Looks like RentalHomesPlus has raised prices back to the previous $49 level. It was $39 dollars for 30 days.

Sort of odd to see such a large company go back and forth on this issue. I am sure it has some property managers confused.

I was looking at my stats today for this blog and I noticed a few hits from people searching for RentalHomesPlus Site Change so I decided to take a look. Sure enough the site looked different. I just spoke with one of the people over at RentalHomesPlus and he indicated they just released the new version yesterday.

At least RentalHomesPlus is smart enough to do a major change on a weekend (Rentals.com has done major changes mid-week). The RHP contact told me they are still working out a few little bugs, but it seems to be going well.

Some of the major changes to the site are mapping (MapQuest), photos are larger, SEO changes and some lead reporting.

I just forwarded a lead generation spreadsheet from one of my clients that is also a client on RentalHomesPlus so I was able to compare my stats to RentalHomesPlus – I only took a look at one property so far but my site generated almost 4 times the detailed page views for that ad than RentalHomesPlus did (112 for RHP, 415 for RentVine).

To be fair I have not studied the rest of stats from my clients spreadsheet yet (I have the girls today) – but I was happy to see the mid-priced rental ($1,300 a month) was getting more traffic than RHP.

The person who sent me over the spreadsheet seemed pretty excited about it so I guess I need to get working on one of my own email reports.

As I reported last month RentalHomesPlus without any fanfare produced a $19.99 plan and now has just as quietly gotten rid of it.

Sounds like they were testing it out – I guess we all know what the results were.

Now that RentalHomesPlus is the FARPM Annual Partner for 2007-2008, RentalHomesPlus is offering a $10 discount with the promo code: FARPM.

I wonder if Rentals.com and RentalHomesPlus had a bidding war over that partnership?

I got word from this comment on my blog that RentalHomesPlus will be the ‘Official 07-08 Annual Partner’ for FARPM.

Are we starting to see the start of RentClicks/Rentals loss of absolute power over the industry? I wonder if there was a bidding war for the partnership?

This move from RentalHomesPlus shows us how aggressive they are going to be with sales down in Florida.

This kind of gives me credit of getting another one of my predictions coming true for 2007. I said we would see a new partner for NARPM in my predictions (which kind of happened), now we are seeing this happening to FARPM.

After I wrote the last post, someone told me that not only did they add a new plan they lowered their $49 plan to $39.

Wow, I can’t believe I missed that!

So now just about all the main sites have very similar pricing at $39 for a basic plan. I guess I am a little different because I have a $38 basic plan that lasts for 40 days – not 30 like everyone else. I like being different.

A little history on the $39 price, I was told by a RentClicks insider that they picked that price when they started their web site because it represented one days worth of rent.

RentalHomesPlus just lowered its prices by adding a new ad plan. The new ad plan is called “Basic 30 Day Ad” priced at $19.99.

The $19.99 ad is different from the $39.00 ad by allowing you to only post 1 photo. It also appears that you don’t get a virtual tour, open house info, and traffic to your website like you do for the $39 or $79 plans.

I am not sure what to think of this. My research shows that ads that have photos receive a lot more traffic, but I am not sure if just having one photo will hurt traffic or not.

I am still trying to decide what my discount pricing should be, but this info now should help me figure it out. Looks like I need to get my volume discount worked out before the Scottsdale NARPM conference.

What are your thoughts on this new pricing structure?

Update 5/17/07: A representative from RentalHomesPlus tells me that you also don’t get any customer service, no toll free number, no link to company website, no logo, and no lead reporting for the $19.99 ad plan. And the biggest thing of all is that the $19.99 ads sort below all the other higher paying ads .

From this LA Times story Sam Zell is quoted as saying:

“If all the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content for nothing, what would Google do, and how profitable would Google be?”

What in the Sam Zell is he thinking? If Google wasn’t allowed to index all the newspapers in America, Google News would suffer.  But, regardless, Google would still have the semi-trucks backing up to the GooglePlex each day to take more money to the bank.

Read about Sam Zell’s relationship with RentalHomesPlus.