Hell breaks loose in the new listings war

I returned from my vacation last week to find my inbox and reader filled with talk about listing coverage, comprehensiveness and quality sparked by a somewhat ham-fisted PR gambit by Roost.

I had just written about this the week before. It's been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. The fact that many of the most celebrated and trafficked real estate sites offer consumers a woefully inadequate view of the market is problematic.

Offering 70% of the inventory is OK when you're selling, say, digital cameras; it is not OK when you're claiming, with full--throated cries of "transparency" and consumer love, to help people make the most important decision of their lives.

Real estate has always claimed a certain kind of exceptionalism. Homes are not airplane tickets. Realtors are not stock brokers. And not seeing the perfect home in the next neighborhood over carries more consequences than not getting that new pair of Crocs in the color you really wanted.

I know: IDX is not perfect. And offering a full picture of the market dictates following Redfin's lead by offering MLS listings, foreclosures (many of which are in the MLS as well), and FSBO's side-by-side. But online real estate can and should do better than the gossamer fiber of broker feeds holding together otherwise great sites like Trulia and Zillow.

At the risk of sounding like a pedantic buzz-kill, I must admit that I found it hard to get truly excited about Trulia's nicely executed iPhone app and smart commitment to mobile, when I know, sitting on my deck searching "all homes for sale" on my phone, that what I am actually getting is something different.

I am left feeling that this sort of innovation is akin to a restaurant that obsesses on the dishware -- the means of delivery -- but drops the ball on the food.

I am not picking on Trulia. I just wish they and others would circle back to and nail down some basic content requirements.

So I hope the debate continues. It's healthy - and necessary.

-- Brian Boero

Comments

[Jon Strum]

Brian, I think the fact that our customer base is satisfied searching a site with incomplete listings makes 2 important statements that our industry needs to more fully understand.

1. People are more comfortable searching a site that is not controlled by realtors. This might be a trust issue or it might be a matter of not wanting to have to register in order to search or it might be not wanting to open themselves up to what they perceive as the aggressive overtures of lead-hunting agents.

2. People are electing to search incomplete listings that are delivered the way they want them rather than search more complete listings that may not be.

Better understanding the "why" behind this behavior would be a huge benefit to industry websites that are attempting to re-set their compass.

[Greg]

I suppose this will sound WAY too simplistic for some but I can't help but think that our industry's hard to die mindset of holding to our proprietary information somehow still doesn't play into all of this. When will we figure out that there is no such thing as proprietary info anymore (especially if you shop at Barnes/Noble, TJ Maxx and DSW lately).

[joseph ferrara.sellsius]

I have suggested, in the name of all that is transparent, that these whiz-bang real estate sites publish their local MLS coverage % on the site, for the benefit of buyers.

In this way, consumers could chose whether to visit a broker who has the complete MLS coverage or waste their time on a site with poor coverage.

Just one fella's opinion.

http://tinyurl.com/5uqvjv

[Victor Lund]

sorry for not commenting on this sooner.

Jon Strum is on target with his comments. In our consumer studies on websites we have learned that consumers like to research on websites without any sales pressure.

However, their primary concern is timely and accurate information.

Third party websites may have 70% as many listings as Realtor.com by listing count, but they perform lower when you look at listing accuracy or timeliness.

The biggest issue they have has to do with "authority of feed source." Sometimes good listing information is being overwritten by bad information - ie - listhub data from the MLS overwritten by Realogy data of a franchise.

The second biggest issue has to do with re-syndication - syndicators syndicating to other syndicators.

The third biggest issue is that some sites (ie Trulia and Zillow and others) take feeds from sources like print ad publishers and virtual tour sites - a large source of listings - but an even larger source of inaccurate and untimely listings.