NAR to Blame for Trulia, Zillow, etc...

Great post Ryan! I could not agree more. If we claim as REALTORS to have the consumers, best interest at heart...putting their info into the hands of third parties is NOT the thing to do. And you are right REALTOR.com was a HUGE mistake. We have fed a monster that has tried to bite us and the idiots at NAR think its cute to feed a few more...BAD idea. Dugg it. Eric

Great Post Ryan! This is a perfect example of what should be a "Featured Blog" on Real Estate webmasters. Sadly, REALTOR.com is upping their advertising rates to the members who made it exist in the first place and I personally see less value for it.

I truly believe that if something isn't done to remedy this situation, especially from third party listing services, we may all have to adjust our marketing of homes to consumers - and not for the better. At this time, I do not see any real significant changes being made that address this problem. My primary concern is that I do not believe that consumers will benefit here. I hope this post helps to stir the pot up a little bit and would love for it to be noticed by someone with some power to effect the necessary changes at NAR before its too late. What other options do we have when it is so readily apparent that this is happening?

Definitely, NAR have only themselves to blame. They could have offered all the services offered by Trulia etc. years ago. However I think it's too late for them to remedy the situation, they seem far too complacent. But the loser here is not the consumer, as Trulia etc. make it EASIER for listings to be searched! Why is that a bad thing? Richard

Well Richard, it's quite simple. These companies (third parties) are beginning to charge real estate companies to place their listings on third party websites. Who do you think will ultimately pay those costs? The consumer will. Just like in all business, costs are passed on to the consumer the same way. Real estate is no different. Realtor.com offers a free method for consumers to search homes for sale. If they could update their technology to compete, we would all be better off as consumers and as real estate practitioners. The bottom line here is that these outside companies have filled a void that the NAR has neglected and in the end consumers will pay for it.

Ummm Richard... How does Turlia make it easier to search in the Louisville market, where the top sites are not REALTOR.com, they are individual REALTOR sites. Is Trulia adding value or are they trying to cut themselves into the middle. What EXACTLY do they offer the consumer that REALTORS in our market do not? Ummm nothing. IMHO. TRULIA needs OUR listings to usurp the RELEVENCE that the CRAVE. Pure and Simple.

Awesome post. I couldn't agree more.

Perhaps if it gets too expensive for the consumer they will go to e.g. redfin instead...? They claim to make things cheaper for home-buyers...? I thought you had to pay for your listings to be put in realtor.com anyway...?

Eric: yes, they need your listings! But I just compared their website with yours, and I preferred theirs... I think they do add some value. But they are definitely trying to cut themselves in.

No Realtor.com is free. The problem is that they created a monster themselves by doing a number of things...Too many to mention as a comment, but, the NAR is a consumer trusted REALTOR organization that has the ability to correct the situation. As far as listing search aesthetics go, some are better than others and there is definately room for opinion on this aspect. Richard, I will not get into a debate about the cost of marketing a home beyond to say that real estate commissions are negotiable. Your point about these companies coming in and filling a void that consumers want is exactly what this blog post is about. The NAR has no one to blame except for themselves for letting this happen. The problem as it relates to consumers and real estate professionals is that adding another group of listing companies to the mix to list homes for sale on does nothing positve for consumers inherently. The actually do not bring anything to the table that doesn't already exist - they simply put the information together on a prettier website. The harm and problem here is that these companies add another layer of cost to the process, do not provide any additional service and I would still like to know why I would want to take one of my listings that I have listen for Realtors in one place, on my website and on realtor.com for consumers and then pay some other place to have it listed as well.

As a technically literate realtor, why not screw NAR and come up with a trulia-beating product yourself? One that would always be free for realtors to use...? Trulia only exists because there's a demand for the service, why not attempt to address it...? I'm sure you'd have the support of all the realtors on REW.

You are using some questionable "facts" to prop up your argument here. The biggest 3rd party sites with listings (Trulia and Google) do NOT charge you to put listings on their site, and have given no indication that they plan to do so. Also, by pretty much whatever measure you wish to use, the customer experience on Trulia is better than it is on Realtor.com. I guess I just don't see the big problem that you're seeing here.

John, You are incorrect. Large, national companies are paying Trulia big money for premiere services on Trulia as we speak. Your second point is very accurate it is a much better experience than realtor.com. The problem is that these services are already beginning to cost the real estate industry money because of the necessity to list homes for sale on them and they are not even very relevant yet. Just wait...As they becoming bigger and more well known they will charge even more. This will cost the consumer more. That is the problem.

Richard; What SPECIFICALLY is better about Trulia's site than mine. Be SPECIFIC. Go ahead big man. Name it and I will make mine better and yours will be MOOT. Cheers; Eric

Ryan, One thing about online internet advertising of homes is another service could come out next month that will be better and offer the listing of property for free. Raising fees to users (like R.com has done) is suicidal and once this begins, agents can post their homes somewhere else. My big hangup with R.com is the fact they charge us to enhance our listings to make their service better and all of the outside advertising on the site is annoying to say the least. As for agencies buying up exclusive rights on third party sites.. . Obviously the particular agencies that buy up exclusive rights or to pay for the expensive advertising end up charging this back to their agents in the form of higher commission splits or higher office fees. Agents either suck it up and make less money or charge it to the consumer listing their home with this service in the form of charging higher commissions. For the agents that understand this (generally the more experienced and web savvy agents) they will seek out better alternatives then paying half of their commission to lead providers. Really... the only agents that stick around these agencies are the ones who do not know how to market for their own leads.... which really should state something on how beneficial they are in marketing a home for sale or representing a buyer in the purchase of a home. Third party services offering a better user experience that allow us to post listings for free is the exact reason why we can seriously consider not paying R.com higher fees that can't be justified in the first place. Without these third party services, we are hostage to R.com like we have been for the past several years. Our listings will still be posted for Free on R.com... just not the enhanced service which means we'll make up for this by spending our advertising dollars on more effective online advertising elsewhere which results in a higher value for our clients at a lower price. If and when a third party service begins to charge to post listings, there are a slew of services in the wings that will pick up the slack. Sadly, R.com is charging more and offering less. What was supposed to be a service created by REALTORS, for REALTORS has turned into nothing but a bloated service with higher fees, more annoying outside advertising and a less consumer friendly site. The beauty of tehnology is another service could come up with something even better next month... Personally, as somebody who looks for real estate in several differant parts of the country, I prefer using an individual REALTORS IDX/VOW service without all of the outside advertising and the concern of my personal information being sold or used to anything and everything real estate related. Think about it... if there was only one service out there that provided websites for REALTORS, what do you think the price would be? On top of that, the quality would be lower.... much like it was several years ago. R.com has been able to raise their rates and stay complacent because of their perceived exclusivity which is obviously now being questioned very hard. Without these third party services, we would just have to continue to suck it up and pay for the enhanced services. And, if you review the financials for the parent company, you certainly will not be able to justify paying the higher costs.

While I agree with your analysis to a certain degree, I think it is important to consider this: The only way that any third party website will be relevant is if they are found by consumers in the search engines. This takes time to develop as high rankings do not come over night. So I don't think that one service can continually usurp another one just because they start charging fees. Agents can switch their online marketing, but, if theses companies achieve high rankings they become a factor. The best solution to this would be a REALTOR owned and operated website like r.com, but, free. It boils down to NAR and they are responsible for this. The have not kept pace with the changing technologies and are therefore losing market share and dollars from REALTORS who do not wish to spend advertising dollars on what has become an antiquated search site. I too believe that the best search results will be found using the idx from local websites and the best informtion can be obtained from these websites as well. However, the NAR is a consumer trusted organzation and should reflect the best of what is offered in the real estate industry and they currently do not do that.

Absolutely agree and the R.com new beta site actually appears to me to be focusing more on the obnoxious advertising then doing something better for the consumer which is a shame. However subtle it is, with a background in marketing I see what is being done and paying for it to exist in the manner of enhanced listings is hard to justify especially when I go through the financials of the parent company running it and see where my money is going. Until agents stop giving money away, it's not going to get better until it is revamped and built for what it was originally supposed to be created for... a trusted source for consumers created by REALTORS like you and me who have paid in one way or another for R.com to exist in the first place. Advertising outside services all over the place on the site is not needed... except to fatten wallets and unfortunately, it's not yours, mine, or any other normal member of our Association. While I find your original post extremely noble, the fact of the matter is that the operators of R.com are a publicly traded company and their interest is the shareholders of that company.

Hi Eric, Here's why I prefer Trulia to your site: 1. Trulia is easier to use. On both I can easily get a list of all the Louisville property, but on trulia.com I can revise my search without having to leave the search results page. Easier, quicker, more user-friendly. 2. Trulia have more information for me to read. Your results page is just a list of property with options to "View Detail Sheet", "Schedule a Showing", and "Request More Information". The sheer volume of info on trulia.com is awesome: locations on map, links to heat maps and neighborhood info. 3. Trulia's site looks nicer. You display your search results in two columns. Trulia use the whole browser screen. However, if I decrease the width of my browser, I don't need to use the scrollbars. It's really clever and well thought out. Good luck improving yours and I'm looking forward to seeing it!! Richard

Richard-- Ummm...I am HAPPILY adding some of the features you recommend to my site--I think you wanted more information. If you'd have hit the detail sheet you'd have seen school information, mortgage information. and ummm..the neighborhood information IS there on the site. HOWEVER--please note the following: 1) There are 1424 listings on Trulia--While there are over 9,500 ACTIVE listings on the MLS. So your point one is FALSE. If folks want a complete group of listings, they can see them at mine (or most any other REALTOR's site. 2).I am adding map-based searching and it will be available soon. and there will be info along with it. That being said if someone doesn't like RE/MAX Properties East's style of search, they are MORE than welcome to go to the #2 Google search result, Semonin dot com. They have a REALLY similar to search style to Trulia. The guys at Semonin moved their primary search to map based several months ago and moved it back to a choice based system because the got complaints--people from out of town do NOT know where to look in town for a home. They initially are looking in a price range and THEN get more speciic. My analytics tell me what drives the MOST searches on my site. That is the metric that I use. Over 43,000 home searches were done on my site in March alone....that's NOT by accident. We do CONSTANT A/B testing on what provides our clients with the best experience. We are moving towards map based searching as a SECONDARY option as a result of that testing. 3. Yes, Trulia's site is a NEWER version than mine...but a "clever and well thought" design in your opinion does not equal to me for a reason in MY opinion to hand ALL of our listings over to third parties so they can eventually charge us for the leads generated by those listings. (Can you explain that one to me?) Since you seem so moved to action by Trulia, perhaps we could compare my analytics to theirs on the number of searches done in Louisville and the time spent on them and the actual people who have bought a home through them. You post those numbers on REW's forum and I will post mine...you will quickly see that YOUR opinion is more about changes YOU want to see in the market place (i.e. screw the REALTOR) and less about what the consumer truly wants...

1424 listings to view on Trulia...over 9500 on a direct MLS search from a REALTOR.... hmmm... If I was looking for real estate in Louisville, I think I would be searching somewhere else besides Trulia. (I hate to admit, some of those tools are pretty cool but just how accurate are they if they are not getting all of the information needed?) Also, from what I remember about posting a property for sale on Trulia, there are no stringent guidelines enforceable from an association. Am I correct in stating that I could post a property on Trulia for sale in Louisville? I know I can in Las Vegas from Chicago.

Eric, you asked me "What SPECIFICALLY is better about Trulia's site than mine." I gave you my *opinion*, which is that I prefer Trulia.com (number of properties aside). Of course, in *your* opinion, your site is better than Trulia's. However, in my opinion it is not. These are, of course, mere *opinions*. Good luck, Richard PS I did see the school, mortgage, neighborhood etc. info on your site. Nevertheless, in my **opinion**, trulia.com is the superior website.

Lordy, you guys sling some quality mud... you guys will aruge yourselves into circles. Here is the bottom line - who cares what YOU think - what does the consumer want? That is the problem with most broker sites, control of information. And as far as your MLS having 9K+ listings - how many of them are in contract, sold or available and YOU have the keys for them? See trulia links back to the LISTING agent, so the consumer is calling the person with the keys, the best access, and the latest info. Besides that Trulia gives the consumer tons of aforementioned info - besides THAT Trulia is constantly improving, b/c they have one focus - CONSUMER EXPERIENCE, driving consuemrs to BROKERS - therefore, if that is all they worry about, how the heck do you think anyone can beat them at it? They don't do home valuations, they don't get involved in the transaction, they don't ask for consumer info to use the site, and they don;t ask you for one red cent... My broker spends money on Trulia in NYC, and I appreciate it, b/c i can send my consumers to a 3rd party site, displaying my listings and my competitors listings in a fair manner - with limited info so the consumer is driven to MY site... so I am sorry, but you are making a mountain - out of something that has already erupted, evolved and grown into an island....

Richard, I don't think you really understand what you are talking about my friend. If you care more about appearance than content then you are already lost. You clearly do not understand the very basic concept that if you only see a small percentage of the listings you are very unlikely to be able to determine which home is actually the best for you. So, if you want to search for homes on Trulia or anywhere else that you think is pretty, then you can contuinue to walk around searching in oblivion and not understanding what that means to you. It has been explained enough and if you don't get it then there is no hope for you. Andre, Have you read all of the comments here? This eintire post is about what is best for the consumer. Another thing - I have the keys to every listing in the MLS and so does every other agent in Atlanta and in most other places around the country if not the world. Do you really think that Trulia's listings are all up to date? How long have you been selling real estate? Agents put there listings into Trulia and forget about them. Never to update them or change them. There information will never be as accurate as the information in the MLS. You also do not understand business if you think that this will not ultimately hurt the consumer. They are already charging your broker and the company I work with - For my information. They charge me for my information. How in the world can you rationalize that as productive use of money from a consumer perspective. You are being very short sited about this. You need to begin to look at this from a longer term perspective. You are giving away congtrol of your listings to an outside, third party who will then charge you to list them on their website. How do you think that Trulia is more "fair" than the listing search on my website?

You can never replace one on one, human, personal service, but you cannot deny that the internet has changed the way EVERY industry conducts business. This is just the beginning for the RE industry. Many dont believe that the internet and technology will take its toll on real estate agents. But those behind companies such as Google, YouTube, Yahoo, etc...didn't make billions because they dont know what they are doing. Some will save money, but many will lose it to "big business". Kind of funny if you think about it....internet companies that make billions and the products are completely intangible.

So, to summarize: Ryan, you think that consumers rate (or should rate) number of listings, accuracy of listings etc. over appearance? But as you say, Trulia have nothing like as many properties in their system as the MLS. Therefore, if you were right, do you not think that Trulia would not exist...? Or at the very least, not be getting bigger and bigger? The fact is that some consumers (and the realtors who have listed with them) do see utility in Trulia, however mis-guided you think they may be. I can see why you don't want to give them your listings, I'm not sure what I'd do in your situation. Richard

Joe, I think the internet has changed most things, including real estate for the better. I think information being passed on to the consumer is a good thing and the internet makes this much easier. What I don't want to see happen is a third party company taking information that I have and asking that I give them my information so they can be relevant just so they can turn around and charge me for a profit from my information! As the title of this blog post suggests, I too see a problem with the way that the information is being handled by the NAR and ultimatley if they do not correct realtor.com to make it compete better with third party vendors then comsumers will be the big losers here. Richard, No, that was not my point. It is not about rating. It is about information. The consumer should have the most information. That is the most important thing. The aesthetics must be a compliment to the information. realtor.com far and away has better information and they do a terrible job of presenting it. So bad in fact, that third party companies have seized upon their ineptness and are begining to capitalize on it. With information that is not nearly as up to date and not nearly as complete.

Ryan, I agree with what you said about the internet making things easier and making info readily available. And I also agree with what you are saying about NAR and the problem with having to pay for our own information. These third party sites will be charging just like google and yahoo does for Pay Per Click advertising. It might not be called Pay per Click, but agents will pay. Whether it is per click, per lead, per listing, or a combination of all. These third party companies advertise and market...someone will foot the bill for it. It will not remain free.

Richard, I guess you're not concerned that the home of your dreams might not be listed on Trulia because you're more concerned with how pretty it is. I'd rather find the prettiest house for my money, but to each their own. Your dream property might be on my site or Ryan's site or any other site that offers the full, updated & active local MLS for consumers to search (not just a percentage of listings - some no longer available). Your dream property might never appear on Trulia. I can't tell you how many heavy hitter listing agents in my area do not use the Internet besides checking a box when entering the MLS listing to send it to Realtor.com. Andre, some areas don't allow dual agency. I, too, have access to every listing on my MLS & am happy to give a qualified buyer the representation they deserve. Dual agency is allowed in my area & I do perform it although both parties have to sign a form acknowledging that they understand what it means. I want my listings sold & I don't really care if I sell it or another agent sells it. In fact, I prefer not to be a dual agent. I also agree that Trulia does not offer the updated MLS access that my VOW/MLS search does on my sites, let alone it doesn't show every single listing currently available, which I feel is what most consumers want. They want to make sure the perfect property doesn't slip through their fingers. Have you ever received an inquiry from a buyer who admits they're already working with an agent? They tell you their agent sends them listings via an automated search, yet they're still calling on other listings because they think they're missing out. If they just do their search on a portal like Trulia, they really are missing out. Trulia is not a household name in my area and my sites appear before it in the major search engines for the keywords I'm interested in. My sites show up first in the se's, my sites offer all active & available MLS listings via my VOW search plus an agent attached to the site with 20+ years of local area knowledge. If I were a consumer, that is what I would want when searching for properties. Ryan, let Rich search on Trulia while other buyers find the homes he'll never know existed. There is simply no convincing him and IMO, it's his loss & we don't need to worry about it.

Oh, I never said I'd **only** use Trulia to look for a home. Richard

I feel this debate can be answered with one determining factor: The accuracy of information provided. As a real estate consumer purchasing a home, I'd think it would be important to have the latest and accurate real estate market information as possible to help me make the most informed and intelligent decision possible. With such large sums of money being financed or invested, how could one not want this to be true? With that said, I think it's pertinent to analyze the said benefits of sites such as Trulia. From Trulia's main page, they list three better ways to search: -listings -guides -heat maps We've already come to the conclusion that Trulia, as long as it's a opt-in agent listing site, does not have the complete MLS database that real estate agent members do. Therefore, what use are limited listings, innaccurate guides (based on sales history of homes in Trulia, not of homes in MLS), and heat maps (again, based on Trulia derived numbers). Now, since this information can't possibly be accurate, as a real estate consumer, how does one look to Trulia as an alternative in searching for homes as opposed to using a real estate agent? For the consumer, does inaccurate information benefit the community or indirectly hurt it? If the latter, should such a service be allowed to be in existence? In summary, I'm saying that though real estate agent MLS based listing search do not have the bells and whistles of a site like Trulia, we have something they can never have - complete accuracy as long as our information is derived by our local MLS. I'd like to read your comments in this, Richard. Steve Castaneda, Realtor

Without reading this thread, how is the consumer to know that the information at Trulia.com is inaccurate...? The high quality of the presentation may lead the consumer to erroneously believe that the information is also of a high quality. Yet, most consumers would agree (if asked) that accuracy was of paramount importance. Therefore, if you have a website that allows MLS searching, it might be worth making a graphic saying "100% accuracy" and then a quick explanation about why, or something like that. It's conceivable that a consumer may buy badly as a direct result of the inaccurate information on Trulia - they would then have been hurt by it. But yes, I think Trulia should be allowed to exist (not that it can be banned!): the features in principle are cool and as they get more listings the accuracy problem will diminish. I can see why some of you don't want to give them your listings, however. Richard

I believe that I pay to belong to an mls so that I have access to all listings. I don't want those listings available to the world. Where I pay for leads, and all the time I have to waste from emails and phone calls from 3 party vendor trying to sell me leads from my mls. I think that the the members of the mls should press for a vote to see if that is really what their brokers and agents want. I think only brokers and agents should have the right to this information not the public. If agents don't give the public what they want they will go elsewhere to an agents idx not the public mls!

Ryan, I could not agree with you more. In fact I feel so strongly that I also bloged about it on active rain. http://activerain.com/blogsview/69649/Realtor-Com-is-A I strongly feel we need to get the word out on this. Many Realtors/Brokers/and people who run Realtor.com do not understand the internet or the internet consumer. We all really need to keep this conversation going and press for some change at Realtor.com.

The mls today is not what we sign up for! I know for a fact that some brokers are thinking about opting out of the mls and taking control over their listings. Cooperative brokering has gone global! Seems like alot of time and money being wasted. And some brokers and agents haven't figured it out. What do you think of a global mls?

I think it would be fine. I just think it is somewhat irresponsible to turn over listing control to a non-broker entity. There is no reason for third party sites to exist except to make money. It is true that realtor.com is not very user friendly, but, that doesn't justify allowing third parties in. NAR needs to fix reatlor.com. The technology exists to do this, it's just people that make it hard. It so happens that the people that make it hard are the ones who stand to lose the most from third parties...

These 3 parties actually go get their license and join the mls to get the feeds!

Maybe so, but, they do that to make money. Not because they want to broker real estate transactions. We all sell real estate to make money, but, we actually work with buyers and sellers. All they do is charge money to list homes for sale on the internet. They don't provide enough or accurate enough information to help consumers make educated decisions and they will never be able to. It's the same old trick and consumers are being duped into believing they have real authority. They get their license solely for the purpose of the feed so that they can have access to the information. They can claim all day long that they have the best interest of the consumer in mind. They don't, won't and can't. The original purpose is that of a middleman. That is what they are.

Plus: Even though their emails about their intentions are nice and pretty right now; who's to say it doesn't change the moment they turn the tables? Anyone can send an email to calm the tide, but the tidal wave may be fast approaching unforeseen.

I totally agree!

Please don't forget thaqt the original intent of this article was to place blame on the National Association of Realtors, not Trulia. They are sort of the secondary issue to watch for if the NAR can't put up a competitive website.

See I dont blame Trulia at all. In fact, If I had the money and marketing power, I would start my own 3rd party distributer like trulia. The real problem is with the NAR inability and unwillingness to protect its agents and listings. They need to move in and rebuild realtor.com.

That's it exactly. So, the question is - how do a few tech savvy REALTORs who understand this get a big Gorilla like NAR to see what is happening?

Sam, you could get together with some people on this thread and set up a realtor-owned and operated distributor...? It would lack the flashy Web 2.0 of Trulia, but a simple MLS-style database that was at least easy to search would be easy to set up. I volunteer a server and some programming expertise, if anyone is interested. Stop waiting for the NAR to help you, that'll never happen! Richard

Ryan, Maybe possibly get office petitions started, start with informing our local Board's of REALTOR's, hold discussion group with them, brainstorm, hound them until they change. I wouldn't be suprised if it was someoneor a group on the inside starting one of these sites.

The answer to that question is....EXACTLY what we are doing here. We may or may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but we can BEAT them and make them mind! We pay them to represent us after all. (No animals were harmed in writing this comment!) Eric

Joe, That's insidious! But, entirely possible. Perhaps the way to go is to place pressure upwards from the local level. This is definately a strength in numbers game. As well as an information based initiative. The truth is, I believe, many real estate professionals don't even consider what the ramifications are.

But simply posting in this blog won't change anything.

Starting locally by making agents/brokers, and offices aware over a couple week period on how this will affect them. Them start discussion group, get ideas on how to present all this to the local Boards.....and on it goes.

I'm way ahead of you I posted this link on our mls agent mail. Haven't heard a thing! What does that tell you

Which mls agent mail and when?

Athol, I think you can use html for a link to a site.

Athol, While I fully understand that you would like to be able to have a link to a website, it is a secondary issue. I will bring it up to the webmaster. The important topic is finding a way to get the attention of NAR to remedy this before it is too late.

The fact that they are displaying publicly accesible information is not really a big deal nor a bad idea. At this point they are essentially opt in operations where you can list there if you choose to. Because realtor.com is so bad, people feel they need to use the third party sources. This will cost consumers more money in the long run. My point is that the NAR needs to correct this for the consumer. That is what they are supposed to do. Besides, I don't like the idea that I have to pay a third party, that has no reason to be in the business, to list homes for sale. It is an absurd idea. The fact that I am having a conversation about it makes me not want to renew my membership as a REALTOR. I realize that the NAR lobbies congress and sets ethical standards that help protect the public, but, this hurts the public and they are just sitting on the sidelines watching it happen with their thumbs up their noses. It is sad to see that they can't fix an EASILY fixable problem when it will cost the real estate industry and therefore consumers so much money. ARE YOU LISTENING, NAR?

Like I said, it is an opt in advertising right now. As you know, several of the largest real estate companies are paying money to these companies already. They have opted in. Nobody said that they don't have a right to do what they are doing. My point is that if the NAR made realtor.com look and feel competitive, they could put these guys out in 2 seconds flat. The bigger these companies get, the more they can demand. It is happening as we speak. They are just adding to the cost of marketing homes. That costs consumers more money. The other problem is that they can not control the accuracy of the information as well as an organization run with data feeds updating the information constantly the way that mls feeds do. You mentioned zillow - they are the biggest joke in the world. Counting on tax records for your information is like asking a third grader to provide stats. Are you kidding? I don't believe for a second that mls information should be shared with public companies for dissemination to all. The idea that this would help the consumer is bogus. You tell me how it will help and I will tell you it already exists - in one place - right where it should as the legal right of information between sellers and brokers.

Ryan you and I are on the same page when it comes to Trulia. I think as a community with our numbers we can make a difference. I also wrote a blog about it after the somewhat heated discussion here; http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread9821.html In my blog at activerain Kelly Roark with Trulia responded as she did to yours. She is watching our posts at activerain. I encourage others to add comments as I feel she will see them there. http://activerain.com/blogsview/69426/Trulia-Friend-or-Foe

Whether we, as agents & brokers like it or not, Trulia, Zillow, etc. are providing consumers with tools that they think are valuable. The web sites pump out press releases about their "zestimates" and other latest mouse traps that catch the consumers interest and the large brokerages advertise to put their name in front of the bewildered consumer. Realtor.com is too busy counting their profits (and holding up brokers & agents for more money) to realize that they need to compete with the new wiz-bang technology or they will lose their consumer audience AND their advertisers one day soon. Meanwhile, NAR has nothing to say because NAR gave up ownership of Realtor.com a long time ago. Realtor.com does not rank in my market for most SEO, while Trulia, Zillow, Homegain & others make it a point to rank high to give value to their agent-advertisers dollars. Realtor.com is like T-Rex and will soon be extinct, too, if they don't wake up and give agents and consumers what they are asking for. Can someone send a copy of this entire blog to the dinosaurs at Realtor.com & NAR?

I guess commercial boards of realtors figured out all the danger of "open" MLS and keep most of their listings sealed. Residential information is wide open, thanks to NAR. I do not think the consumer will pay more for Trulia or Zillow. Consumer used to pay 7% commission during the era of paperback MLS books. Now more and more consumers pay $300 flat fee. The bitter truth is, we residential realtors will pay more, keep reducing the commission and pay "rebates" to our clients.

Yes, this is what I think will happen: consumers get a better deal, third parties get a cut, and the real losers are the realtors. Richard

Richard, perhaps you might be able to explain how the consumer would get a better deal by REALTORS having to pay more to market their homes for sale. How many middle men have made it better in other businesses? Please, if you have a problem with REALTORS then say so, but, don't make statements like that which can't be backed up. If you can explain how it would be better, then I certainly am willing to listen.

I just meant to concur with aayz (i.e. I think commissions will go down). Which is not necessarily the same as a "better deal". Sorry - poor choice of words.

Once you realize that print advertising is all but a complete waste of money and stop spending it there, you'll have it to spend on online advertising. Realtors aren't theatened by Trulia et al, newspapers are the ones threatened.

This battle was essentially lost from the moment Realtor.com was designed as a for profit creation. Seeing it is run for profit it will never be allowed to be a "national MLS". Thats called a monopoly and the DoJ would step in. I'm surprised that a Zillow or Trulia etc hasn't sued for the same access to listings that Realtor.com has. After all Realtor.com is for profit, so why shouldn't other businesses wanting to compete in the same marketplace be allowed a level playing field to compete on? Unrelated: This blogging platform doesn't link comments to other blogs, but only to others on the platform?

Testing html then Though even assuming it does work it's a little odd that a visitor would be forced to it that way.

Well my point was that it's been too late for about 8 years now. As soon as Realtor.com was tagged as a publically traded for profit company you have to allow others to be able to do business in the same field as well. NRT just signed a deal with Trulia to have all their listings. Zillow is making its own play at allowing anyone to tag a house as for sale as of last night too. Basically a house for sale is public information. As soon as you plonk a sign in your yard anyone can drive by and see it. Nearly everything the third party sites list on their websites are public information available at any town hall. Whether or not anyone thinks that it is a good idea for a real estate consumer to be allowed access to public information on a third party site is irrelevant. It's pubic information and open to all. Trulia, Zillow et al are here to stay.

Third party websites have no less business advertising houses for sale than newspapers or other print media do. I bet realtors pay far more for newspaper advertising than they ever will on the Internet. Frankly when you consider how bad the ROI is on print advertising, third party internet sites seem like a huge cost saving measure for realtors. I'm not sure what NAR can really do about this anyway. NAR is being sued by the DoJ for anti-trust reasons already as it is.

I have the answer! There is a new product called the listing book. It is actually a mls design. The public mls side of all mls are to go and replaced by agent/broker support to buyers and sellers with accounts to the mls. They have complete control for themselves. All info is sent to the agent. Buyer's love this they are in control know that they have access to the entire mls and tell their friends. No more multiple agents working the same client. You no longer have to feed realtor.com or you certainly would not pay them to advertise for you. With 3 parties having less infomation the buyers and sellers would return to the agent/broker and have everything they really want. Full access! Realtor.com would fall by the wayside!

WOW!! I am a Realtor of 24+ years in northern GA and I just stumbled onto this "blog" and started reading. I'm not one of those "tech savvy" Realtors you folks are looking for but I am a longtime active Realtor with my local Board and GAR. It has been refreshing to hear from some of you younger Realtors that understand the mechanics of Realtor.com. I was around when it began and I was horrified and terrified when it went public and for profit. That's OUR organization. We pay heavily to belong in dues and NAR has been allowing our website to go downhill for quite a long time. A few of you are correct in thinking that these 3rd party cos. have been allowed (and wooed) by NAR to "infect" our organization. If you'll do your research, you may be surprised to find you actually "owns" some of these 3rd party sites. I'm so non-savvy that I had never even heard of Trulia until tonite. I'm going to check it out later on!! My point is this - NAR has been screwing their Realtor members almost from Realtor.com's inception by allowing some of the stuff they have over the years. You young folks need to come up with the tech portion of the plan and I'm more than willing to address my local Board and GAR about it. I'll be attending a Broker's Council meeting next week and will mention it - try to see if anybody else is peaved at NAR!! So glad to have "met" all of you after reading your comments. I will check back again. Dede Cobb, CRS, GRI Licensed Broker & Instructor

It didn't take long to get from $250 down to ... free for a flat MLS listing. Consumer advocate, nationally syndicated radio talk show host Clark Howard promotes the fact that FSBOs can now get on the MLS for free. There is a new site known as "Iggy's House" that puts people selling their own homes (FSBOs) on the MLS. It's not available everywhere, but California, Texas, Florida and New York are the big states. In addition, Iggy's House is available in Oregon, Washington, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, Michigan, Illinois, South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Colorado. Here are his show notes from Wednesday, April 04, 2007: http://clarkhoward.com/shownotes/2007/04/04/ Well, we all know that free cheese can only be found in a mouse trap... Question: If this stuff is free, but somebody still has to pay the bill....than who is the "lucky winner"? Tony Ayzenberg Duluth, GA

Here is the "mouse trap" on IggysHouse.com. This is a quote from their site. "Our sister company, BuySide Realty, pays 75% of the commission received from the seller. On average, BuySide’s clients have received over $11,000 each." Realtor.com allows non-Realtors and everyone else to post their listings that are in MLS. Many MLSes allow anyone with a license to join, so Realtors are no longer the only ones with listings on MLS. There is little or no quality control over the listing or service provided by the agent on the other end. NAR has allowed the continuous erosion of the Realtor image over the years, when they could be doing something to improve the image. As a small broker with a 2-3 person office, I pulled out of NAR in disgust last year. They haven't done anything positive for my business, in fact, recent NAR adminstrations have received enough bad press to cause a flurry of negative articles directed at Realtors and I don't see that changing any time soon. Pretty soon the public may all expect us to rebate them a percentage of our commission. Let's see....if our commission comes from the seller and we need to rebate some of it to the buyer from the money that the buyer brings to the closing to pay to the seller, who pays and how is that saving anyone money? These IggysHouse.com members of MLS are preying on uneducated buyers that think "finding the home is what it's all about. In my market, that's when I begin to go to work.

Very well writen and exactly on point. In the end it is the consumer that will pay like you said. The next thing is how do we get NAR to actually do something about this?

Ryan, you make some great points. It is real problem. NAR, however, has licienced authority to Realtor.com to use "Realtor" identification. They sit on the Board but they do not control operations at all. I presume their impact on policy is minimal. Another way to fight this is through you local Board. Google was recently given access to all local listing by the Houston Board of Realtors. Individual brokers had nothing to say about it. I have contacted my MLS Board Members urging them not to allow any third party company that access. Information is a commodity we can still control in different ways individually, through our local BOR and local MLS services. Let's strive to keep the listings information way from the third party companies. I suggest contacting your local Board about his right now even if the issue isn't n the table yet. It could be soon and slip by without notice unless we contact our elected representatives. Larry Hotz

Ryan, I could not agree with your artical more. Nar really needs to step up and start addressing the issues that have lead to all of this.

Thank you Ryan for blogging this item. If I may, I'd like to express a few opinions: I agree with many of you on many points expressed here, both pro and con for 3rd party vendor mls, with a few exceptions: I don't necessarily blame NAR or r.com for this occurance nor for the selling of advertising (beta site). They are after all a for-profit-business and answer to share holders. I feel the fault lies mostly with agents who have not and do not take an interest in the workings of not only their local boards, but the national association and the real estate industry as a whole not to mention their own websites. Let me explain: I believe many (not all), perhaps even the majority of agents through out the world are complacent on this and other topics as relating to the internet. Perhaps they have a website with some form of idx solution, perhaps not. I believe that many are aware of business on the internet but lack the knowledge and motivation or perhaps are just too scared of the unknown, to pursue that business. There are many real estate websites owned and operated by many real estate agents. IMO, few of these are actually maintained and updated with enough interest from their owners. We've all heard the 80% number (home buyers on the internet) and many of us have targeted that market and continue to do so. However, I believe that there are more agents that do not target this market then do (good for those of us that do)! If that is the case, I'm not certain that the local board would want or could do anything to persuade or influence NAR or R.com. If the majority of agents are not aware of this being a problem either because they are unaware of it, do not utilize the marketing of the internet or what ever reason, the majority rule will be the factor most influencing this on the local level. While I believe that this topic has the potential for an impact on the industry, I also believe that there are few of us who actually are aware of and have the technical background to voice enough opposition or start a grass roots movement at the local level for change. If I'm not mistaken, NAR membership is strictly voluntary (I believe required at the (some) local affiliation level). IMO, the best way to influence a change is to hit them in the pocket book, which is exactly what I believe Y and T.com's and soon to follow, G are doing. We all have to look to the future and make our judgement calls on what we believe to be good for our industry based on our personal and professional insight into our business models and the industry we have chosen to make a career within. There was a time when there was no public access to homes for sale other than through a Real Estate Agent. Those times are gone and will not be returning.

You HAVE TO LOOK AT LISTING BOOK.COM we are returning to the no public access! ONly through the agent. This has taken off. Michigan has sign on and Calif and Florida...and North Carolina. ONE MLS and one system with an angent! When the mls and the brokers and agents stop paying R.com as we are already seeing here, Realtor.com will go by the wayside because no one is paying for it. The face of Real Estate is about to change again and you heard it here. Did I mention this service is free to any MLS! MOTIVATED!

So news is just out that Realtor.com will be offering free blogs for realtors. Wow! That's great--you're only 2 years late at least. The post was excellent, Ryan, and as I read all the big time national real estate blogs such as bloodhoundblog I get more angry at the NAR being so slow on the tech side.... For those of you not in the know on where our industry is headed, go to that blog I mentioned and begin reading some of the other blogs on its blogroll. jay