Free services? 

If you consider your time valuable, you pay with your time. 

For instance, does social media take up a lot of your time?  

If you make $30,000 to $300,000 from a paid service isn’t that better than a free service? How to evaluate? Use Our Pledge as an example.

We are talking about how real estate listings, Have and Want opportunities, “real estate information” are displayed, contacts made that lead to showings, offers and to do transactions.

Yes, you can do a deal through social media. But social media seems to be more of building your reputation, leading to talking with someone to represent them someday. Becoming an expert in your geographic area or business expertise.

MLS is still the best way to sell real estate if you can get a signed MLS listing. If you did not use MLS and only used social media, would you get the results of 32 showings in one week and ten offers?

The services in brokerage offices such as broker bay help real estate brokers provide volume appointments as efficiently as possible.

MLS is essential to ensure you provide at least one place in the world where buyers can find it. If buyers want to find a certain kind of property in a particular area, can they be assured of finding it just through social media in a hit or miss proposition? No, of course.

But the goal of all real estate brokers and salespeople is to get the highest and best price and terms for their clients, which requires exposure. This exposure means utilizing all available and competent marketing mediums in the industry, including MLS, over a reasonable length of time.

In addition to MLS, there are Have and Want opportunities in real estate. There can be as much as ten times the real estate opportunities available to trade in real estate as what a salesperson can place on a real estate board.

In the case of ICIWorld, there are 40,000+ contacts to do business. These are people you can network with to target the kind of real estate opportunity that might match your interest at a point in time.

Advertising listings on social media is like throwing information at a blank wall on the Internet. There are so many distractions that social media can become a time-waster. Yes, it is entertaining and interesting and can have other benefits. But the bottom line is you need a showing in real estate to make money today in real estate.

Nothing is more annoying and wasting our time than waiting for forced advertisements in our faces to get the information we want.

It is a matter of interpretation to say social media is free and ICIWorld is not free. ICIWorld is free to search and read the real estate opportunities, make connections to do business, and make money. It is like real estate classified ads. You do not pay to read the real estate classified ads placed by the brokers and salespeople of the world on ICIWorld on the Internet. If it were a newspaper, you would have to subscribe to the newspaper to read the ads.

Now, if a broker or salesperson sells a house or a commercial property due to making a connection on ICIWorld and makes $40,000, do you consider ICIWorld a pay service not free?

I, too, have been a real estate broker for over 47 years. I rebel against incessant advertising. I pay not to have it. If I want something, I know where to get it. I order it from Amazon, go to Costco, Canadian Tire, Staples, Walmart, Winners, and other beautiful stores. Why do I have to have all the products and services in the world constantly bombarding me with advertising?

Constantly waiting to view ads before I see what I want to see is using up our precious time on this planet earth. Time is a precious commodity. So a free service like social media is more expensive because it is drawing on your time.

Instead, we provide instant access to real estate Have and Want information organized in a way that makes it available within seconds.

Contact names and numbers are available.

Search by business area, categories, keywords, Have or Wants. Search the listings less than one month old, three months old, one year old or five years old. Make contact. Networking in real estate is valuable. Many times members talk about one listing that may not suit their prospect or clients. They talk about other opportunities and go off and do a deal.

Networking is powerful. You have to know how to do it. It starts with developing good relationships with others.

The real estate brokers and salespeople of the world take a chance every day when they work for you. They work countless hours for free in the hope and expectation that a sale will result in remuneration someday.

They provide the MLS accessible and free for the public. Real estate brokers and salespeople pay for the MLS service, the maintenance, development, programming, problem solving, and many other costs going into collecting, disseminating and making the properties for sale and lease available in searchable categories. Information is made available on mobile devices and computers. There is continual development. Staff checks each listing for accuracy as represented by the brokerage office. Is it free? Yes, free to the public and paid for by salespeople.

ICIWorld is accessible and free for the public. Real estate brokers and salespeople pay for it. But they make money through networking that leads to transactions.

What one should be considering is the return on investment. ROI. See the testimonials of some members of ICIWorld. They helped the public transact sales. In so doing, they helped the public create wealth through real estate. They made money along the way for their hours of research and service.

Is it a good ROI for earning a $5,000 referral fee for an investment of $319 for a one-year membership on ICIWorld?

If a broker makes $50,000, is that good?

How about $300,000?

How about $1,000,000.

These are figures that members of ICIWorld reach.

Many do not realize that information in real estate, such as handled by ICIWorld, when worked properly, can result in sales that are higher than any real estate board in Canada. (*highest sale TRREB residential $28M, commercial $38.6M in the last few years)

ICIWorld members have made connections that resulted in sales above $50M+. One of the transactions had fourteen offers from all the major companies in Toronto. Yet, member brokers and salespeople of ICIWorld made connections for these and many other real estate opportunities.

Part of the reason for their success is the reach of the Internet globally. ICIWorld was the first real estate service of its kind on the Internet in 1994 as ICIWorld.com. A tremendous amount of links worldwide link to ICIWorld. From embassies to medical professions, directories worldwide, link to ICIWorld and the information that members provide.

Members made connections for these and many other transactions through the time-saving features of ICIWorld searchable databases.

Brokers pay for the service but are rewarded big time because of the connections made.

We can write a whole book about getting to this stage today of ICIWorld and its members, and the Internet, databasing, websites, servers, software, hardware, upgrades, information technology, strategies, real estate concepts, and more.

Suffice it to say “business at the speed of thought,” referencing Bill Gates’s book and the Internet application for business is what ICIWorld is all about.

Can something be better than free, which uses up your time? Yes, a paid service that pledges that helps you make money through your service to the public.

Look for opportunities to make a return on investment. ICIWorld.

Thoughts from Gary Nusca, CCIM, CIPS
Founder and Manager
ICIWorld.com