STAY AWAY!!! I used house values leads for a season and did find the leads to average a 30% accuracy in my market area. I did successfully list one home which did sale. However, after 9 months of service paying over $200 p/month, I felt I could do better putting my dollars to work elsewhere. So, I called and canceled my subscription. A few weeks later I got a bill for $1200 in the mail on a "...termination clause..." which was buried in the fine print on the internet service agreement that prompted me to "agree or disagree" to join housevalues.com.

After pursuing legal counsel and disputing the idea, I was released. The experience left such a bad taste in my mouth. I would never use their services again. In all due respect, there are better ways to use your money. Invest in a lead generating personal website and some yard/directional signs driving people to your website and post them throughout your market area with tag phrases like. For infomation on _______ community - go here http://www.anycommunity.com etc... Put out about 30 of these with your $200 and keep your leads for yourself.

House Values leads are not viable leads. Most of the leads are too old. When I contacted the buyers they were already in the process of purchasing a home or not really interested. I found House Values leads efforts quite disappointing . I would not use their services again! I found personal contact and client referrals so much better.

I used them when I first started out. I do not regret the money spent for the experience I earned doing CMA's. Having said that, I would not think of using them now. I spend countless hours running around doing free CMA's with very little result. I listed one home and had one other serious prospect...I was outbid on that listing. For the 6 months I was in, I found the cost to be outrageous. There are much better lead systems available on the internet, for much less investment.

I have not had any success with ANY lead services....the leads tend to be "cold." I dropped the lead services and started focusing on expireds....by far the best thing I've done.

I have used them for about 18 months and it's been a good investment. My ROI is $7,200 invested and $31,000 GCI in return. It could've been better IF I operated the way they suggest which is to CALL the seller asap OR drop off the CMA in person. My follow up was their wonderful Market Leader contact mgt. system and a monthly newsletter I mailed. I would also send them Just Listed and Just Sold cards (via email usually) if I had action in their zip code. HV is a bit time consuming though. I only bought seller leads, never buyer leads.
I think it's like anything else, if you work it, it will work.
If you are going to BUY leads, you could do far worse than HV.

Elizabeth,

Run from them!

I did house values for 6 months, I received roughly 120 leads and ZERO were converted into sales. Most of the people that I had for leads were unreachable by phone or email and I was unable to create a meaningful relationship with any of them.

It was a horrible waste of money.

Simply Put This is Extortion.Without Top Producers there is No Housevalues.com or Similiar Companies.
Usually the Agents who buy into these are inexperienced and are lured by "Quick Money" not knowing that if they just kept their "Nose to the Grindstone" they probably would have made Even more Money and without having to pay any "Fees" To anyone else.

Great question...I have been using Housevalues leads for two and a half years.My ROI is substantial,$14K invested,$86K gross return.Now let me expand upon my statement...First year, 8/15/2005 was good,8/15/2006 was also very good.I have not converted one lead in the last 16 months,the cause...the economy,the mortgage crisis,the war in Iraq,gas prices,the list goes on and on. I just extended my subscription for seller leads for six months,I firmly beleive that the real estate market where I live and work will not be adversely affected by what's happening in other areas. I live in the Hampton's NY.This is a second home and vacation market,I am very active with both buyers and sellers as I write this answer.The key to HouseValues is follow-up!!!You must have a very quick response time,and keep in mind the fact that you may receive a lead that has a name:Barbie and Ken Doll,well I did,and I sold Barbie and Ken a house.The bottom line.....It's worth the investment only if you are willing to work the system very hard,and follow-up,follow-up,follow-up.This is not a paid endorsement for HouseValues!

There are now quite a few companies that have set up systems for agents to buy leads or become experts in certain neighborhoods. I have spent quite a few bucks on those and have come up empty handed every time. I have been told by buyers that when they identify themselves as interested in purchasing something, the open the floodgates and get answers from tons of realtors and then it becomes a bit of a circus. We have tried to provide top-notch information in a very timely manner to such buyers only to find out that they were already working with somebody else or that they were not seriously looking to buy. I think that there are better ways of prospecting.

The marketing of housevalues to get agents to buy the zipcodes is very good. Lots of agents sign up and then dump it later on. It went through my office a while back and no one ended up continuing. It is expensive and with sites out there like trulia, buyers and sellers have the same type of information housevalues is advertising can be obtained from their site... the catch... buyers and sellers have to wait for an agent to respond with a cyber CMA. If you are an agent who uses it you have to respond immediately with a price opinion for it to turn into any potential of business. People want instant gratification. Dropping everything to offer your pricing opinion is hard to do and it takes time to compile. Never turned in to any business for me and was expensive. Your money is better spent elsewhere! (IN MY OPINION)

Elizabeth.....

I used them for almost a year, some years ago and they were pretty raw. Most of the people were fishing and didn't move thru.