Another Real Estate Brokerage Pulls their Listings from Zillow
I read an interesting article today about a brokerage (Crye-Leike Real Estate Co.) that is pulling nearly 3,000 listings from Trulia and Zillow. Their reasons? Inaccurate data and competing broker advertisements next to their listings. This is not something new either. San Diego-based ARG Abbott Realty Group and Rochester, N.Y.-based Nothnagle Realtors did the same thing in 2012. Personally I think this is great and I commend them for what they did.
I have blogged previously about my beef with third party real estate websites. One of my chief complaints was data that was inaccurate or not updated in a timely manner. This doesn't help clients, doesn't provide the public with a good service and creates confusion for potential buyers. Countless times I have had clients who inquired about homes that were already under contract, no longer on the market, or even sold. None saw these homes from my MLS access, but rather on third party websites. While my experiences are purely anecdotal, new studies have emerged which confirmed my suspicions.
One study found that nearly 36-37% of “active” listings on sites like Trulia and Zillow were no longer for sale in the MLS. Listings on local brokerage sites, however, only had an error rate between 0-1%. The same study also found that new listings took nearly a week to appear on Zillow and Trulia. Local brokerages, on the other hand, showed up a median of 8 days earlier than Trulia and 7 days earlier than Zillow. In addition, local MLSs tend to update their listings every 15-30 minutes. The brokerages’ websites clearly provided more accurate and timely housing data to the general public.
I also share the same feeling with advertisements next to listings and I’ll tell you why. First, I should point out that I don’t have an issue with any competing broker or agent advertising alongside of me. That’s not the point. The point is that agents can pay Zillow or Trulia to be shown next to listings that are not theirs. They know nothing about the property, although the consumer may be led to believe they do.
I had a property for sale about a year ago. This was a custom built home that was listed at approximately $500,000. Like all listings uploaded to the local MLS, it was syndicated to third party real estate websites. As it turned out, a couple was visiting from out of state and just so happened to see my listing on Trulia. They didn’t call me though; they called the agent who paid money to advertise next to my listing. That agent didn’t know anything about this home, which had many different design elements and construction that was unique to the home (the owner’s brother was the contractor and the owner had a custom cabinet business.)
Worse yet, the agent had assured me they were pre-qualified prior to the showing, and I found out later he was less than honest with me about that. (It is rare that I would request a letter from the lender or proof of funds simply for a showing from another agent. I assume that they are doing their job and pre-qualifying their clients first themselves.) This is generally reserved for particularly expensive homes, or when presenting an offer. In this case however, a half million dollar home was shown to a couple who clearly weren’t in the market, weren't qualified and fell in love while browsing Trulia on vacation.
I’m certainly not claiming all agents do business like this. Although I have seen my fair share of Realtors who will run out the door after a phone call, without even a thought of pre-qualifying the buyer first. This was the case here, and it wasted all of our time. It also put a bad taste in my mouth for the process as a whole. Was my client well served by having another agent, who knew nothing about the listing, march a couple of window shoppers through his home? Why is the listing agent’s contact information not provided, rather than those willing to pay for the advertising space? I think this was the gist of Crye-Leike’s objection, who likened the process to “extortion.”
This argument has merit in my opinion. This was my listing, my work, my professional photos, which were then sold as a lead to another agent. Take that example; multiply it thousands of times, keep in mind that 37% of the data is inaccurate and you’ve got a third party real estate website.
Many Realtors argue in favor of Zillow and or Trulia. It’s a platform for ratings, reviews and a resource for them to pick up business. I can’t say that I blame them. But I still disagree with the principle of the platform itself. As Realtors we create this data, which is then picked up by these national real estate websites. They then take our information and sell it back to us at a premium. While we’re monetizing the competition, they are rising to the top of the search engines in almost every major city, burying the local brokers who actually have more accurate housing data.
From a business perspective this makes no sense to me. I’d prefer to put money into building a local resource (i.e. my business) with accurate and up-to-date information for my customers and clients.
In the end if we can’t even do that, then why bother?