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Is Trulia worth it? Update.

Real Estate Agent with Advantage Chatuge Realty Ga.#205907 NC #187505

September 08, 2009 04:26 AM

See my original post here: Trulia

Trulia Update

Well it's been about 6 months with Trulia Pro and so far I have had to hassle with them 3 times about their auto program stealing my photos and listings and sending folks to my Brokers site instead of mine. This was the problem I would be assured would not happen after I signed. Seems they can not keep my websites linked. So every time I place a new listing I have to contact them (which seems to take a week because I have to go through the whole email process and explain to yet another person the problem) to get it changed back. This summer I had to have open heart surgery so I did not even check the site for maybe 3 months., and guess what? Half of my listings again are linked back to the other site and not my own. I have five other listings I want to add but why should I when I have to take the time to check them every week to see if the links are right?

The sad thing is when the site is set up properly I do get a little extra traffic from it. Compared to last year I had received 17 more click troughs' in this month from last year when I use the free service. Now my question is how many of those would I have if that traffic was not sent to my competition? And since I still have to email every month to change the listings is it worth my time for those few other click throughs'? How many clients am I sending to my competitor?

Since I can not seem to get this resolved through Trulia I thought maybe if I post here something will get done. It is ashamed that something with such potential can not accommodate the little guy who has to pay out of pocket for their services. You guys need a better way to communicate and a way to fix my listings once and for all. You have 5 more months to win back my business...So what do you say Trulia?

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Rudy Bachraty

Director, Communications & Partner Strategies, WellcomeMat - Fort Collins, CO

Hi Gary!

Hope you're feeling better after your surgery.

How are you submitting the listings and does your email address for your profile match the listings source email we have on file? If not, this could be why your listings are not synching.

Let me look into this for you on our end to see where the issue is.

Thanks for being a Trulia Pro and for your patience.

Best,

Rudy

Social Media Guru for Trulia

Sep 08, 2009 05:24 AM

Gary Ward

Advantage Chatuge Realty - Hayesville, NC

Relax, that's what the mountains are for

Hi Rudy, Yes I am getting back to the norm now thanks... the listings have to be submitted one at a time because I was told I could not automate it due to the fact you pull listings from the other broker's site which also has my listings on it. Which I guess means you are using their email as the listing source instead of mine which does match the website and my account I signed up with.

The deal is I do have a Broker I work for but really we are independent, I too am a broker and these are my listings, but Trulia seems to switch over to the other broker as the source even though I am the one who loaded all the info and photos.

So basically the problem I had before I went to pro I still have, and as you can imagine with my health as of late I don't need the stress to deal with this. Is there any way to fix this for good.

Thank you,

Gary Ward

Sep 08, 2009 11:24 AM

Lina Robertson

AMAX Real Estate - Springfield, MO

REALTOR® Serving Springfield, Nixa and Ozark, MO

Gary, thanks for posting this. I am having the same difficulties with Trulia. It seems to be a DAILY chore to go in and make sure the listing source for my listings have not change. I'm eager to hear whether or not you're able to find a solution.

Sep 08, 2009 02:43 PM

Rudy Bachraty

Director, Communications & Partner Strategies, WellcomeMat - Fort Collins, CO

Hi Gary!

Thanks again for your patience while we looked into the issue further.

Solution:

Rather than submitting your listings in the current manner, the best solution is to submit a feed. Have you tried using one of Trulia's partner sites like ListHub or Point2Agent? If not, please do as the listings will be more stable in our system. Additionally, Trulia Pro's URL choice feature will then prioritize that stable feed status for you as the primary broker feed and primary listing source = the links will point directly back to your site.

I hope this helps Gary.

Best,

Rudy

Sep 10, 2009 05:14 AM

Matt Grohe

RE/MAX Concepts - Des Moines, IA

Serving the metro since 2003

Gary: isued to be on Tulia but I just couldn't keep up. Hope you get those kinks worked out. Thanks for your post.

Sep 10, 2009 04:56 PM

Gary Ward

Advantage Chatuge Realty - Hayesville, NC

Relax, that's what the mountains are for

Ok Rudy so what you suggest is that I should go to another site. Pay yet again to get my listing straight on a site I've already paid for? How do I know I won't have the same problems with those sites too? And as for the XML feed, would my sitemap in XDL work? Mountain Property Or are you referring to my IDX that I have on my site? Because that list every listing in the area. Mountain Homes for sale

I am pretty sure we looked at this many months ago with tech help and they determined the only way I could do anything was by hand...so OK I gave into that but if your system keeps changing that which I have already entered Quite frankly your site is not worth my time... Is there anyway to prevent the listings from changing back over?

Even with all this talk and many emails to your customer service the one listing I referred to still is pointing to the wrong site. I've a good mind to delete it but then IF we get this straightened out I have to reenter all the info yet again. Please let's get this fixed!

Sep 15, 2009 02:29 AM

Rudy Bachraty

Director, Communications & Partner Strategies, WellcomeMat - Fort Collins, CO

Hi Gary!

Sorry for your frustration. I sent you an email with more details just now.....

Is there someone who can create the XML feed for you based on the specs? See the .pdf feed guidelines link here:

http://www.trulia.com/submit_listings/feed/

If so, that would be the best direct solution.

Submitting your listings directly to Trulia is free. I only sugegsted one of our partners in case you could not create a direct feed to us.

Rudy

Sep 23, 2009 11:10 AM

John Gray

Windermere Real Estate - McKenzie Bridge, OR

McKenzie Valley Realtor

I appreciate these inputs. I just got off the phone with Trulia. They super-hype Trulia Pro, but we have seen way less than stellar results from Trulia "free", so are very suspect about Trulia Pro. This confirms some of our suspicions. Our listings, which they are pulling from listhub apparently, are rarely correct, and they only get about 1/2 of our listings. They claim to be number one, but their overall traffic is at the bottom of the list according to data from multiple non-Trulia sources. Having to manually update listing data, or pay for another service they can pull from, seems like an incredible waste - especially when you have to pay them a lot for their limited pro service.

Nov 23, 2009 05:11 AM

Gary Ward

Advantage Chatuge Realty - Hayesville, NC

Relax, that's what the mountains are for

John I think Tulia does provide a service for many realtors. It just didn't work out for me. They did all they could to help, but in my situation it was not going to work.

I did get some traffic from their site but found more traffic going to the other broker who's site seemed to be the default on my listings that I had posted . That is why I gave up on it. I didn't have the time to continually maintain and correct the errors.

I am certain that their service works well for others.

Nov 23, 2009 07:34 AM

Jerri McCombs, Broker/Owner

Dogwood Real Estate Services - Hendersonville, NC

Hendersonville Living

I am glad to see this post and all of the back and forth. There are so many companies trying to get our business by promising to be the best at what they do. I love it that AR can give us the reality check so that we are not going to waste what limited funds we have in this down market. When every penny counts we need to stick together.

Thanks for the post!

Jul 06, 2010 01:47 AM

Gary Ward

Advantage Chatuge Realty - Hayesville, NC

Relax, that's what the mountains are for

Jerri, Again I do think Tulia can be good for brokers in charge, if you are the owner of the Office who holds the listings. My problem was where I work, we all are brokers, but have only one, Broker in Charge, so his site is the default website listed. But I pay all my own advertizing, own my own websites, and run my own affairs. IF they could find a way to lock in the websites I would use them again. They do bring in traffic.

Jul 06, 2010 12:35 PM

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