Edina Realty, in the US, has had it with Third Party Aggregators and is going to pull their listings from Trulia.com beginning Nov. 30.
News of Real Estate Agencies choosing to go it alone and opt out of listing for sale and for rent properties with Third Party Aggregators should send shock-waves throughout the industry.
Third Party Aggregators are private companies which collect real estate information, then collect leads and sell the leads to Real Estate Agents and Brokers. Since the internet first started being used by Agents and Brokers for the real estate industry, these 3rd Party Aggregators began sprouting all over, and thus the service began and exposure of available properties was maximised due to it.
Initially the marriage between Agents and the 3rd Party Aggregators was one made in heaven, but now these companies, like Trulia, Zillow, and even Realtor.com (a private company not owned by the National Association of Realtors) are not held to the same standard as Licensed Realtors and Brokers.
The information posted by these companies does not necessarily echo the clients’ best interests and sometimes contains inaccurate information, which in some instances becomes a liability for Brokers.
Blatant mistakes are sometimes made in the publishing of the properties online, like the simplest one, a property is no longer on the market, but it appears to be on the 3rd Party Site. This poses liability, grief, and headaches for the Real Estate Agents, Brokers, and Clients they serve.
Edina Realty has made the decision to pull their information from these 3rd Party Aggregators to protect their clients and their own best interests.
Media release from Edina Realty:
Edina Realty is responding to the changing business models of third party aggregators.
Third party aggregators are not brokers and they are not required to abide by the same rules and regulations as a broker. They get listings for free from brokers around the country and then display them online, collecting and distributing leads for a profit.
While some of you in the industry may understand that Trulia.com is an independent company, many of you may be surprised to learn that Realtor.com is NOT affiliated with NAR. They are a separate, publicly held business. Just like Trulia.com, their business model is based on selling lead generating advertising to agents.
We’ve since discovered that much of the data and information showcased on aggregator sites is inaccurate if it comes from non-MLS sources. According to a recent data quality study conducted by Trulia.com and published on Inman.com, 69 percent of errors in online real estate listings information were directly related to third-party syndication of information by non-MLS sources. This points to the need for more diligence regarding ownership of our clients’ data and where we send it – be it directly to an aggregator site or through syndication.
“The company reviewed about 1.2 million listings from about 250 data sources during the third quarter and found about 120,000 inaccuracies in listings information. More than half (51 percent) of those inaccurate listings had errors in price, 41 percent had status errors, and 8 percent had errors in both price and status.”*
*Source: Trulia.com and Realtor.com respectively Edina Realty will no longer provide a broker feed of our listing inventory to Trulia.com starting Nov. 30, 2011. We also intend to discontinue sending our listings to Realtor.com by the end of the year.
Third party aggregators are not brokers. They get listings for free from brokers around the country and then display them online, collecting and distributing leads for profit. We believe it makes the best business sense for our agents and Edina Realty to control our own listings in order to ensure that:
• Our agents don’t lose future business opportunities because a non-listing competitor pays to present themselves as the contact for your listing.
• Our agents don’t have to pay – directly or indirectly – for leads on their own listings.
• Our sellers can be assured that leads on their listing are being handled by an expert – The quality and accuracy of your listing data is assured.
• Potential buyers are provided with fast, knowledgeable responses via the listing agent or our seven-day-a-week customer service department.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Very interesting and brave move!
Maybe the time has come for real estate companies to catch up with the tech and through social media and other channels make it worthwhile to go-it-alone?
I agree with Adriaan. It will be interesting to see what happens to their sales after they have withdrawn all their stock from 3rd parties. Aggregators play an extremely important role in Real Estate.
actually aggregators play an important role across all verticals!
Smart Move. Third party aggregators no longer provide value. They will no longer be needed for efficient search if brokerages just got a bit inventive and embraced the future of free data.