Real estate listing - TITLE Questions

[Kel]

I recently took over a client's Place page. They are real estate agents working under the umbrella of a larger firm called McGraw Realty. The listing that they have claimed is simply McGraw Realty. This listing has their individual business information and website url. I am afraid that the name needs to be changed to avoid conflict with the umbrella real estate company. What would be the smoothest way of making this transition? Simply adding their individual names after the McGraw Realtors name seems like the easiest fix. Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[Flash]

Re: Real estate listing

Adding their names creates a professional page rather than a business page. Can you please explain more? Are they realtors that work at a McGraw location, and the McGraw location will have it's own separate location? Or do they own a McGraw location?

 

[Kel]

Re: Real estate listing

McGraw Realtors has over 100 real estate agents under their name. Some have sub agencies and some are independent. Find Your Way Home is the name of the agency I am working with. However, their listing simply say McGraw Realtors, https://plus.google.com/101755756206486727159/about?gl=US&hl=en-US.
Their listing should be Find Your Way Home.

They are at their own, seperate location.

 

[Flash]

Ok, so they work at this office. https://plus.google.com/106987666478029878735

From what I can tell taking a quick look, they are two independent realtors that both work at the above office, and have banded together to try to get more business via a website (a very good one at that, much more pleasant than most of the real estate sites I look at). Is that a correct summary?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Edited to add: thanks Gregg got a call and got sidetracked and by time I posted didn't know you already had. Thanks for looking. Below is what I crafted before I saw your post.

I recently took over a client's Place page. They are real estate agents working under the umbrella of a larger firm called McGraw Realty. The listing that they have claimed is simply McGraw Realty. This listing has their individual business information and website url. I am afraid that the name needs to be changed to avoid conflict with the umbrella real estate company. What would be the smoothest way of making this transition? Simply adding their individual names after the McGraw Realtors name seems like the easiest fix. Thanks for any help you can provide.

Hi Kel,

Thanks for PMing me and posting this here so I and others can help. Moved to help section since it's not a general Q but about a specific client.

In GENERAL terms here's the deal for Drs. Dentist, Attys, Real Estate and Insurance Agents. (In the purest sense, then there are situations like your that get more complicated.)

There should only be ONE listing with the practice name or agency name. The individual practitioners OR agents listings should be under their personal name OR their individual agency name.

Example ABC Realty has a listing. Jeff Jone's listing should just be Jeff Jones.

Jeff's listing should not be ABC Realty - Jeff Jones or it can hurt ranking of main listing AND can contribute to merged listings.

So that's scoop in general, no time right this sec to look at this specific issue in more detail but will circle back tonight.

 

[Kel]

Yes, I think that about sums up their situation. However, their address is findyourwayhome.com. What would be the best way to get a listing for them without the McGraw name attached? I have access to the listing of McGraw Realtors https://plus.google.com/101755756206486727159/about?gl=US&hl=en-US and just need to make that listing one that reflects the findyourwayhome.com realtors instead of McGraw Realtors name and business.

---------- Post Merged at 09:29 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 09:16 AM ----------

I realize that the best listing name for them would be Find Your Way Home Realtors. However, I am struggling with how to go about the name change.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Kel for a complete name change (as opposed to minor edit) you unfortunately need to open a new listing, delete that one from your account, then mark it as closed/moved to new location. Can't just edit the existing listing.

Here are instructions from Google. http://localsearchforum.catalystema...-finally-releases-how-move-local-listing.html

 

[Flash]

Yes, I think that about sums up their situation. However, their address is findyourwayhome.com. What would be the best way to get a listing for them without the McGraw name attached? I have access to the listing of McGraw Realtors https://plus.google.com/101755756206486727159/about?gl=US&hl=en-US and just need to make that listing one that reflects the findyourwayhome.com realtors instead of McGraw Realtors name and business.

---------- Post Merged at 09:29 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 09:16 AM ----------

I realize that the best listing name for them would be Find Your Way Home Realtors. However, I am struggling with how to go about the name change.

If they work at McGraw, then all they qualify for themselves is a professional listing. McGraw gets the business listing. Websites don't qualify for listings; listings are a claim of an item on the map and websites are not something tangible to be mapped.

 

[Kel]

I will delete the current listing and make a new account for the new listing. The name is still a little confusing to me.
As you can see there are a lot of different listing at this address. Would the listing have to be completely changed if I added Find Your Way Home to the end of the current name? McGraw Realtors: Find Your Way Home?

 

[Flash]

You cannot use that name. You are trying to combine two business names into one listing.

You are technically allowed to use "<agent name> - Agency Name"; so in other words "Cindy Henderson - McGraw Davisson Stewart Realtors" and then a separate listing for "Fordyce Eldred - McGraw Davisson Stewart Realtors". This is not best practices, best practices would be the agent name only; but it is technically allowed.

Again, there can only be one agency listing, and then the rest need to be professional listings. Professional listings are specifically for the agent and must have the agent's name in the name field.

 

[Andrew Sawyer]

Since both real estate agents are licensed agents of McGraw then it would be inappropriate to remove that company name from the main listing. Find Your Way Home Realtors is essentially a collective brand for the two individuals. The way real estate is structured using the Find Your Way Home Realtors name for the location would only work if it was a broker and physically located at the address in question. If the two real estate agents have exclusivity at that particular location I could see adding Find Your Way Home Realtors as an Obscure name in Map Maker for the McGraw feature, as the official website of McGraw lists it as well. Being an Obscure name it wouldn't render and would only be useful for people searching for that name.

 

[Flash]

I don't think adding the name as an obscure name is even necessary; it likely would come up in searches due to the URL. But we'd just have to see.

I'm not so sure this is the main listing for the brokerage. I looked and there is no history, this is a fairly new location and has the agent's URL, phone, etc. I think they have just misnamed their own listing; but you are right to say that at this point you might not be able to do such a drastic change of the name.

 

[Kel]

I really appreciate all of the advice and the help. Thank you all.

 

[Flash]

Kel, can you confirm that the listing is one created recently by your or the clients via the Places dashboard?

 

[Kel]

I am not sure who created the listing. I have recently started working with the Local SEO area of the agency and have been trying to get listings where they need to be. However, I do now have control over that listing in the places dashboard.