I do not like Zillow. They are, in my opinion, the PROXY for agents with a dark heart and hire others to misrepresent on their behalf.

Here's the rub...of course they work! But not for everyone. That is the truth with ALL such lead programs. NOT FOR EVERYONE!

Which one will you be?
That depends on if you have invested in the research to understand how Internet leads MUST be processed. To succeed, a business practice change is needed.  Agents fail in these processes because of a trait we all share in common. We want to keep doing what we've always done expecting results to change.

The required changes will tend to look like 'the tail wagging the dog' but that is the nature of the busiensss today.

If you are willing to change how you do business, hiring a surrogate to misrepresent, present false data and present stolen intellectual property on your behalf, will prove profitable AND you will still be able to sing, "We got ethics!"

WARNING: you will need to spend BIG for success with Zdevil.

You're hilarious! Hope you find someone that will show you that return!

File this under the Comedy Section.

Give it a shot and report back. You will find that this group as a whole does not find the ROI. There are a couple of people who will disagree. If you have $1,000 a month to put into lead generation, I could think of several better ways to generate leads.

My drug of choice is direct mail. I want listings, and practically every mailer gets me one or an opportunity to have one. I usually spend less than a thousand/mailer but my farm is very small.

There is one and possibly two local print publications that do the same for me. One tried-and-true, one new and we'll see how it goes. That cost is more than a thousand but worth it.

I would take that deal too but, sadly, it's not reality, no matter what the sales people at those companies say! Work with your sphere - it provides an even better ROI!

1) NO! 2) Several agents under me have used sourses like Z & R and if they would have worked them hard they would have gained a client or two BUT my personal thought on this is if you are to lazy to go out and make a name for yourself in your own community then you are most likely to lazy to properly follow up on leads you purchased as well. 3) your return will depend directly on you effort. If you would put the same effort into hand shaking in your community you will do much better than the 2 to 1 return you claim you would gladly accept Scott Neasham .

And that's the appeal.  Until. . .

Some people swear by them but I would not spend that amount of money on Zillow leads

Hi Scott. First off no one gets double their money from Zillow or any pay for lead vender. Secondly, while we "need" leads to work with and pay our bills, don't sell your soul to the devil to get them. In the not too distant past, around the year 2000 +/- a couple years, if the public needed help with real estate they came to a Realtor or at least a real estate agent. We were the first point of contact for all things real estate. Then "We" started paying third parties to get in between us and the public because we were too lazy or too busy working with people to keep up with the technology. Too busy or too lazy to market ourselves and generate our own leads. Now, we have lost our first point of contact position. With diligence, exchange in abundance service, high value propisitions, perhaps someday we can turn things around and once again be what the public thinks of when they want to know about something having to do with real estate. 

As you can probably guess by now, I don't recommend paying anyone for leads. Invest in the systems and services you control and own and learn how to generate your own leads. Let the vampires starve.

Many of my realtors use Zillow for their leads and we are very successful in doing them. The harder you work them, the better the results

I think we'd all take that deal.  Unfortunately it's largely dependent on the agent, and the systems they have in place to work the leads they receive.

Some do a great job, and others... well, don't.  And when the leads don't come to fruition, they blame the leads.

Good luck.

Zillow pimps Realtors. It's you're listing, yet they're not going to give you the leads that come in on it unless you pay up. They are the most popular site & they 've absorbed all the competition so they can do that. I'd rather invest in my own business & find a way to get along without having to "kick up" to Zillow. 

It can be but unfortunately it doesnt work the way you are expecting Scott.

How is your website? If you have great landing pages Google Ads works much better..;)

From what I hear, it's a toss up. Could go either way.

Paying for leads is a scheme that appeals to many agents but does little more than drain the bank account for most!

Good luck with that! Spend that money marketing your services locally.

For some it is, for most it is not.

I see one agent in our market that gets most of the Z clients, she has a team that is very good at catching them immediately and converting them before the others have a chance to call them back.

For her it is a fair investment, for the others it is a total loss.

do yourself a favor and learn to market online and offline.... spend that $1,000 on direct mail marketing every month  in search of fresh listings....

Scott, I worked with Zillow for quite a few years. At one time, they provided 80% of my closings. The last year I was with them, that number turned into less than 5% of my closings. There seemed to be a shift in the way meted out leads and the ones I received were awful. The fees didn't change from the 80% to the 5% days, and that meant they had to go. The last year was a total waste of money. I've seen a lot of agents on closed FB pages complaining that they are were getting terrible leads, and that was my experience the last year.

I do not pay for leads.

It has never been my thing to pay for leads.  No experience and for many other reasons, I am not a fan of Z.

Lots of promises and none of them fulfilled.

A same question was asked yesterday ans already with calculation etc ....

Z sent to 4 agents simutaneously for same lead. Their conversion rate is affected accordingly. 

Very few agents that I have spoken with have been successful w/ Z , prefer to work my SOI over buying dead end leads.

They work for some and don't for many.

Regardless of where you get your leads, most people fail with web based leads because they don't contact them fast enough. They are not going to sit back and wait for your call. A 2017 lead management study showed that:

- You are 10 times less likely to reach a prospect if you don't reach them within 5 minutes.

- Responding in 10 minutes versus 5 minutes reduces your odds of qualifying the lead by 400%

If you are not setup to call web based leads immediately, you are wasting your money, regardless of where you buy them or even if you generate them yourself.

I see you already got great answers.

Get your business the old fashion way, it.

You may have better long term results by polishing your local networking skills.

Not for me.  In my area, those who spend 10K+ s get the views, 

I prefer to work organically and not with zillow. 

Have heard many agents who have paid thousands, with not one true lead that went to closing.  You would be better blogging, and creating your own leads.

Totlat waste of time,  Any gain is short term

Markeet yourself and see that marketing last for years and years.

Last year I had a call from a guy who had one of my letters fro 8 years ago

I'm not sure if they work but one thing I know over the years is that you don't want spend that kind of money until you have a good business that you can afford it. It's to expensive to gamble on . Build your sphere and spend the money on people you know who trust and know you.

We don't pay for Zillow leads but I talked to a broker the other day who said she pays $300/month for one zip code and gets one sale per year off of it, usually around $15k commission because of the price point of that zip code, so she says it is worth it for that one sale. -Kasey

Not a fan of paid leads.

In my opinion every market is different so it really depends on many factors. There are no guarantees that if you spend that amount of money you will double it with z or any other pay for lead platform. 

I have tried Homes.com.  I had a problem with them sending me leads and to the listing agent.  I was on top of them and never converted one in 6 months.

The response was the same, they already had an appointment to see the home.  My guess is the list agent.

Thank you for your question that has brought forth interesting responses.

As you can see, very few on this forum will encourage anyone to pay for leads, especially through Zillow who sells the same leads to multiple agents. 

My personal opinion? RUN, FORREST, RUN! 

Probably varies by location. Paying for leads isn't my preferred approach.

Not a fan of zillow.  Not a fan of paying portals for leads from my listings that they need to survive.

It does Not end well for most Agents !

No, I don't pay.

No, I don't. 

No idea.

Never purchased leads. Never made sense to me.

You will need to spend $80000 to get two closed leads

It is not for me.