To me, that makes it even more important for buyers to know the local MLS coverage of a site like Zillow or trulia. So, if their local coverage is 100 of the 200 MLS listed homes (say on Roost) and 25% of the MLS is crap, then truZilla has a net 75 good MLS listings to Roost’s 150. Big difference. And that’s no crap.

I’ve followed Trulia since the site went live, I know Rudy personally and have spent many hours on the phone with Heather. You’re right- it is your DNA to promote agents which is why this particular instance stood out. This is how the events were perceived by myself and others, but I trust your word when you clairifed the situation, and so should our readers.

I think going forward what must happen by all of the media companies is their creation of more opportunities for agents to shine and demonstrate exactly why they are valuable to home buyers and sellers (with the amount of work and energy that goes into getting a home to market and the work after it’s there). I think Trulia and others are in a position to further the value of the agent and I anticipate that Trulia will continue to do tons in that regard and THOSE are the kinds of things we want to write about here.

As time marches on, agents will learn to maximize the opportunities these platforms present to reach a broader audience, and we hope to help.

I dunno why, but I think that’s kinda cool.

And I stick by what I said there. The MLS is **loaded** with crap. Just today one of our agents found a $125M listing. In Chandler, AZ. That may not mean much to a lot of people, but Chandler, or the entire Phoenix metro area for that matter, simply doesn’t have anything close to $125M homes. It was a stupid data entry error. The MLS is full of them (as well as out-and-out deceit).

Advertisements on Zillow? Like you said, no shock there. Do I care? Not really. Should I? I don’t know. Heck, I have ads on my blog. An inch below this comment window I’m typing in are two Google ads (interestingly, one says “Zillo House Prices” — and no, it has nothing to do with the real Zillow).

Personally, I still think the best home search is on a local agent/broker’s IDX feed, national sites be damned, and flawed as the data may be at times. Apparently enough people think that too that I stay busy. Could that change? Of course. Will it change? I don’t know. There are plans formulating just in case….

I am Flynt and co are well aware of the consumer experience and are working hard to get more listings to fill the gaps.

Thanks for the response. I guess you can take the view, you get what you pay for when you have your listings posted for free

I agree that if the consumer doesn’t find your listing attractive then they probably are not interested in buying a home. I made a similar point on Mariana’s Blog your Listings post.

I would guess that an agent wouldn’t have a problem if the consumer clicked off to a WeightWatchers ad that surrounded their listings. That MIGHT be an indication that they were more concernded about their waistline than buying a home.

However would an agent be happy if the consumer clicked off to a competing brokerage ad
next to their listing. That consumer probably is interested in buying a house and the agents listings were used as bait.

Perhaps in the listing agreement, larger brokers can negotiate a prohibition of the types of
ads that can’t be displayed with and around their listings.

The individual agent doesn’t have the bargaining power to do so, and as such the only thing they can do is not send their listings to a site that promotes their competitors around their listings.

This may be a case of biting off your nose to spite your face.

I don’t see this as any different than when search engines were called out for commingled paid results with organic results in order to increase click thru rates on the paid listings.

Goolge makes a boatload of cash by piggybacking an advertising model on search – basically the same thing Trulia and Zillow are trying to do. I am just disappointed that Trulia feels the need to trick people.

Round 1 goes to Zillow.