San Diego brokerage ARG pulls listings from Realtor.com, Zillow and Trulia.
It isn’t just that they did what they did that it is newsworthy. It is how. Think LeBron and “The Announcement”.
Watch the CEO of ARG Realty publicly announce in a YouTube video that their San Diego brokerage is taking back their listings and removing them from all of the most popular consumer websites. This move is unarguably the most transparent consumer facing content regarding the way online advertising is sold to brokerages and agents to date.
It’s honest. It’s intentionally straight forward. It’s newsworthy and shareable for many reasons.
Please let me know what you think of the video as I see this sparking a ton of conversation!
January 27, 2012 at 9:32 pm
Is about time we as Realtors wake up and stop giving our data for free so in turn can be sold back to us. Personaly I never cared for Realtor.com I think as a Realtor is the biggest rip off ever existed. We should start taking back control of our data and managed through our own mls, idx etc. Why in the world we pay someone to sell what is ours!!!!!
January 27, 2012 at 10:03 pm
Oh, please Miguel. Do you think you could take “your data” and push it out to the same-sized audience Realtor.com can? My guess is that your resources vs. Realtor.com’s resources don’t add up to the same figure. It would be interesting to see how much traffic you’d get on your own compared to the traffic you’d get with Realtor.com behind your listings, brokerage, and brand. Realtor.com spends huge dollars investing in ways to expose themselves and their advertisers. They’re not “selling your listings back to you” — they’re optimizing your visibility and handing you a massive audience they pay huge dollars to acquire. You’re tired of getting “ripped off”? Don’t buy it then. If you don’t think you need them then it’s a non-conversation anyway.
January 28, 2012 at 12:36 am
Well put Sally. It would cost us far more to try and get all of that exposer ourselves. At the same time we can also build our own sites along side the large national site and receive leads from both. I am happy to pay the fees to the large companies.
January 28, 2012 at 6:29 am
Hi, Sally,
You do know that REALTOR.com just started selling other agents the right to receive buyer leads from all agents listings who have not paid for their Showcase package? This rolled out in early November. If you don’t enhance, you get four photos max, and all property enquiries do not go to you, the listing agent, but to some random agent willing to pay approximately $10 per lead. The money goes to REALTOR.com, and not the listing agent who’s property generated the buyer lead. Does that seem fair, and does this change your opinion? I’m personally on the fence right now because my company pays to showcase for all our agents and we get all our leads, but I feel for my fellow practitioners who don’t choose to pay the big bucks to showcase. Then there is Zillow, Trulia, and on and on. All selling lead positions on our listings to other agents.
Jon Coile
CEO, Champion Realty, Inc.
January 28, 2012 at 6:33 am
Last time I checked real estate is local, so the point of Realtor.com “pushing” the listings to a huge mass of people does not mean anything. I can assure you that the local traffic I get on our site is much bigger than what you get from the Realtor.com site. If we as Realtors put effort onto marketing our sites locally do we really need them. Think about it!!!!
January 27, 2012 at 10:25 pm
Realtor.com is ours Miguel , those of us who are REALTORS in Ca are owners of it
January 28, 2012 at 6:33 am
Actually all the National Association of Realtors owns is the right to the name, which they license to a publicly traded company. Move, Inc. is the current name for HomeStore.com, which was previously Known by a couple other names. Lots of turmoil and lawsuits over the last 15 years, but definitely not owned by the real estate practitioners in the business in 2012. Sorry.
January 28, 2012 at 6:34 am
Maybe the CA Realtors are the “owners” what about the rest of us….
February 4, 2012 at 10:23 am
So, if REALTOR.com is ours and we should be happy to give our data to them so they can sell back to our members and others… when do we receive our dividend check?
January 29, 2012 at 11:26 am
Are you kidding ? Its out and its too late to get it back . This conversation took place 15 years ago where were you?
January 31, 2012 at 9:59 pm
Those poor Realtors at A.R.G., or should I say those poor clients of A.R.G.? I can’t imagine the survival of that company or many of its realtors. I hate the sham of having the syndication sites calling me for money just as much as the next guy. I get it. But, we control whether or not we want to write the check or not. I personally write the check because I know that I need to sell my clients homes. They expect me to get the marketing out all over the world to sell their home. Dang, I have sold multiple homes to Americans serving over seas who have never even walked into the property. They just saw it on some syndicated site. Look people, it’s not going away. Old school real estate is in the past, we are not going back. Learn to use it to your advantage.
January 27, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Interesting video. I don’t think it will affect Z share price just yet though.
January 27, 2012 at 9:44 pm
ARG certainly isn’t the first to do this. Edina Realty did it back in November. I wrote about my opinion then. I’ll admit it, there’s a lot I don’t understand about this move, though I respect those that feel differently for taking a stance.
January 27, 2012 at 9:48 pm
Jay they are not first but big market and the way this was done is very different. The act was the same but the showmanship is why I think this is big.
January 27, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Not sure that I agree it is going to Rock the RE world. I do agree however in the power of their message to the consumer and the utter and complete transparency in their delivery. This is a breath of fresh air. Being a Canadian Agent and knowing that our industry here is soon to be ‘opened up’, it is my hope that our governing body as well as our industry as a whole understands how syndication works. It is my hope that we, as a membership, are able to maintain a tight control on how our data is shared to third party sites.
January 27, 2012 at 9:49 pm
Kelley this has been top of mind here big time. They way he presented his case and doing it on YouTube is monumental for me.
January 28, 2012 at 12:15 pm
Well put Kelley. There’s a lot to learn from this on all sides, aggregators, RE agents and brokers and even consumers.
Personally, I think the initiative of the video is good however it’s in bad taste and ironically misleading as well. How can the slow market be attributed to slow recovery of US housing market? To use the word “theft” is unwarranted
Why do these brokerages who cite “money” being made by Zillow/Trulia forget that these companies have invested insane amount themselves to build their technology platform? They spend huge dollars to get traffic to their site and subsequently to agents/brokers?
As for Canada, Zoocasa does not generate leads nor shows competing agents with a listing. We show property listing as we receive from source, always showing listing agent only with link back to that agents website or source. To your point, I personally find industry here has yet to understand how syndication can be used strategically to their advantage.
Watching this closely here! Thanks Chris
January 31, 2012 at 6:48 pm
Most don’t have a clue unfortunately. Zoocasa for instance get’s its CMA data from a subsiduary of Brookfield (Royal lepage and Prudential) I bet most agents that don’t work at those firms and yet syndicate through Zoocasa even know this. Just a thought but if I work for Coldwell and promote via Zoocasa do I get listing leads from them or only people who work for Brookfield brokerages? Just a thought. Anyway it is coming, maybe not as silly as what our poor U.S. cousins have but it is coming.
January 27, 2012 at 10:18 pm
I have followed this now since Edina Realty and before. We have dealt (locally) with Syndication issues ~ specifically those requesting RETS feeds and their lack of control regardless of the contract they entered with the MLS and the Down-line Vendors (if you will) who nipple feed off of same. He makes a professionally done well thought out convincing position, states it clearly, focuses on his ability/need to properly represent his/the firm’s client base and clearly states that their purpose is in the pursuit of accuracy and control of the propetties/clients they represent. He has a point about the purpose of these Syndicators ~ they mass market and then collect fees from agents/firms waiting for leads they resell back ;( This will be an interesting thread to follow and industry shake ~~~ it will present.
January 27, 2012 at 10:34 pm
This is a bold move, but what seller in their right mind would want to list their property with a brokerage who insists on pulling their listings away from Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com? 90% of consumers begin their search online. If I’m a seller, I want maximum exposure, and I wouldn’t do business with an agent who couldn’t provide it to me. In my opinion, this is a case of the “big boys” being pissed off that they aren’t closing both the listing and buyer side of a transaction in-house. We post our listings on every available RE website known to man, as we feel this is the best thing we can do for our clients. We could care less who represents the buyer. We’re only interested in bringing top dollar for our clients, and I feel that exposing your home to as many buyers as possible helps to achieve this…
January 27, 2012 at 10:51 pm
Bob, I think that is going to be an opinion shard by quite a few sellers. This will be interesting to watch. Unless a complete boycott happens, Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com will probably be just fine, traffic-wise. It seems to me that it could be a tough sell for these agents to explain to their sellers why their listings are absent from the top three websites in traffic. He gave good reasons in the video but I juat wonder what the sellers will think about them. I am undecided on the topic but I admire the guts of this CEO. I’m not sure its going to work out though.
January 27, 2012 at 11:17 pm
EXACTLY Bob. Heck, I’d LOVE IT if some major brokerages in Phoenix announced they were pulling their listings of the highest trafficked sites on the internet. You can bet our graphic on syndication sites we use would move to page 1 of the listing presentation…
January 28, 2012 at 12:11 pm
This is no big deal or shocker. Agents and brokers have been arguing about the value of these sites for years. Yes, Zillow and Trulia are often inaccurate, however, Realtor.com is the site of the National Association of Realtors and gets its’ information about every 15 minutes from more than 900 multiple listing services around the US. If there is inaccurate info on Realtor.com, it’s because those of us who belong to the MLS and provided listing info entered inaccurate (garbage in, garbage out) info in the MLS. He makes some strong arguments about inexperienced agents, however, dropping listings from these sites will not solve the problem with inexperienced agents talking with buyers. Bob made some great points. As a listing agent representing a seller, we have an obligation under the NAR Code of Ethics to do our best to represent our seller which means marketing and exposing the property to as many buyers as possible. Not posting listings on Realtor.com, Zillow and Trulia appears to hinder our marketing efforts. When I inform sellers where their properties will be exposed, they get excited. I have not had one seller in 35 years tell me not to expose their property everywhere. It appears that Abbott while using YouTube to get make his announcement is upset about the continual technological changes which have changed the way we market properties, competition and not getting the leads and double ending more transactions. As for Abbott’s comment about these sites charging marketing fees, as a broker sales agent who has worked daily in residential sales for 35 years, including being a top agent and training real estate agents, there have always been marketing fees from various media such as newspapers and home magazines. Today, fewer people read print media and get their info from the Internet which includes home information as Bob pointed out. Due to the human factor, it’s nearly impossible to obtain and provide absolutely accurate information. One only has to look at listings in the MLS to verify the inaccuracies of listings. Finally, Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia and other sites tend to even the marketing playing field for large, medium and small firms. Could it be that Abbott is concerned about the level playing field?
January 27, 2012 at 11:15 pm
I need to think about this awhile longer but my initial thoughts are that I respect ARG for taking a stand based on Mr. Abbott’s gripes with the current listing syndication systems. I have used Realtor.com, Zillow and Trulia as advertising vehicles to promote my listings, I have gotten leads and closed deals from all of the them. This is all good and well when you are making a healthy profit but as agents and brokers bottom lines are being squeezed it seems pricing on the Zillow’s, Realtor’s and Trulia’s advertising space just keeps going up dramatically. At some point a company or an agent has to ask themselves the question, the same question I asked about newspaper advertising years ago…Is this profitable? Years ago it was clear, it was not, so I stopped newspaper ads completely.
Would I be better off spending my $2500/ month advertising budget finding ways to generate organic traffic on my own sites. Create more local niche content, create my own localized online communities that are more focused, knowledgeable and therefore more helpful to potential clients..
Once my ad money is gone for the month, then it is gone, but if I spend my money building something of value that lasts, it might be there for a very long time and throw off residual benefits for years.
With the tools we have today, what would happen to the real estate world if half the brokers in the country unplugged from the syndication game and spent all of their money building up their own sites with incredible, unique, localized information? And the other half kept using the Trulia, Zillow & Realtor.com’s of the world….it could be the ultimate A B testing…Who do you think would win? Who would win in the short run? More importantly who would win in the long run?
It should be interesting to see how this all plays out but one thing is sure…change can even catch the change agents by surprise if they are not keeping their eyes and ears on their customers needs first.
January 27, 2012 at 11:34 pm
I’d agree with another’s comment “Not sure that I agree it is going to Rock the RE world”.
It’s a matter of individual choice for each brokerage. Do what works best for you and bottom line “what best for the consumer you/we serve…”
January 27, 2012 at 11:53 pm
The cats already out of the bag on this one. Unless there is a mass exodus (which I don’t see happening) I predict companies that follow this route will be back to syndicating listings with syndicators again shortly.
I agree with Jay 100% nobody is making you buy leads from these companies.
Zillow and Trulia had the foresight and technical knowledge to use Realtors help them rank higher in the search engines.. Before they came around Realtor.com had a stranglehold on syndication but they let Zillow and Trulia in the door because they didn’t have the same vision. If the real estate community wants to eliminate the big bad Zillows of the world then build a better product, offer a better service, learn how to rank higher.
Hey the consumer wants to see your listing, they want information, they want to be educated. Where do they want to do that? Online.. So be there and compete with the big boys.. if you are not going to offer it out then somebody else will.
As far as the “middleman” I am sure there are agents that feel there broker is a “middleman” should they try to cut out their brokers? Wait I am a broker now I don’t want that forget I mentioned it
I have never paid a dime to Zillow or Trulia and never will but I don’t fault them for trying to make a buck by offering a service that the public wants. We do the same thing. Some Realtors are happy to pay for leads that these services provide, they don’t have to worry about SEO and PPC, etc
I guess I don’t see this brokers point of eliminating syndicators does that mean he thinks his brokerage listings are now going to be found by web users? Let’s say Zillow and Trulia didn’t exist then the users query is most likely going to be found by another IDX feed of a Realtor who has no knowledge of the property and most likely has never seen it. He is basically saying the listing agent is the only person that should be able sell the home. What happened to buyer agency or buyer representation? Is it in the best interest of the consumer(buyer) to work with selling agent whose responsibility is to get the highest possible price for their seller? How is this best for the buyer?
He mention about scams on craigslist as if it is only from syndicators scammers can get their information from. Scammers can easily get information on any Realtors site or from Craigslist directly that are inputted by Realtors.
He says “we are certain over 100,000 hits over their own websites listings did not cause buyers to view those homes” Are you kidding me? You mean to tell me you had 100,000 hits without one person wanting to view those homes/and or led to a sale? Wow I found that hard to believe.
Television campaign? I think I can better ROI on an Internet campaign.
Don’t get me wrong I do see where he is coming from and they have every right to do as they seem fit with their listings hey it is their sellers they have to answer to and nobody else and if their sellers are fine with it and are they able to sell their listings quickly and for the highest possible price without feeding the Zillows of the world then more power to them. I’d love to see where this goes.
January 28, 2012 at 12:55 am
The path of righteousness is never an easy road, especially if you walk it alone. The medium in which ARG choose to convey their message i.e. video was by far the most impactful represetation and explanation of the harm caused by these three real estate listing syndicators. Even though Jay Thompson blogged about the other another broker who removed their listings from the big 3 Syndictors months ago (an excellent blog post by the way), I was somewhat enamored with ARG’s eloquence. Will the video lead to a tsunami of change in the way in which real estate information is shared? That remains to be seen. But, it did cause many of us to pause and ask ourselves should we follow suit? How will doing so affect my business? Will ARG lose agents, customers? Will Zillow, Trulia and Realtor reply publicly?
January 28, 2012 at 5:56 am
All three companies did publically response in the comments section of the orignal YouTube post. You may now have to scroll through some of the pages to read them now though.
January 28, 2012 at 6:04 am
Thanks Sara. Fun Friday night huh?
January 28, 2012 at 4:32 am
Great video… brokers are cannibalizing themselves by syndicating and too many are afraid to lead their companies like this.
January 28, 2012 at 5:23 am
@Danny – good analysis, agree with you. A couple of weeks after Edina pulled out there was an article that discussed how they would allow their agents to pay for Realtor.com if an agent wanted to continue to submit their listings. Wonder what it is he is not saying and how much realtor.com, trulia and zillow were costing him annually. Wonder if he was paying for his agents marketing on those sites, wonder if this was a way to extricate himself from those agreements. This does not take away from the issues he raises in his video however I wonder if that is what drove the decision.
January 28, 2012 at 6:08 am
I say it’s a great move. I’m completely frustrated with third party syndication sites that take our listings and then charge me money to be the agent of contact. That’s absolute insanity. I cite Zillow as a prime example. Next to our listings appear that names and numbers of 3 brokers who are not affiliated with our brokerage at all. Even after paying Zillow, my contact info still appears at the very bottom of the page and via a very small “Contact Agent Link”.
My phone number isn’t displayed but rather one of their 888 numbers that routes callers to our phone system (I don’t know exactly why they do this but I assume at any point, they can route callers to their paying brokers).
If enough people realize how much business they are losing and money they’re paying, they would follow suit.
January 28, 2012 at 3:58 pm
Hey Jonathan- The few listings I checked, you were the only one, but I’ll have someone follow up with you next week just in case because what you describe shouldn’t be the case. As far as the 888 number, it is a call tracking number that we provide for you to track the ROI of your advertising. That is something that can be turned off if you don’t like it. It should go directly to you, not your office? Again, I’ll have someone investigate how everything is set up on your account and follow up.
January 28, 2012 at 6:14 am
This is a good ad campaign by ARG. Also, how does an agent “own” the intellectual property of a sellers home?
January 28, 2012 at 6:21 am
WOWsers! We are watching in Canada very closely what happens. The Zillow Trulia model of Any broker can advertise as a VOW is creeping in our MLS system.
Hope there are positive reactions to this video.
What are the consumer responses?
David Pylyp
Thrilled in Toronto
January 28, 2012 at 6:39 am
One of the best points in the video was at the very end. An MLS public facing website that starts with real time, dead-on accurate listing database (unlike the aggregators that inflate their numbers with stale data) for the benefit of the buying public, and which funnels property info requests back to the true source of listing information – the listing agent – without making the agents pay to play. Now that is a model that makes a lot of sense. We in the industry can be our own aggregators. Nice job on the video.
January 28, 2012 at 6:53 am
The exposure of my listing is diminished the farther away the consumer is from the property. My company website generates leads 10/1 over realtor.com. Zillow produces me ZERO inquiries. As a veteran agent, I believe that listing exposure is more about providing accurate information to the Realtor Community than “reaching” the world. I’m tired of other agents banner ads framing my listing on Realtor.com. This is an industry movement that will jeopardize the Zillow Truila business models. Jim Gamble, Reece & Nichols Realtors, Homeservices…
January 28, 2012 at 6:54 am
I can not see taking away the #2 website in the world to expose your listing.
It would be different if 50% searched on line first, but we all know it is about 90%.
January 28, 2012 at 11:27 am
Dave, as a seller, I have to agree. As a seller, I also believe in open houses, and think that they DO work. So if my agent, or their company disagrees, then they probably won’t be my agent.
Consumers ultimately have the choice, that will never change.
January 28, 2012 at 6:58 am
From a business standpoint this is great news. For over 2 years we have been pointing these facts out to the Realtors and Brokers we help with their online presence.
What is interesting is that this has not happened in Canada. The anti-competition bureau has been fighting to get CREA (Canadian Real Estate Association) to open up the listing data. Slowly they have made some gains towards this goal. In some ways this makes sense – CREA owns this data and as a consumer you have to pay to access pretty much anything other than a property address.
But conversely, if they get CREA to open things up it will be a matter of minutes before Zillow, Trulia and the like open up shop in Canada, which I think, would be terrible for everyone.
Thanks for helping drive this one home Chris!
Erik Goldhar
Clikbrix.com
January 28, 2012 at 7:49 am
I think this divide is good healthy competition. As we educate our buyers on how the syndications work and the buyers realize they could be missing out on seeing homes, our service shows value in that we can provide them with those missing listings. I’ve had great success in educating my clients on the downside of those big sites and they look forward to my daily updates.
January 28, 2012 at 7:49 am
I think we need to move away from the mentality that these are “our listings” and remember that they are indeed our CLIENTS properties. Our clients financial and personal future often rides on the sale or purchase of THEIR property. If we are thinking about the seller client, isn’t their best interest served when THEIR house is exposed (advertised) across many sites on the web? We know for a fact that well over 90% of home buyers start their search on the internet. Does it matter that the person selling the house is not the listing agent? Aren’t our buyers entitled to their own representation? I do receive leads from syndicated web sites, and they are always in areas where I am, indeed, an expert. Of course, we have all experienced seeing properties on those sites that are not for sale, and have complained accordingly. Displaying listings that are not on the market, but pending foreclosure is misleading and should stop. Sites like Zillow and Trulia also need to make certain that sold properties are no longer being displayed as available, no argument there. As far as using video to make it’s point, I am thinking video could have been used in a more productive way. Using language like “theft” is unfortunate and simply incorrect. It implies the listings were taken when in fact the listing company voluntarily chose to share them in the first place. This video may change the industry – as it provides an example of what not to do when making a real estate video.
January 28, 2012 at 8:00 am
Interesting article/video!
Thanks for posting interesting, relevant and thought provoking content! Monitoring this story as it unfolds from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
January 28, 2012 at 8:01 am
I don’t understand the argument that pulling the listings from the top trafficked websites will *necessarily* hurt sellers or harm agents. Any brokerage with solid leads management data can handle this situation with sellers. They simply show where their CLOSING leads come from. And for many of these companies, like Shorewest, Edina and possibly now ARG, if their data shows they CLOSE more leads from their own website or other sources, and they can demonstrate the RESULTS sellers want, in terms like days on market, price or convenience, then this is non issue. As a seller, I hire my broker to SELL the house, not market it. So any broker that can demonstrate their strategy works, could do it dozens of ways without the aggregators. Furthermore, if they can also show that their strategy will save them tens of thousands in advertising fees, which they can reinvest in other services the sellers want, or that their agents can focus more on clogs able leads rather than volumes of inquiries, sellers can easily understand the benefit.
At the end of the day, it comes down to how you communicate your strategy, and if you can prove, in Closings, pricing, days on market, etc., that it works… Competing on “exposure” is just one of the ways to work this business, and frankly, since it’s a commodity anyone can use, I’d say it’s one of the weakest.
Good for ARG!
January 29, 2012 at 11:42 am
Hey Matt nice try..If one sale comes from an outside source out of every 100 and you elimate it you elimate a buyer for the sellers home.Why would you say that it does not matter? it is a buyer who buys and the sellers want them?
January 31, 2012 at 7:03 pm
You The Man Matthew, many know this already. Real estate is local, we backed off syndication last year and had our best year ever. Now I doubt it was just because of that lol but it didn’t hurt either. That said our team and our company have dominant web presence in our area. So it may be easier in that case. Anyway it is interesting, Edina is owned by Berkshire Hathaway so my guess is they are testing the watters for a more grand plan if it works.
January 28, 2012 at 8:05 am
My first reaction is; Wow…he is throwing some harsh accusations at the syndicator’s – Blaming them for keeping the housing market down for one.
I agree that information on these sites is sometimes inaccurate and redundant (we are part of two MLS’s and our listings appear twice on Realtor.Com). However, it was either Jay Thompson or Michael McClure who correctly pointed out on Twitter, that we ourselves are guilty of this on our own sites and MLS’s as well. IMO we can’t throw stones at these sites for posting inaccurate and inflated info until we stop doing it ourselves. Here in NJ, our listings are fed to these sites through the MLS, so they are getting the info that we input ourselves.
One thing I think that people are missing is that this industry has changed tremendously in the last 10-15 years. We are no longer the keepers of the information, and I do not think that pulling listings from these sites will change that. People will still be able to get the information themselves from other sources. Our MLS has a public side that consumers can directly search right from our MLS, and as I stated earlier, there is plenty of misinformation on them as well.
We, as an industry, have to move beyond the mindset that we are keepers of the information. The information is out there, and from many more resources than the Big 3, and pulling listings off of these sites is not going to change that, IMO.
January 28, 2012 at 8:08 am
Follow the money!
January 28, 2012 at 8:54 am
I’m in total agreement. These syndication sites are not only a waste of money they are misguiding consumers. I track where all my business originates and out of 304 transactions only two came from all three combined. That’s with over 140 listings active at any given time.
Those of you who think this is effective marketing show me your tracking and your results!
It’s time we upgrade our industry and the next step is weeding out the average 8 deal a year agents that have no business advising consumers on their largest asset they own.
Jay Kinder
Co-Founder
National Association of Expert Advisors
http://www.naea.com
January 28, 2012 at 11:10 am
It certainly is a conversation piece, for sure. Jay is correct in that so much of the information consumers get is wrong and these sites lead them to believe that they know everything about the market.
However…I don’t believe that any single Realtor, no matter how good and well known, can get the exposure that these consumer websites provide, as much as they make me see red sometimes…
Real estate is local only if you want to be a “local yokel”…while of course, it’s local while you’re actively into a transaction, I am currently working with buyers in India, Israel, and europe…all from the internet.. Just closed one of those and have another under contract. So…it’s only local from the standpoint of “the deal”…In actuality, real estate is now global.
January 28, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Sara from Zillow here. I think that Mr. Abbott came off very articulate in his video, so kudos to him for the delivery. However, he had a lot of misinformation in it.
One issue I see often in statements and blog posts like these are people making broad, generalized statements and decisions about syndication. The fact is that each online media site has a different business model, has different variations of content to attract viewers, gets different amounts of traffic (or levels of exposure for your listings), and has different paid and free agent promotion opportunities on the site.
For example, in the video and repeatedly in comments on this blog post, people say they are tired of paying the various sites for leads. While I know there are some sites that charge for leads, that is not the business model of Zillow or Trulia, so it confuses me when people say this about our sites. It is free for any agent who creates a profile to get contacts from their listings. Now, some may be spending money on other sites to garner more business, but this is what I mean about making too generalized statements. I think it is important to look at each site’s model, and individually weight the resources which are being putting in it verses what you are getting out of it.
@Miriam – I can tell you that the Edina Brokerage has never paid Zillow a penny in advertising dollars.
@Bob – I agree 100%. I know the last time I hired a Realtor to sell a house this was my attitude. There is a difference between thinking about this topic from Buyer/Seller point of view and a Broker’s point of view.
January 28, 2012 at 6:25 pm
Sara I always applaud you and your sincere efforts to make sure beyond everything else accurate info is out there. Thanks.
January 28, 2012 at 10:07 pm
Hi, Sara,
Please go to Zillow.com. Search for 4136 Main Street, Grasonville, MD 21638. (One of the listings of my company.) You will see three agents on the far right, none of whom are affiliated with my listing. If you click on the prominent link to contact the agent Zillow will direct you to one of your “Premier” agents who is paying for the right to poach inquiries for my listing, and, again not affiliated with my brokerage, and not my listing agent.
I’m confused how you can say it is not the business model of Zillow to charge for placement on other agents listings to get leads as that is what is happening today.
Jon Coile
Broker
Champion Realty, Inc.
January 29, 2012 at 7:26 am
If the listing agent were to create a free profile on Zillow, they would be first on that list (4 agents total) and their would be a badge to the right of the name that says “listing agent”. The listing agent would also show up first if someone clicked on “contact agent”. And the listing agent’s photo would show up along with their name at the bottom of the page in the “listed by” section and their name would hyperlink to their profile where all of their listings would be displayed along with any marketing text the agent wrote. We match listings to profile via the email address, so it is important the agent registers with whatever email is being used by the syndicator. Jon – Happy to walk you through the whole site if you ever want a live walk thru of the site.
January 30, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Sara,
While you are explaining how great Zillow is for agents and how you are just trying to help us, can you explain how having price estimates that you know are not correct help us to sell properties? Zillow even shows which markets it feels are not as accurate as others, but how many consumers find the accuracy chart and know to factor that in to their decision making process?
January 28, 2012 at 5:48 pm
“Rock the Industry”? Are you kidding me?
This video is very short sighted, misinformed, highly innaccurate, and misleading on many levels. This man is using fear and an incredible series of misstatements to articulate a very sorry company position.
Frankly, I think this is one of the most STUPID videos I’ve seen in years. IMHO Jim Abbott is positioning himself as poster boy for “Brokers Who Will Not Be In Business in 3 Years.”
I hear stories about similar strategies and often there is a story at the brokerage that is REALLY about (1) richer double dipping and (2) selling more leads to agents inhouse … That internal referral revenue stream is easier when you cut off agent leads from 3rd party sites. I had lunch with an agent the other day who pays a hefty 35% for her “inhouse’ leads … Has anyone tracked the internal referral crumbs at Edina lately? Hmmm ..
I think a preponderance of listing inaccuracy is based in brokers’ lack of attention to detail vis-a-vis their syndication tools and vendors. Basic lack of understanding about how these systems work sees brokers nationwide who continue to use homes magazines and other advertising venues to post their listings to 3rd party sites.
It’s easy to blame all the inaccuracies on the listing sites. Fact is, brokers and many agents have not kept up to speed. That’s why there is a rapidly growing dying breed of real estate agent.
SOME brokers and agents and franchises keep up on these things. Others do not … and it’s easy to blame Zillow and Trulia for problems brokers and agents created by not paying attention, not keeping up …
IMHO Mr. Abbott shows scandalously poor judgment. I am going to mark this thread and revisit it in 12 months and we shall see what his results are. I just marked my calendar. Let’s see what his agent retention and recruiting look like in 2012.
January 28, 2012 at 6:25 pm
France’s great points. I still stick behind the title. Check the blogosphere. Check twitter. Check Facebook. Check the comments on YouTube directly from Zillow, Realtor.com and Trulia. This is a big deal and it is rocking the industry. Didn’t say change but rock was the right word. Of course is when the video had 300 views and now it has more than 3,000 so what do I know!
January 29, 2012 at 6:11 pm
Years ago our Board Of Realtors voted to allow address to be show on public websites in order to give our listings the exposure they need and deserve…and know we’re expected to pull that information back? Can you imagine what ARG’s compet…ition will do to them? ie…”Our listings show on all major websites, where ARG and a few other DON’T” It’s a done deal and the fact that the web drives traffic to all of our listings in todays information age, is key. The notion that we now want to pull the information back will not stand with our clients. I remember “Coke” had a great idea years back and it didn’t fare well with the consumers either! JMO
January 29, 2012 at 8:16 pm
Take the money you are not spending on Realtor.com and pump it into SEO and content for your own site. believe in your ability to make a statement in your own market!
January 30, 2012 at 4:25 pm
Love it! Takes guts to make a move like this, and I’m glad Edina and this company did so. None of these sites would be very relevant if brokers didn’t give their hard work away for free. Realtor.com wouldn’t have anything to drive the public to their sites, nor would Zillow, Trulia or sites like theirs. NAR should have it’s own site, not Realtor.com which rips off Realtor members, and the NAR site, or the local MLS sites should treat the gathers of the data as partners, not someone to sell a product to. They have no product with the real estate agents hard work and willingness to share. This is a risky step, and I applaud him and Edina for taking it. I wish all the brokers had the guts to take back their asset that we so freely give away.
January 30, 2012 at 5:36 pm
I think it’s important to clarify some of the misinformation that’s out there and anyone talking about my company (Realtor.com) should have the facts.
No National Association of REALTORS® dues are used to maintain and operate REALTOR.com®.
We think Brokers and Agents work hard to build their brands. REALTOR.com® does not put competitor’s agents or logos on your listings.
With Realtor.com, you have a choice as to whether you want to participate or not.
Realtor.com updates its listings in San Diego every 15 minutes. We take the subject of listing accuracy and integrity seriously. We never re-syndicate your content and we never misuse it.
Sorry I’m coming in late to the discussion here, I have been participating in many discussions on this matter. What I’ve told folks in those discussions is that your website is the one that’s most important to your business, and my company ABSOLUTELY wants to be your second choice when it comes to marketing your business. We are in the business of extending reach, using tools like our popular mobile apps and our site which can be viewed in multiple languages.
January 30, 2012 at 9:31 pm
Regardless of your opinion about pulling their listing syndication, I think we can all agree that it was surprising to see that the CEO of ARG wasn’t a Pirate.
February 6, 2012 at 8:51 am
Micheal you are such a wonderful source of laughter!
January 31, 2012 at 8:03 am
people use these sites for information on houses and demographics and not just for shopping to buy a house, but I understand why they don’t want their listing there.
February 1, 2012 at 10:17 am
When we see figures that 90% of all homes searches start online, there seems to be an assumption that most people go directly to national portals. I don’t believe that is true – in many cases people begin a search in a search engine and combine keywords to find what they are looking for – and it is here that the real competition for position in the SERPS takes place – between local companies and the national sites. As realtors we have given life to these competitors.
I think Jay Kinder said it best in his comments. His numbers are probably closer to the truth regarding the performance of these national sites and the amount of business they actually generate for agents.
One can always argue that exposure is always the most important thing….but the hard numbers do not support that it is effective. Whenever I look at the number of views a listing has on Zillow or Trulia it is always amusing. All these views, yet no inquiries. I then compare those stats to our own site vs the number of inquires and it is clear that the local aspect of real estate is still the most important. I respect the attempts of these sites to provide the best justification possible for these value propositions – but in the end that does not make them good, no matter how well articulated they may be.
Just ask yourself – What would happen if tomorrow no syndication sites existed?
February 4, 2012 at 2:12 pm
I think it is a wake up call and thank you for standing up and saying it Jim! Syndication is not always a good thing. Especially when the data is almost always wrong on syndicated websites.
February 5, 2012 at 2:17 pm
As a naive IDX vendor a decade ago, I would have wholeheartedly agreed that syndication was a great idea. But I now have a decade of experience and have a completely different view. There simply isn’t enough room in a blog comment to articulate my opinion and experience.
When listing syndication sites are held to the same industry standard that an agent or brokerage must commit to then the playing field might be considered equal.
A very few points to consider:
+ An agent/broker must belong to a board in order to display listings of that area; syndication companies do not.
+ An agent/broker has a fiduciary responsibility for the accuracy of the data and to represent their clients in a professional manner; syndication companies do not.
+ An agent/broker must make clear to the consumer who the listing brokerage is when displaying listings data on their own website. Listing syndication companies are not required to make this clear. (We just had an area that is now requiring the listing office to be displayed in two font sizes larger than all the accompanying text. Just so there is no confusion to the general public).
+ Listing Syndication companies are the digital equivalents on newspapers. How many brokers/agents can affirm a positive return on investment in newspaper advertising? How many billions of dollars have been spent on newspaper advertising because the seller insisted?
And just one more to consider:
Zillow is now a $50 million dollar publicly traded company that is beholden to shareholders, not the broker/agent.
Imagine a world where the consumer types in “Your Local City Real Estate” and you didn’t see content curators in the first 10 spots that have no skin in the game and are not required to hold the same standards as an agent/broker.
However, in the end one word comes to mind. Commodity.
We all know what happens when a product becomes a commodity.
I for one am not looking forward to the day when my services are no longer needed.
February 6, 2012 at 7:22 am
Great insight Rick thanks for sharing.
February 6, 2012 at 8:44 pm
One of the primary responsibilities of a listing agent is exposure for their listings — like it or not, Zillow, Yahoo and Realtor.com provide great exposure! We advertise on Zillow, Yahoo and Realtor.com and feel that we provide great service to our clients. Maybe San Diego is different, but I’m not boycotting systems that provide our clients’ info to the masses! I encourage exposure! There was a time when Realtors thought that that “new-fangled service” — MLS — would ruin their ability to sell in their area and would “open the gates” to inferior service. Hmmmmmm….
February 10, 2012 at 4:56 am
I am a property buyer who searches for property via google. That’s all. The real estate websites are silos that shit me to tears. My friends do the same. Like it was with the newspapers once upon a time, you guys are just being used by these dudes as their “unofficial” sales team.
They’ll all be dried up pretty soon, I’d say. Two words: mobile devices. New models of monetizing that will completely bypass these tired old capitalist dinosaurs in “modern, ever evolving” skins. I can just here it now… “remember websites?” hahahahahahahahahahahaha
February 13, 2012 at 8:26 am
Realtor.com/AOL, Zillow/Yahoo fight for first place. But they only actually get 5% of online market. That means that most buyers drill down to the local market of interest quickly. Local broker/agent IDX websites offer far more reliable data, less cluttered interface and more local content. I was the biggest online advertising agent in Pennsylvania for years, spending over $40,000 a year with realtor.com alone. I closely studied their claims of views/exposure to good solid leads. I found that the leads were very poor, with many out of my service area. Buyers and sellers get the run around with misleading/incorrect listing inventory and are often steered to under qualified agents.
The only winners are the third party online shareholders.
The public deserves far better, Realtors have let them down by not having a single easy to use, uncluttered online source of MLS data.