Realtor.com Just Got a Big Boost Today From the NAR in the Windy City

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logo-realtorThis is something that you may not think is a big deal, unless you are voraciously house hunting and use Realtor.com Trulia and Zillow a lot. The board of directors of the National Association of Realtors voted in Chicago today to give Move Inc., the company that operates Realtor.com, more freedom and flexibility to compete with Zillow and Trulia. The NAR actually owns Realtor.com. Yippee, Realtor.com now gets to publish new home listings and rentals. Actually, after today they can “publish listings from entities that are not even Realtor owned and controlled” like FSBO’s! Who’d have thunk it!

For consumers, this means more great resources when you are looking for homes. One thing Realtor.com did not get, however, is an in-house economist. Trulia has Jed Kolko and Zillow has Stan Humphries who, if you have ever met him, totally blows the stereotype of what a nerdy economist looks like: Stan is adorable, as is Jed.Stan Humphriesjed Kolko

Inman News’ Andrea Brambila quoted Move Chief Strategy Officer Errol Samuelson as saying this will give consumers “the most accurate source of information, but also the most comprehensive. Whether its for sale or for rent, (to give) an entire view of the market.”

In real estate, accurate sales data and information is considered gold. That data is gathered from MLS associations and brokerages across the country, who then feed it to Realtor.com, Trulia or Zillow. It’s one-stop shopping for consumers as each site tries to outdo the other in providing more and more information to buyers. Initially, these sites — in real estate they are called “third-party sites” — were seen as great ways to make listings available to more eyeballs. They promised to scratch the back of the brokers or associations who handed the info over. But now, some brokerages think all these companies

“sucked us in with all the free stuff — I’ll be the first to say we were supportive. We gave our listings to Trulia and Realtor.com,” says Bob Peltier, president and CEO of Edina Realty Home Services, Minneapolis, Minnesota. “Now they say you have to buy enhanced listings or ad space or you are not going to get leads back. That’s a poor business model I’m not willing to support.”

In late 2011, Edina pulled all their listings from third-party sites, and the world did not end.  

“If we give (third-party websites) our listings, they come up higher in search results,” Peltier said. “Then they turn around and want to sell ads to our agents.”

Edina is huge in Minneapolis-St.Paul: 2,100 Realtors working out of 60 offices in Minnesota, North Dakota and western Wisconsin, Edina Realty is one of the nation’s largest brokerages, handling 25,000 transactions and $5.3 billion in sales in 2010. Hanging onto their own listings, they found consumers just clicked over to their sites and scrolled away. Like I said, the world did not end. Peltier said he did what was best for his company and is not trying to start a revolution.

“I have to say it, but (paying for advertising on third-party websites) is no different than buying ads in the newspaper,” Peltier said. “People did it because it was expected, and it was mostly fulfilling the seller’s wishes. But at the end of the day, you’re really got minimal return on that investment.”

Bottom line: there’s a race to create the best possible real estate search experience possible for consumers, and after today that race got more intense.

Candy Evans, founder and publisher of CandysDirt.com, is one of the nation’s leading real estate reporters.

2 Comments

  1. […] (See why these economists come in handy?) There may be more pain to come, but the big price declines or cutbacks in services probably already happened, says Jeb Kolko over at Trulia. […]

  2. […] (See why these economists come in handy?) There may be more pain to come, but the big price declines or cutbacks in services probably already happened, says Jeb Kolko over at Trulia. […]

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