The lead capture is unnecessary, if the person is interested in the home they will contact the agent. This might help the agent line up more buyers. I don't use lead capture to view my homes for sale because I don't want to limit the number of people who view it.

I do use lead capture for the foreclosure listings through realtytrac. They get a trial from realtytrac but then I tell them they can get foreclosure listings for free from me .I set them up a personalized website similar to this.( http://idx423169.pro.mlxtempo.com/?Page=-1 ) I get to track the homes they are looking at and they post comments to tell me what they like.

One way I get leads and the other way the listing gets maximum exposure. I would hate to get leads at the expense of my seller.

Alan, I agree with you, Shannon, James, and Louann. Actually, Shannon nailed it: "Sometimes if there is no information or pics people will just move on to the next listing and not ask for more info." That's EXACTLY what I do with listings that that lack the information (including pics) I need/want. I neither have the time nor patience for filling out any forms--other than search forms. Even in the case of search forms, if the form has more than 5 fields, then I'll usually pass on that opportunity--unless it's an AMAZING deal (and even in that case I still may bail if there's 10 or more fields).

Alan,

I think you are making a wrong assessment of the situation and so are the other agents on the post... I beleive that the best interest of the seller is for me to be communicating directly with a potential buyer. Now, for my personal listings on my site you do not have to give me contact info, but if you find one of my listings on a wide area home search then after 3 home views you will have to register... This does 2 things. First, gets buyers talking with me and that is what you as a seller WANT is me talking with A LOT of buyers. You see the home a buyer calls on is almost never the one they buy... Second, real estate agents are really in the marketing and lead generation business... so the more leads I generate the more homes I sell, the more money I have to spend on marketing... the more likely your home is to be found and sold...

Think about this and those agents that have no registration on their sites... Truly how many leads do you generate each month from your web site? Remember it is a TOOL, if you dont generate leads then it is not a tool...

I agree Alan.
I am going to double check my trulia now! I set my website up to not block anyone from searching, because I never fill out any forms to view anything, and wouldn't expect any different from anyone else.

Great post Alan. I am going to add this to my Realtor interview questions:

Will buyers have to sign in to view my property on your site?

The Broker I work with has the most active website in the area by far (Alexa statistics). They do not require registration to look at listed properties and neither do I on my site.
When people are looking they just want to look and if something is nice and priced right they will call their their Realtor® to see the home.
Most people do not want a "gate keeper" when they are looking.

Alan,
I agree with you. Nowadays people like yourself expect to get information about listings very quickly. Sometimes if there is no information or pics people will just move on to the next listing and not ask for more info. Agents think that if they don't give too much information then the buyers will be forced to call and the agent can capture the lead in order to follow-up. In my opinion that just won't work with technology driven consumers like yourself.

Alan,
It's a matter of collecting contact information that can be used to help them with marketing you later on.