Is Amazon Going to Lower Your Leads Cost?

By Tiana Baur 

“Alexa, find me the best real estate agent for our neighborhood.” Another giant might be joining the real estate industry madness with Google and Facebook, providing more referrals and lead generation to real estate agents. An Amazon placeholder page was discovered, which has since been removed, that gave people the option to “Hire a Realtor.”

The webpage was found in their Home and Business Services section, which is a newly rolled out vendor marketplace. According to Inman, “If the marketplace works for agents like it does for other professionals, then agents would pay referral fees to Amazon in exchange for new business. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.” The general public can already hire home inspectors and interior designers via the marketplace, so adding real estate agents to the vendor list actually makes a lot of sense.

Image source: Inman News

Reviews, Reviews, More Reviews

Amazon is review rich. It’s what makes buying from them easy and painless. Like everything else with them, their Home and Business Services section also has reviews for their vendors, meaning that real estate agent reviews might have yet another place to live. Instead of agents asking for reviews, they might start receiving them unprompted.

Move Over, Zillow

If Amazon really is going to get into the lead generation game, this agent referral page might be able to create extremely strong leads, meaning more competition for Zillow, making leads more affordable across the board. In fact, according to GeekWire, “When reports of the Amazon page surfaced, Zillow’s stock price slumped from $46.15 a share to $44.54.” They also declined to comment on the surfacing of this new service.

York Baur, CEO of MoxiWorks, said, “Monopolies are never good and competition is the antidote. If anyone can give Zillow a run for their money, it’s Amazon, and knowing them they’ll be incredibly price competitive.”

Plus, let’s face it: Amazon finds ways to make everything more affordable. Even on Thanksgiving, they were able to provide turkeys at a lower price at Whole Foods (the used-to-be most unaffordable way to buy groceries) since they recently acquired the company.

The future of real estate in general could get a lot more exciting and fun with Amazon in the mix. Actually, Amazon might just take over the world – and we’re kind of excited to watch them do it. “Hey Alexa, close this transaction for me.”