back office will scare away most agents, but it shouldn’t.
- No other industry requires visitors to register before they buy in order to shop on their sites
- Many provide false registration
- Visitor’s will leave your site and search for homes on a site that requires no registration
- MOST IMPORTANTLY…IDX solutions don’t convert visitors to clients…you do, the IDX component is just a tool you provide…it is you and your site’s job to provide enough information about you and the services you provide that people will WANT to contact you.
My overall review of this company and solution is very positive. I am overjoyed that a local business has listened to the needs of Realtors and has stepped up in a market saturated by outdated and feeble solutions.
Take a test drive:
Topics: IDX Service, RETech South, Technology |
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Thank you for this fantastic review. This is an exciting time to enter the real estate industry as a technology company. The response from our April Fools’ day launch continues to be overwhelmingly positive. We knew there would be agents and brokers interested in what we are doing. However, we didn’t expect the massive influx of emails, calls and registrations. The passion and enthusiam from the agents is probably the most energizing and rewarding part of all. While there is still so much to be completed moving forward, the most important message to deliver is we are here to serve the real estate agents and brokers. We will be launching an online collaboration community where agents can tell us what they love, hate, or want to see different in our application. The idea is to give ownership of this design back to the brokers and agents.
Regarding the question about replacing an existing IDX service with ours, I simply recommend agent’s to use both until we are stable and more features are released. Our application is still in beta and we will be rolling out feature after feature over the next few weeks. Our CRM and back office component is under development and should be released later this month… (keep your fingers crossed). - David from softRealty.com.