I am familiar and have experience with most of these idx solutions. I would be happy to add my two-cents. 

Posting on a Wednesday and asking for a review by Friday is kind of rushing it, don’t you think?

I have quite a bit of experience with Real Geeks as I currently manage 8 websites for different agents and agencies all over the country. I also use Real Geeks on my own real estate website, which I’ve operated for 16 years, and have a few different idx’s on it prior to real geeks.

Drew – et. al.  We’ve been on the Real Geeks system for more than three years (we were their first retail customer in the mainland) and have two sites operating in St Louis and Austin.  Happy to provide a review in detail as we have extensive experience working with the system, their support team etc.  I understand from the comments that the deadline is Friday, correct?  

I have personal experience with IDX Broker, and Real Geeks in 2011.  I will begin by saying that IDX Broker did help me and did provide me the ability to have properties available on my sites for customer use and I was able to create some excellent customer’s through sign up with landing page.

However, once my buddy called me and said, “You’ve got to see this!  I know you’ve always been looking for a bank end solution and manager”.  Once I took a look at Real Geeks, I never turned back.  The customer service and the hands on from the start up was stellar.

Immediately, I was pointed to a webinar, which was live and interactive. I got to see Real Geeks hands on and had it thoroughly explained to me.  I got to see all of the tools that I dreamdt of, however, didn’t have.  All in one solution.  I now had the blogging, the seo capability, the advanced searches. 

The best part was I had the ability to see exactly what the customer was doing.  What searches, what were customers favorites.  I had the ability to interact with the client through the manager.  I could email, call, and keep notes right there in the manager. More so, I had the ability to see when the client was active online.  Giving me the opportunity to interact with them.  I could perform searches on the 100’s on new opportunities in my database manager provided by Real Geeks.  I could search on how many searches the client was doing.  I could, now, really manage and decide how I would market to these new found opportunities.  I could label them hot, cold, not contacted.  I could put in follow ups, reminders and appointments.  I could share database with other agents on my team and affiliate partners.  All provided by Real Geeks.

Now my biggest challenge is staying in touch and providing value and good information.

 Bottom -line  for me is that I am not a so called geek and this system allows me to do my job and sell real estate!  Which is what i get paid to do.

I have used IDX Broker and currently use Real Geeks.  I’d be happy to write a review of one or both.

I started with RealGeeks about a year and a half ago. I looked at 11 different solutions. I liked the RealGeeks solution because it was unique from other sites in my market, the pages fully indexed, and loved the fact the pages came up quickly with all the information a buyer would want without a lot of “spinning tops.” The real clincher for me was that the site was written and developed by active, tech savvy real estate professionals who actually put food on the table from the site.

Price is always a consideration but I would rather pay more for a site that produces sales (not just leads). The site is very affordable and there were no hidden fees to set the site up. At times, I felt like I was their only customer although I knew I wasn’t. We had a few complex issues to present locations in a meaningful way and there was no charge for the extra work Jeff and his team did.

I have no basis to compare a past site since this was the first full blown IDX site I did. I don’t think the work is ever “done” with an active site but organic traffic levels have been increasing at a consistent 20-30% per month over the past several months to the point where I have just recently brought in several agents to help work the leads. Using pay-per-click is very effective while you build authority and content. My last PPC run produced 84 visits (for $100) and converted at a rate of 31%, the bounce rate was 13%, average time on site was 11:00 minutes and an average of 21.6 pages per visit. Organic leads are less but of course, being first in the SERP makes a big difference.

RealGeeks continues to roll out improvements to the site. They listen to the feed back and are constantly adding functionality at no additional cost. There is also a forum where all of us can bounce ideas and strategies back and forth. This has been very helpful. I think a mobile option will be out soon.

You don’t need a lot of computer skills to get started. Pages can be built quickly and will index well following what Jeff has put together. For the more technically skilled, you can also add other complex features onto you pages if you wish like Facebook widgets, clickable images, Google maps, walk-score and just about anything you want. I notice posts from the integrated blog feature indexes within 24 hours. Posting to Facebook and twitter area snap and photos for the posts can be selected in Facebook from photos on the page or blog entry you are posting.

The lead manager helps agents to know what their prospects are looking at, schedule follow-ups, and quickly email standardized emails through the email template. A response can go out in seconds. Events can be tracked by type and sorted in many different ways. Notifications as to lead activity can be basic activity up to a notification when your lead does just about anything.

The site will work well for an individual or someone who wants to build a team of buyer agents. Leads can be assigned round-robin across the board or within groups of agents in a particular area. “Weighting” lead assignments can also put more leads towards the more productive agents on your team. There are also several tools available to track and monitor response times and agent activities.

There are many quality solutions out there but I believe with a little hard work and patience, building your site with RealGeeks is a winner.

The obvious disclaimer needed…I am a Real Geeks customer and am not receiving any compensation for this opinion. I am also happy to talk to anyone about the site and my experiences.

 I currently use IDXBroker, IHomefinder, Diverse Solutions and E-Agents, they all have their pro’s and cons but currently I feel that DS gives you the best SEO, then IHomefinder.  Now this is ONLY comparing the IDX solutions mentioned.  I do think that “Real Geeks” is definitely one of the VERY best full featured solutions out there.  I remember talking and getting a demo with Jeff Manson at the early stages of it’s development and it was very good back then.