I just finished an online Skype screen share with the RETS PRO team and I have to say, I’m very impressed!

**Note; I’m not here to endorse anything with this post and I am reminding you that you should always do your own due diligence before making any decisions to purchase anything from either company.

That said, after I got finished with my private 1-on-1 screen share, I thought I’d better go take a look at the BIG dog on the block IDX BROKER and do a little features comparison to see how RETS PRO is stacking up now and WOW!  Having worked with both of these, and several other solutions for many years, Its my opinion that as soon as RETS PRO delivers on their CRM then it’s going to be a game changer and threat to all monthly leased solutions out there. They’ve been promising a CRM for what seems like forever, but I did get to take a quick peek and what they explained to me is that their CRM will be equal to most of their competition and nothing more than that. They did say however that they will be building their CRM to then be able to push into about 4 or 5 main CRMS out there and they will then bring in their own enterprise CRM sometime probably after the first of the year.

So here is my June 1st 2018 PRO’s and CON’s between my top (2) go-to choices for WordPress real estate plugins.

RETS PRO – PRO’s

  1. Pay only once to own it.
  2. Has RETS Manager that you can add multiple RETS data which makes the possibilities endless.
  3. Has easy shortcode builder that pretty much does over 90% of the IDX BROKER features.
  4. Everything is ON YOUR SITE and not on someone else’s, which is a huge selling point for me!
  5. Extremely easy to customize and NO cache resets required, ever work with customizing IDX BROKER?
  6. Never having to hear someone say “No, that can’t be done”. You can actually put your hands on all of the code, which is a huge selling point for me!

RETS PRO – CON’s

  1. No CRM
  2. Not as many options yet as IDX BROKER regarding their Forced Registration, though I’m told they are working to add more options to go with CRM.
  3. Not as well packaged as IDX BROKER when it comes to pre-packaged template and search form layouts, but then they are mainly selling to developers and not to agents so that’s understandable.
  4. Not a RETS Vendor, I know they are Vendors in a few markets but for the most part that is not something they are offering so you will need to get your own RETS credentials for your project yourself.
  5. Support, I hate to have to say it but it’s always hit or miss on any given day and from what I already know from first hand experience is that if you’re a hosted customer of theirs then you getting VIP support versus the snails paced general support tickets speed that I get.  I think that’s why they prefer selling to developers and then hosting agents since agents typically need a lot more hand holding. I was told today though that they are ramping up to begin marketing, so I guess only time will tell once they have to deal with more and more of the self hosted DIY agents.

IDX BROKER Platinum – PRO’s

  1. Lower Price to get started. T
  2. They are a Vendor in most markets already so you can skip that possible extra setup cost and paperwork, unless required by local board.
  3. They make it simple enough to get just about any agent off the street to be able to use their platform.
  4. More pre-made template and search form choices to pick from than anyone else.
  5. They do have a CRM, though not as good as many others out there like RealGeeks.
  6. Support, though if you go online you may question this statement but they do have a huge budget and clientele so there will always be ignorant rants from ignorant people but over all they do a fairly decent job and like RETS PRO, some days are hit or miss for me as well.

IDX BROKER Platinum – CON’s

  1. No Pay once option, you’ll have to lease it forever.
  2. No RETS manager and no way to custom do things with the data, which is a deal breaker for many of my customers.
  3.  Worst part of IDX BROKER in my opinion is the fact that they do subdirectories, subdomains etc on their server so that NONE of the RETS data is on your own website, another deal breaker for many of my customers.
  4. Not nearly as easy to customize and expand on so if you want to put your hands on the code and do everything on your own website then you are out of luck.
  5. I hate having to log into IDX BROKER website and to part of my website edits and then having to flush cache every time I want make a change or create a template or shortcode.

 

So there you have it, something to think about while you are looking around at all the choices out there.
I will tell you what I ask my customers, what is your budget, timeframe and requirements. Then based on their answer, I give them my advice.
“If all you need is a quick, cheap site right away and don’t care about some limitations then IDX BROKER will get you in and out quick, but if you have a little more upfront cash and a little more time to get your own RETS credentials then RETS PRO is my answer every time.

I hope you enjoyed the mini comparison, I thought that since I haven’t posted anything in a while I’d do something quick to share so that you can contact both companies to do your own live screen share with both of them to see for yourself and then draw your own conclusions.

NOTE**  I have another Screen Share review about another IDX solution coming in a couple of months after I get another update that looks very promising for those that are looking for a Hosted, Managed, Marketing type solution similar to a RealGeeks but on WordPress. So look out RealGeeks, because this one looks like they are coming for you and from what I’ve seen it looks like agents that need that sort of thing will probably be jump ship and sign up once they see what I’ve seen.

Regards –