Trulia Archives - The Phoenix Real Estate Guy

Sandicor Fires Another Round in the Listing Syndication War

February 7, 2012 By Jay Thompson

OK, maybe “Listing Syndication War” is a little too sensationalistic.

Maybe.

There’s no question though that news about real estate listing syndication is now coming at a fast and furious pace.

Back in November, Edina Realty lobbed the first round when they announced they were pulling their listings from Trulia and Realtor.com

Then a couple of weeks ago it was Jim Abbott and ARG Abbott Realty Group in San Diego doing the same, and adding Zillow into the mix.

Yesterday Metrolist, the Denver, Colorado area MLS announced they were not renewing their contact with leading IDX supplier Diverse Solutions, which was recently acquired by Zillow.

And today brings the announcement that Sandicor, the San Diego area MLS is making significant changes to what they will be feeding listing syndication sites.

Take a moment to go read Lily Leung’s article in the San Diego Union Trbune Business section, San Diego MLS turns table on Zillow, Trulia.

Here are some highlights:

Sandicor, the county’s MLS, has added a text field to its listings that allows members to enter contact information, including names, email addresses and brokerage websites. The information, along with the usual listing data, would be disseminated by syndication websites such as ListHub and Point2 Agent, which are sources of information for popular real estate sites.

The main idea is that the contact information in the extra field would be displayed prominently for home hunters to see, nixing any confusion over the listing agent and an agent who is advertising on Trulia or Zillow.

Further…

Soon, the company will decrease the number of photos that can go out to syndicators to four, down from the maximum of 25. Another upcoming change: Images sent out to outside parties will bear watermarked contact information of the listing agents.

Well howdy doody! To my knowledge this this is the first time a Multiple Listing Service has taken steps to — what many will argue — take back some semblance of control over listing data.

Good move? Bad? Meh?

Must. Ponder. Implications. Further.

My immediate thought in reading what Sandicor was doing was, “Interesting!” Followed immediately by, “I wonder if other MLS’s will follow suit?”

It wouldn’t surprise me if they do.

Personally, and this is coming from someone who is obviously “pro syndication”, I like the idea. Or at least parts of it.

While I am not one to believe that we need to wrest all control and display of listing data away from third-party sites, I don’t see anything wrong with including additional information about the listing brokerage. BUT, if you are a home buyer, think about why you’d want to work with the home seller’s agent. The seller’s agent has THEIR best interest in mind, not yours. If you are buying a home, work with a buyer’s agent that will have YOUR best interests in mind..

Reducing the number of photos? Well, there is zero question in my mind that potential home buyers searching for home online like to see listing photos. Generally speaking, the more the merrier. (Though seriously people, it is quality not quantity that matters when it comes to photos. Maybe we could cease & desist uploading photos of toilets? Particularly those images with the seat up?) I’m speculating that Sandicor feels limiting the number of photos displayed on third party sites will drive those photo-seeking visitors back to the local agent/broker site (or, in the case of Sandicor and a handful of other MLS’s, to their public-facing MLS site).

Only time will tell how or if that pans out. Personally, I think it’s more likely to frustrate home searchers. Why make them hunt around for photos? Oh, that’s right. To capture them as a lead. ::sigh::

In the mean time, it is going to be very interesting to see if other MLS’s step forward and make an effort to better highlight the listing agent on third party sites, how this additional info (along with fewer photos) might impact the sale of advertising on third party sites, and what the next salvo will be that is fired in the Syndication War.

What are your thoughts?

More info: Sandicor’s formal announcement.

ARG Abbott Realty Group Pulls Listings from Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com

January 28, 2012 By Jay Thompson

The real estate interwebs blew up last night when the announcement from San Diego based real estate brokerage Abbott Realty Group (ARG) came down that they were going to stop syndicating their company’s listings to national listing aggregator sites Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com.

Sounds exactly like what Edina Realty announced in November 2011. (Though curiously, Edina never mentioned backing out of Zillow).

Is there an “anti-syndication movement” afoot in the real estate vertical? Maybe. Maybe not. Only time will tell where this is headed.

Here is the video that Abbott Realty Group Broker and President Jim Abbott released explaining ARG’s decision to no longer syndicate their listings to Trulia, Zillow, and Realtor.com (hereafter referred to as TruZillTor, just because that is faster to type).

If you haven’t watched the video, I encourage you to do so.

First, let me say this. I respect Jim Abbott and ARG for taking a stand on a topic they obviously feel passionately about. That’s not an easy thing to do, and Jim’s video is well produced, and he makes many points. Perhaps too many, as sometimes, for me, it’s difficult to know if he is addressing the real estate industry or real estate consumers. But that’s neither here nor there. This article isn’t a critique of the video. It’s a critique of the message.

Second, let me say this. I am “pro-syndication.” That shouldn’t be a surprise. If you read my article on the Edina announcement, that position is clear. I am not against other people advertising my listings, as was clearly stated in You Have Full Permission to Advertise My Listings, written almost three years ago. There are countless other places here and all across the internet where I have supported listing syndication.

Why I disagree with the ARG Abbott Realty Group decision

This is a complicated topic that many feel strongly about regardless of which side of the syndication fence they fall on. I think the best way to tackle it is to discuss each of Jim Abbott’s points in the order he made them. So let’s go”¦

Listing syndication sites are in business to sell advertising to real estate agents and brokers.

Yep, true statement.

Neither the home seller or the potential home buyer is remotely well served by listing syndicators.

Hmm. This is debatable. Jim’s first point in support of this statement is that the syndication sites, “are really nothing more than slick advertising platforms. They often use fear and peer pressure to induce agents and brokers to sign costly long-term contracts for their lead generation services.”

Yes, we’ve already established that syndication sites sell advertising. “Fear and peer pressure”? Inducing agents to buy advertising? I don’t know about you, but I began the “don’t succumb to peer pressure” talk with my kids when they were about five years old. If you don’t like the fact that syndication sites sell advertising, that’s fine. Don’t buy it. Peer pressure? Put on your big girl panties and stand up to the peer pressure and do what YOU think is right. ARG is doing what they think is right. So is Edina. So am I.

Jim states the real estate industry is vigorously regulated by local, state and federal government to protect the public, and they the syndication sites face no such regulation and have no legal responsibility for the accuracy of the data they display.

Also a true statement.

The syndicator sites will tell you they go through many gyrations to ensure accurate data. Well, I agree with Jim and can assure you that these sites are filled with inaccurate information ”“ sold listings, expired listings, missing listings, homes listed for sale that aren’t.

Unfortunately, inaccurate listing data isn’t limited to the syndication sites. Take a peek at your local MLS. If it’s anything like mine, and I suspect it is, it too is filled with inaccurate and missing data.

I just logged into the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS) and in 30 seconds or less found this:

283 listings with no square footage entered. That’s just agent laziness.
12 listings showing a square footage of 0, 1 or 2 square feet. When is the last time you saw a one square foot home? My ass is bigger than one square foot.
14 listings showing both zero bedrooms and zero bathrooms. A home with no bedrooms or bathrooms? What is it, a tent?
484 listings showing property taxes of less then $10/year. I *wish* my property taxes were less than 10 bucks.

I have no way to count how many listings have the wrong price, the wrong listing status, the wrong directions, the wrong address.

We get calls every day about listings showing as Active in the MLS and when we call the listing agent it is not unusual, at all, to hear things like:

Oh yeah, that one. It’s been under contract for a couple of weeks. I forgot to change the status in the MLS
Yes, there is an HOA. I just haven’t had time to look it up
There are multiple offers submitted, we aren’t taking any more
I don’t know if it’s a one story or two story
I don’t know if it has a pool

The list goes on and on. You can’t make this stuff up.

Garbage in, garbage out. And shame on us for being so lousy at entering, maintaining and correcting listing data.

The MLS is not a sanctity of data integrity. I don’t believe the data in the MLS is as bad as it is on the syndication sites, but it’s clearly bad enough that the “integrity of the data” argument is moot.

And lest we forget, every major syndication site has a way to correct inaccurate data. If you aren’t correcting bad data, that is just as much your own fault as it it is the syndicators.

Jim Abbot asks why do syndication sites inflate their inventories and says again that one reason is to, “extract exorbitant fees from unsuspecting agents and brokers”. Extracting exorbitant fees? Well I’ll say again the stunningly obvious solution is to keep your credit card in your wallet or purse. Unsuspecting agents and brokers? Why are you “unsuspecting”? If you aren’t researching who you are spending your advertising dollars on, that’s your mistake and your problem.

Jim mentions that CraigsList scammers and burglars use syndication site listing data to target their victims. Uhm, how does he know that they aren’t using any real estate agent site that utilizes and IDX home search solution. Tens of thousand do, including ARG’s web site. It took me two clicks on ARGs site to find a property address”¦ Throwing syndication sites under the bus for enabling scammers sounds like fear mongering, and rather absurd when your own web site offers the same information.

Next up we have the often heard argument that syndication sites take our content because they have to have it to drive traffic, and they do so, “without compensation to the brokers, agents, photographers and videographers who create pay for and own the content”. He even states, “As if the theft of our intellectual property weren’t enough”¦”

They take our content? They steal our content?

Hardly. We give it to them. Now Jim’s chosen not to, as is his prerogative. I chose to give them my content, as is my prerogative. But please, don’t tell me they are stealing it. That is ludicrous.

Consumers are the ones who really get a raw deal at the hands of syndicator sites.

Here Jim tells a story of a potential home buyer who finds a home on a syndication site and calls the agent most prominently featured. Jim is correct when he says this may not be the listing agent, rather it is the agent who paid for the advertising to be featured. The poor consumer may be routed to a call center, where the operator offers to “put you in contact with a qualified professional who knows the area” and that, “it is almost certain they have not seen the property you called about”.

There are currently 25,312 active residential listings for sale in Phoenix. According to the home search on ARG’s website, there are 12,259 active residential listings in the San Diego area.

I don’t know Jim, and I don’t believe I know any ARG agent. But I’m quite comfortable saying that if you find a property on ARG’s site ”“ or any other real estate agent or broker site with IDX listings ”“ and call that office the odds are overwhelming that the agent who answers the phone hasn’t seen the listing you are calling about. I *know* that I don’t have an agent that has seen the every one of the 25,000+ listings in Phoenix.

These sites represent a failed approach to property marketing

Jim says that the “hundreds of thousands of hits” on their own listings on syndication sites, “did not cause buyers to view those homes, nor did they produce quicker sales or better outcomes for our clients” and that a few buyers who responded to listing syndicators often “got the wrong information or got it too late to be of value to them as consumers”.

That may well be true. I am not privy to ARG’s numbers, and certainly can’t question them. Jim seems like a good guy. Professional. Passionate about his brokerage, agents and clients.

To be honest though, I have no idea how ARG (or anyone) can track this sort of data accurately.

Let’s say I’m an agent in San Diego, the home of Abbott Realty Group. Let’s say I pay Zillow to “own” a zip code where ARG has a listing. Let’s say a potential home buyer finds an ARG listing on Zillow and contacts me. We drive out, my client loves the home, and we submit an offer the seller accepts.

Does ARG survey every buyer of every one of their listings and ask them where they found the home?

Maybe they do, I can’t say. We certainly don’t, and I don’t know anyone who does. Honestly, I couldn’t care less where the buyer of one of our listings first found the home. We take listings to sell them. And whether some buyer finds our listing on TruZillTor, our own site, some other local agents site, or via any other marketing, I don’t care. We sold the client’s house, which is what we were hired to do.

Is it possible no Thompson’s Realty listing has ever been sold via TruZillTor? Yep. Is it possible some have? Yep.

The total cost for me to put our listings on syndication sites is $0.00. I have never given any syndication site a nickel. The cost is not passed on to our clients, the cost is zero. You see, we investigate the ROI of every marketing avenue. We don’t succumb to fear, intimidation or peer pressure. Heck, I’ve had potential seller clients that insisted we run ads in the Sunday paper. When we explain that they don’t work, and why, the vast majority of sellers understand and we move along without the shiny Sunday add. The two or three I can recall insisting we run ads found another agent. We don’t take listings for the sake of taking them, to plant signs in the ground, to generate “leads”. We take listings to sell them. We don’t spend time, money or effort that doesn’t work to appease sellers. Syndicating our listings is done through our MLS. We check a box (or not if the client doesn’t want syndication). The fraction of a second it takes to check a box has essentially zero cost.

At ARG we believe that when you hire a skilled, professional Realtor to represent your property that he or she is the best qualified and most logical person to respond to questions from buyers and buyer’s agents.

This is an argument I heard several times since the ARG announcement was made. It sure feels like what we’re talking about here is single-agent dual agency — where the same agent represents both the buyer and seller in the same transaction. We abhor single-agent dual agency, practice it only under very rare and extenuating circumstances and honestly wish it was outlawed.

Maybe dual agency isn’t the ultimate goal in either ARG or Edina’s pulling out of syndication. I don’t know. Let’s assume that is not their goal as I’d rather not go down the dual agency rat hole 2,100 words into a blog post (and kudo’s if you’ve read this far. It’s almost over”¦).

But here is what I will say about this “the listing agent is the best qualified, and who the potential buyer needs to answer questions” argument.

If you feel syndicators are harming consumers by making it difficult to contact listing agents, they you must, MUST, also keep your listings out of IDX distribution. The exact same issue of not reaching the listing agent that seems to bother so many in syndication also exists in IDX.

Trust me, we get calls and emails ”“ seven days a week ”“ from people searching on this very site who think we are the listing agent for the property they are viewing. Every. Day.

Don’t get me wrong. I **LOVE** IDX. It’s the lifeblood of my prospect generation efforts. 6,742 IDX search registrations in 2011 is a great thing. But if one of your main arguments for pulling your listings out of syndication is because potential buyers are confused and can’t reach the listing agent, then you MUST also pull out of IDX. The same problem exists in both systems. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Pulling out of syndication but using IDX smacks of hypocrisy.

This comment about IDX was made by an agent I have tremendous respect for, J. Philip Faranda:

If I am on Thompsonsrealty.com or TPREG and inquire about a listing I know who I am being connected to. It is your site. There is no ambiguity. If I am on a 3rd party site it is misleading to the public far more. I DO get my share of IDX calls where people assume Jay’s listing is really mine, but it is easy to clear up because it is My site they are on. Not so with Z, T and R. IDX is the solution, not the problem.

Problem is, there IS ambiguity. The very ambiguity that exists on syndication sites. The vast majority of site visitors don’t know (or quite possibly don’t care) what site they are on. Sound far-fetched? I mean “Phoenix Real Estate Guy” is plastered all over the place. Along with logos, contact forms, call to action buttons, you name it, we’ve got them all over our site, just as ARG does, just as any good real estate site does. Our sites are many things ”“ information, brand promotion, advertising, and prospect generation vehicles. I can assure you that many many people think we’re the listing agent for any listing on our site. Heck, I get phone calls and emails asking about things as diverse and non-real estate related as what hours a restaurant is open, to whether or not you need a passport to cross the Mexican border. Why? Because people Google those questions and land on an article I’ve written about them. Clearly my site isn’t a restaurant site, or the State Department. But people think it is, because Google sent them there.

Just like Google sends them there for a listing address or MLS number they Google.

Jim Abbott supports IDX. He does not support syndication. Yet many of the issues he cites as problematic with syndication also exist in IDX. Edina supports IDX, but not syndication for many of the reasons Jim Abbott and ARG Abbott Realty Group state.

Sorry folks, I don’t get that. At all.

As I said in the beginning of this tome, I respect Jim Abbott and ARG for taking a stand in what they believe. Ditto for Edina, and anyone else that decides to do this. I believe their feelings are genuine.

Genuine, but misguided.

Photo Credit: Experian Hitwise

Edina Realty pulling listings from Trulia and Realtor.com?

November 17, 2011 By Jay Thompson

Craig Kamman, an agent with Edina Realty in Wayzata, MN reported Tuesday on his blog that Edina Realty is going to stop sending their real estate listings to 3rd party sites like Trulia and Realtor.com.

From what I am assuming is an internal message to Edina agents (as it’s nowhere to be found in Edina’s on-line press room or anywhere else online that I can find) that Craig posted comes this:

Edina Realty will no longer provide a broker feed of our listing inventory to Trulia.com starting Nov. 30, 2011. We also intend to discontinue sending our listings to Realtor.com by the end of the year.

Interesting. Why would a very large real estate brokerage pull their listings from two of the most heavily trafficked real estate sites on the planet? (According to Hitwise, Realtor.com and Trulia are currently the first and third most visited real estate web sites.)

Here’s what Edina had to say about it:

Third party aggregators are not brokers. They get listings for free from brokers around the country and then display them online, collecting and distributing leads for profit. We believe it makes the best business sense for our agents and Edina Realty to control our own listings in order to ensure that:

Our agents don’t lose future business opportunities because a non-listing competitor pays to present themselves as the contact for your listing.

Our agents don’t have to pay ”“ directly or indirectly ”“ for leads on their own listings.

Our sellers can be assured that leads on their listing are being handled by an expert

The quality and accuracy of your listing data is assured.

Potential buyers are provided with fast, knowledgeable responses via the listing agent or our seven-day-a-week customer service department.

Of course where Edina, or any real estate brokerage, chooses to distribute their listings is up to them. The brokerage owns the listing (though I think I could make a case that the home seller should own the listing for their own home, but contractually speaking the owner of the data is the listing brokerage).

Craig thinks Edina Realty should be “applauded for their leadership”. Other agents and brokers have chimed in across the interwebs in agreement with Craig.

The common mantra I hear from many agents and brokers regarding sending listings to third party sites typically falls into all or part of four camps:

1) Third party sites end up selling leads back to the agent/brokerage that provides them listings.
2) Third party sites compete with agent and brokerage sites in search engine results.
3) Third party sites that don’t get a feed from the MLS serve up inaccurate data.
4) It’s our data, we should control it.

I Don’t Get It

At Thompson’s Realty, we syndicate our listings to multiple third party real estate sites (including Realtor.com and Trulia). Why? Simply put, for exposure. Home buyers are looking for homes on the Internet. Of course I’d rather them search for homes right on the site you are looking at now, but the simple fact is these large national sites are out there, and they draw a LOT of home buyer eyeballs. It only seems appropriate to put our clients home sale information on the highest traffic real estate sites. Not to do so would be a disservice, in my opinion.

I’ve never understood the, “They sell leads back to us using the data we supplied!” argument. No third party site can sell you a lead if you don’t open your checkbook or whip out the credit card. Don’t like third party sites selling you leads? Don’t buy them. How hard is that?

Don’t like third party sites competing with you in the search engines? Build an authoritative site and compete with them. We rank above Realtor.com and Trulia and other third party sites for countless keywords, address and MLS number searches. Those who say the little guy can’t compete with these deep-pocket listing aggregators are wrong, plain and simple.

Yes, there are inaccuracies in some of the third party listings. Guess what? There are inaccuracies galore in the MLS. That’s been proven over and over again. If you find these sites aren’t displaying your data accurately, tell them to fix it. Every third party site I’m aware of (or at least care about) has a process to correct bad data (most of which is entered incorrectly to start with by the listing agent or broker).

What seems to give the most angst to the folks who oppose these sites having “our” data is that some other agent who pays money will get a lead from their listing.

So what?

We don’t take listings to generate leads, we take listings to sell them.

And if putting a client’s home on Trulia or Realtor.com or Homes.com or Zillow or where ever gets that listing in front of a home buyer and they contact some ad paying agent to help them buy it, GOOD. That’s the freaking point! I *want* buyers to contact an agent about buying our client’s home.

Edina made the point, “Our sellers can be assured that leads on their listing are being handled by an expert.” Good for them. I know a few agents that work at Edina and they are fantastic agents. Are there crappy agents out there, getting leads from third party sites? You betcha. And if a crappy agent brings a buyer for one of our client’s home, we’ll deal with it. Trust me, many a good agent, be they at Thompson’s Realty or otherwise, has had to hold the hand of a lousy agent and do their job for them in order to get the transaction closed. Welcome to real estate. My guess is that a home seller–if they get the price they need in the time they need it–couldn’t care less about the ability of the buyer’s agent or what their agent had to jump through to close the transaction.

And they shouldn’t care. It’s our job as their representative to worry about that.

There’s murmuring out there that other brokerages will follow Edina’s lead. That we need to wrest control of listing data from these third party sites. Sorry kids, but the control left the building a long time ago. Real estate buyers want access to listing data, and it’s our job to get that data to them.

Will other brokerages pull their listing data from third party sites? Maybe. I can assure you that if a Phoenix area brokerage chooses to do that, then we will use their decision to our advantage. How does the conversation go with a potential seller if you are with a brokerage that chooses not to use third party listing sites?

So Mr. Agent, you’ll put our home listing on the internet, won’t you?

Well, it will be on our brokerage site, but we’ve elected not to put your listing on some of the most highly visited real estate sites in the country.

Uhm, why is that?

Well, we want to be sure our agents get the leads your home listing generates. And those meanies at the third party site want to charge for them!

Uhm, isn’t the point to sell our home, not generate leads for you and other agents?

Seems like an”¦ uncomfortable”¦ conversation to have. Good luck explaining your decision to not market a listing on high traffic sites. And you WILL be disclosing to all your potential clients that you’ve elected to withhold their homes from these sites, won’t you? Of course you will. So get ready for that other awkward conversation like this:

So, you won’t be putting our listing on the most visited real estate web sites. XYZ Realty says they will. Why should we list with you and not them?

We have expert agents!

XYZ Realty says they do too. Is there any brokerage out there that says, “Use us! We have shitty agents!”?

We have a 197,381 point marketing plan for your home!

That doesn’t include putting our home listing on two of the top three most visited websites on the planet”¦

This conversation seems so much simpler, and so much more effective:

So Mr. Agent, you’ll put our home listing on the internet, won’t you?

You’re damn right we will. That thing will be plastered across so many sites that home buyers won’t be able to miss it.

Maybe it’s just me, but I like simple, effective communication with clients.

I like getting their homes on high traffic sites.

I like selling their homes.

Concerned you won’t get leads from your listings? You know what the best lead generator in the history of commerce is?

A satisfied client.

Help Me Understand

I know for a fact there are a lot of agents and brokers that have heartburn over third party listing sites. Apparently Edina does. I’m having a conversation at this very moment with an agent I respect the hell out of who has concerns about them. There seem to be plenty of others as well.

To be perfectly honest, it appears that much of the consternation may well be surrounding the fact that it is likely more difficult to double-side a transaction if someone else is getting leads from your listings. That isn’t a concern of mine as I abhor single-agent dual agency and will avoid it like the plague. But I have yet to hear anyone come out and say they want leads on their listings because they want to double-side them. Why is that?

Maybe that assessment is off base, but clearly I don’t understand the angst with third party sites. Please, enlighten me”¦

UPDATE Nov 18: Edina has issued a statement on this matter. Thanks to Edina agent Aaron Dickinson for providing the link to Edina’s statement.

Others Opine:

John Murphy – Has Edina Realty Just Declared War on Real Estate Web Site Aggregators ”“ Trulia and Realtor.com?

Image: Top 10 Visited Real Estate Sites. Week ending 11/12/2011. From Experian Hitwise.