In this Issue:

• e-Agent Leads Verified By Independent Third-Party Group
• e-Agent Leads Speak Out: Find Out How You Can Better Serve Your Leads
• Media Coverage
• Real Estate Industry Watch
• About e-Agent

e-Agent Leads Verified By Independent Third-Party Group

e-Agent produces better, more qualified and quicker closing leads than HouseValues.com, RealtyTracker and JustListed.com; an independent third-party study shows.

Real IQ (www.realiq.com), an independent third-party research and consulting firm recently studied and qualified 100,000 of e-Agent’s leads from 2005 and the results show that e-Agents leads have the best conversion ratio as well as the fastest closing rates in the industry. This same company also studied many of our competitor’s using a standard metric and found that e-Agent again proved to be the best.

Stephen Bedikian, a partner at Real IQ explained that "in similar lead analysis studies that we’ve conducted, we typically see between 60-65% of leads that are going to result in a property transaction, do so within the first six months after the date of lead submission". Bedikian added that "for e-Agent leads that figure is over 80%, that is at least a 15% advantage over all its competition".

Highlights of the Real IQ study on e-Agent leads include:

• 1 in 4 verified e-Agent leads ended up in a transaction in 2005
• 80.5% of e-Agent verified leads close within the first 6 months
• 1 in 12 of those leads resulted in 2 transactions (both a buy and a sell)

Further, the study also analyzed the median sale prices of all closed e-Agent leads. The analysis showed that the average sales price was $352,401 compared to the 2005 national average home sales price which was only $208,300. Meaning that the average e-Agent lead sales price was higher by $144,101 or 70% above the national average.

To view the study in detail and to learn more about the quality of the e-Agent leads that you receive, please click here to view the study.

e-Agent Leads Speak Out: Find Out How You Can Better Serve Your Leads:

e-Agent recently surveyed nearly 250 consumers who became a lead through our service. This was our first ever study of e-Agent leads who worked with one of our e-Agents; the responses brought to the forefront what the consumers want from e-Agents. It also brought to light what agents did right, and what some agents did wrong.

When leads were asked how quickly they were contacted after leaving their information, response times varied and as e-Agent, Inc. as well as other sources (see: Realtor Magazine article below) have stressed; contacting the lead immediately is one of the most important aspects of turning internet leads into clients. In fact it is the most important aspect of what you can do to begin a fruitful relationship with that potential client.

Agents need to pay attention to the responses below; especially the bolded information, as this is your market and whose business you are trying to gain:

1. After leaving my information I was contacted
   • Within 5 minutes – 8%
   • Under 30 minutes – 19.7%
   • Under 1 hour – 8.4%
   • Within 1 day -35.3%
   • Over 1 day later – 10.1%
   • Never contacted – 18.5%
   • (.3% did not answer this question – Almost 30% were not contacted the same day or ever)
2. Leads were asked how they would rate their overall experience using the e-Agent system.
   • Average or above – 81% (21.3% average, 34.8% good, 24.9% superb)
   • Below average – 7.7%
   • Poor – 11.3%
3. The following question asked what the e-Agent could have done better
   • Contacted me faster – 32.9%
   • The remaining 67.1% submitted their own response which included some of the following:
   • Contacted me at all ... or faster. No contact yet
   • This whole experience is working very nicely for us. We search daily and will contact the agent when we find what we are looking for, good experience.
   • After the initial contact I was unable to reach the agent.
   • I had a contact to tell me that they received my information and will call me back in the next day and never got a call and it's been over a week!
4. The final question of the survey, asked the user if they would use our network of agents in the future
   • Yes – 75%
   • No – 25%

(Do not get rid of your territories with e-Agent clearly people will come back to use you again)

Non-Payment Affects Your Advertising As Well As Lead Flow:

It happens to all of us; you either lose or misplace your credit card, it expires or it is stolen and you need to order a new card, unfortunately that is part of life. However, if your billing information on file with e-Agent is not up-to-date during your monthly billing or your lead billing dates your account will be paused along with all your advertising.

When your advertising is paused, this means that your ad is no longer seen by consumers searching for real estate in your area, so you will not receive the bulk of your leads. Additionally, when your advertisements are paused your ad becomes less and less relevant with each click that other competitor’s advertisements receive. To put it in Layman’s terms…imagine you are walking down the street at a normal clip (this would be when your advertising is up and running) and you are walking next to 5 other people at the exact same pace (the 5 others can represent your competitors on the search engines which is where we advertise your e-Agent site to generate leads), then you stop to bend down and tie your shoe (this action can represent when you ads are paused due to non-payment or your billing information goes into default). After you finish tying your shoe and you begin to walk again however, all the others you were walking with are now in front of you and you will never really catch up.

Therefore, when your billing information is updated and your advertising has been put back in place you may have a less-than desirable position which can significantly reduce the number of leads that you receive. Each time we have a declined billing situation it hurts your advertising campaign. Also when you delete a territory and add it back on later understand it is like starting from the beginning again. The search engines will have to build up historical data so if you occupy a territory you want to maintain it as long as possible as well as keep your billing information in good standing.

To ensure that you receive as many leads as possible and that your advertising retains good positioning it is extremely important to always have up-to-date billing information on file with e-Agent. If you know in advance that your credit card or e-check account information is not going to go through, please log in to update your new billing information prior to your scheduled billing dates at www.e-agent.biz. All leads are billed on the 15th of each month and your sign up date is when you are billed your flat monthly fee.

Media Coverage

Realtor Magazine:

The May 2006 issue of Realtor® Magazine addressed the growing importance of internet leads as well as the best way to handle these leads in an article entitled; "Command And Control: Practitioners Take Disciplined Approach To Turning Internet Leads Into The Real Deal". In addition to the ever important information and tips on how to handle internet leads, the magazine highlighted e-Agent as a lead generation company for agents to use.

Among the information from the Realtor® article, one of the most important pieces noted was that from a 2005 study, "21% of Internet buyers expect a real estate sales associate to respond instantly to an inquiry. Another 23 percent expect a response in 30 minutes or less." As e-Agent has noted in its training material, this is the most important part of internet leads, an immediate response.

USA Today:

e-Agent was again featured in a USA Today story, this time the front page article on May 7, 2006 entitled "It's Always 'OPEN HOUSE' As Real Estate Goes Online", discussed how important the internet has become for real estate; both from the consumer and Realtors® perspective. The article mentioned that e-Agent was an outlet that numerous agents use to garner online leads and create a meaningful presence on the web.

e-Agent Art Raby of Valparaiso, IN was quoted in the article and provided valuable insight on how the internet has empowered the consumer but has also made it easier for Realtors® to sell houses without necessarily showing more houses

We would like to thank all of the e-Agents that took part in our survey for this article and hope to use your knowledge and opinions for future articles.

Real Estate Industry Watch

As many of you now know real estate sales are down again. According to the NAR this will still be the third best year on record but clearly the number of homes, the price in many markets and the number of people who can afford a 7% mortgage rate is shrinking rapidly. Ben Bernanke the new Federal Reserve Chairman also stated that his need to curtail inflation will mean more interest rate hikes in the months to come. Unfortunately for the real estate industry this means fewer and fewer sales will occur because the pool of consumers who can afford to purchase will get smaller as well. Here are some recent articles posted online that we think should be helpful to all of you as the market tightens its proverbial belt.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/06/AR2006060601324.html?nav=rss_business/economy
(Bernanke puts his foot down on inflation, bad news for real estate)

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=66990
(Article from NAR, Trying to press the Fed to lower Interest rates)

http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/05/pf/affluent_attitudes/index.htm?section=money_latest
(Worries from wealthy American’s regarding the real estate industry)

3rd Announcement regarding Pricing Changes for Optional e-Agent Lead Services:

We wanted to let you know that after nearly a year of testing our two optional lead services (CMA Leads and Web-To-Phone Leads) we have moved the introductory pricing up to our scheduled pricing model. Keep in mind that our closest competitors are still 50% more expensive for the same quality/style of leads and most of e-Agent’s competition, resell the lead you purchase to multiple agents or brokers. e-Agents never compete for leads. Changes occurred on April 1st, 2006 for any leads generated on that day moving forward and 2 announcements were already posted. We wanted to reiterate the changes to you all once more.

CMA OPTIONAL SERVICE:

Price for Exclusive CMA Leads prior to April 1st:
$15/Exclusive Certified Market Analysis Lead, Duplicates and Bad Leads Removed
Current Pricing for Exclusive CMA Leads On And After April 1st:
$35/Exclusive Certified Market Analysis Lead
Highlights of lead removal: Duplicates removed plus 10%
Our Closest Competitor: $50/CMA lead

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WEB-TO-PHONE LEAD OPTIONAL SERVICE:

Prices for Web-To-Phone Leads prior to April 1st: $25/Call over 30 Seconds
Current Pricing for Web-To-Phone Leads On And After April 1st: $35/Call over 30 Seconds Only & STARTING APRIL 1st WE WILL REMOVE DUPLICATES!
Closest Competitor: NONE

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All of you who are currently enrolled and want to stay that way will remain enrolled. Of course if you are not enrolled in either of these great programs and want to get more high quality leads, please log in and check the appropriate boxes. If you need help getting set up, call 866-EAGENTS or send an e-mail to service@e-agent.biz.
Those of you who wish to remove yourself from either of these optional programs can do so by simply logging in with your ID and Password.
Thank you,
e-Agent Staff

"e-Agents Never Compete for leads, Neither should you!"

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About e-Agent, Inc.:

e-Agent, Inc. was founded by real estate brokers and agents to combine the efficiency of Internet technology with the one-to-one professional contact that is a hallmark and necessary component of the industry. The company's suite of products and services allows real estate professionals to maximize the potential of online marketing without having to take time away from the business of helping their clients buy and sell homes. e-Agent’s value proposition to real estate agents is based on low cost, low maintenance, high value services, while it ultimately also benefits consumers by facilitating the process of finding an e-Agent to assist with their home buying needs. For more information, please contact us at sales@e-agent.biz or 866.324.3687.