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The Problems with Syndicating Your Listing Inventory

"Well you know man, everyone is smoking marijuana. And you can't put everyone in jail, you know?"

That kind of mentality is seen with many brokers and agents who now "syndicate" their listings, online too.

So many of us are doing it. Yet so few of us think of the trouble we can get into by "syndicating" our listings to every website that offers it.

"You guys syndicate listings? okay, here. Take my homes. Please."

This kind of thinking is gets a lot of brokers and agents into hot water sometimes because so few REALTORS are reading the fine print.

And that fine print on some of these syndication portals are dumping your listings into other Consumer MLS Portals which in effect -- sometimes compete with traditional and trusted sources of MLS data. MRIS is the MLS Gestapo and we'll get to them in another blog post.

Homes that have long since been sold are still showing up as active and available on some "listing portals." All too often, the poor unsuspecting broker or agent had no clue where their homes are being syndicated to.

We tend to use the herd mentality and we see lots of agents pushing our homes on Trulia. So, we mooooove that direction and we do the same thing. Then Listing Hub. Then Point 2. Then VAST and the list just goes on and on.

How many REALTORS are reading the fine print BEFORE they press the SEND button to list their properties on some of these sites?

Apparently, not very many. Because of the 1.7 million homes listed right now on a dozen websites, more than 37% of all homes listed on many popular listing portals contain out dated listing information right now.

The Trouble with Trulia

Linking your home inventory to a website without knowing WHERE ELSE the portal sends your listings to can sometimes get you into trouble as the cartoon above shows,

Trulia.com, VAST and Postlets are guilty on this charge.

Homes that are sold, expired or deleted sometimes remain on other portals they syndicate to and if you read their fine print, it's scary. You have ZERO control over the data once you post to these portals. And this is what is getting a lot of you into hot water.

REALTORS are hired for one thing when it comes to your listings. We're expected to use our brain and our marketing savvy to help the homeowner find a buyer. Period.

I would argue, that we have too many choices. Too many portals when it comes to "syndication." Every REALTOR is struggling for Google page one visibility. Syndication portals allow us to carpet bomb next time home owners who are searching for a home.

Syndication is a lot like fishing. You put one fishing pole into the water. You might catch a fish. You put a lot of fishing poles into the water and you're bound to catch a fish sooner rather than later.

REALTORS are using Listing Syndication portals like fishermen use "chumming." If you're not a fisherman or fisher-woman -- CHUMMING is the dumping of small bits of bait into the water. Like tossing out blood and fish heads into the ocean if you want to attract and catch sharks, for example.

I went fishing a few months ago near my favorite spot at the Elephant Butte Dam, near Truth or Consequences, NM. I'd been fishing in the same spot for hours and I'm catching a bass about every 30 minutes.

Then this Coors drinking moron shows up with his drunk friends and a fancier boat. He pulls up about 100 feet from mine, weighs his anchor and starts tossing huge amounts of chum into the water. If I had a torpedo boat, I'd have sunk the bastard right there for being a rude jerk.

I'm not the only one who is thinking this is one of the ways we are cheapening and destroying the value of what REALTORS bring to the table. Chumming for buyers is the same thing as the jerk in the fishing boat in my humble opinion.

Not too many years ago, you had to physically drive to and visit with an agent in a Real Estate Brokerage if you were shopping for a new home. REALTORS once upon a time were the only trusted source for buying or selling a home.

Now, buying or selling a home is as close as your Mac or PC. And the Internet isn't always giving us accurate information. Corners are cut. Information is out dated or just plain wrong.

In my humble opinion, it's a real mess. And I don't think there's any quick fixes here, either.

What Can Go Wrong When you Syndicate Your Listings?

But the problem comes in when the originator or the syndicated portal isn't updating the other websites you have them posted on. A real time syndicator with RETS is needed because it uses a form of bread crumb technology that constantly looks for "triggers," to change, or delete the listing on the other website portals.

Listings linked to such a system using RETS can be programmed with a "trigger event," or flag. Properties are rigged to watch for changes from the source or syndicating server.

So when 14 Elm Street is now under contract, the banner flag changes instantly to PENDING and all links to that property through the syndicated portal are updated within minutes or a few hours.

When a home is expired or withdrawn, the syndicated links are shut down and removed.

Homes that are SOLD often stay on line for 90 days or longer.

This has the tendency to make new home owners upset when buyers come calling three months or more AFTER they closed on the home. Because some buyers tracked down the home through Google maps and eventually contacted the new home owner.

You can imagine what comes next.

The home owner places an angry call to the agent's broker they closed with, or worse -- they write a nasty gram to the local REALTOR association demanding someone's head on a stick. It can get pretty ugly and uncomfortable.

This kind of problem is what is fueling the technology is already being discussed and implemented as the new STANDARD for real estate driven database appliance servers called RETS. This stands for Real Estate Transaction Standard. More information on RETS can be found here.

More Headaches with Listing Syndication

Listings are being scraped from Trulia.com and other real estate portals on homes for sale and are reposted on other websites and are shown as FOR RENT properties.

Here's how the SCAM works;

You stumble on a website that features homes for rent.
You call them, or email them and eventually you decide to RENT the home.
The scammer asks you to send them a PayPal payment or you give them a check by mail.
They promise to meet you at the home or some office (that doesn't really exist) and you end up discovering from the shocked REALTOR that the listing was never for rent, and you've just been scammed.

This kind of problem goes on a lot more than we think and it's so rampant, the news media isn't even covering it anymore.

FindBuyMove.com (PHOENIX) has a unique PhatKey technology that will destroy scraped listings when they are placed on unauthorized websites and listing portals, but I am not allowed to spill the beans on that technology until January.

RE-Syndication and Losing Control of Your Listings. Ouch.

The broker has no written rights with Trulia, VAST or Postlets as to what other servers or portals your syndicated properties will go to. FindBuyMove.com is the only exception. That system is a private MLS that allows any REALTOR or Broker to manually create listings for virtually any property. And in a few months, it will be connected to the only MLS servers in Mexico -- the MexicoMultiList.com

Automatic reposting of homes to other portals or re-syndication creates problems as home owners as well as REALTORS have complained they had no control over where the listings went to -- and without their written consent.

For all the media hoopla over Zillow, Trulia and other portals -- portals like the MexicoMultiList and FindBuyMove.com have remained a silent submarine, but is soon to surface with some clever nuclear inventory designed to obliterate the me-too syndication portals.

Real Estate Syndication Portal Comparison Chart

Graphic 1.1. Data points (above) courtesy from the WAV Group. RETS and PhatKey Syndication courtesy of Kayyah Worldwide Partners Group.

CraigsList

This is becoming a popular listing syndicating portal, but there's just one problem with CraigsList. You can't automate a string of homes as an XML/RSS feed into CraigsList. They just don't allow that. It's a Web 1.0, manually updated classified system. There's not a lot of beeps, bells or whistles with CraigsList and it remains to be seen if we are going to see more robust system anytime in the near future.

Some crafty agents are inserting pretty HTML newsletter templates into CraigsList. It's manually done and it becoming a popular way of showcasing Short Sales and Foreclosures for many discount shopping, next time home buyers.

Final Thoughts on Listing Syndication

A publication from Roost in 2008 showed that many Website real estate portals are still showing homes that have long since expired or have been sold. While it sounds simple to have MLS data updated throughout the entire downline of syndicated chain of servers that show the same home photo, price and status of the home... it's been far from being easy to mop up the mess.

The problem stems from the simple fact there are more than 30 different MLS vendors out there. Rapatonni, Innovia, Paragon and a whole lot more. No two MLS companies create MLS server appliances the same way. No two MLS servers will communicate some fields the same way, either.

One MLS shows a half bathroom as 1/2 bath. The other MLS shows it as a fraction .5 bath.

This is like playing out the scene from the Cool Hand Luke where the Sheriff blurts out, "What we've got here is a failure to communicate."

RETS promises to solve this communication problem but it is going to take at least another 2 to 3 years to see RETS in place for all the MLS servers and even longer for the other big players like Trulia, Zillow, VAST and AOL to adopt RETS into their proprietary systems.

Colorado Springs PPAR is still old fashioned in that way. IDX and IDL feeds are pulled nightly. They dump all their photos and data into IDX vendors servers once every night at 2:00 am. ALE Exchange in Anchorage is the same way, as is countless other cities across the country.

I'd like to hear your thoughts, and nightmare stories on listing syndication.

For more information on Listing Syndication, the WAV Group is an excellent source for learning more about this subject. Click here to register and get a copy of their FREE Report on this topic.

Bart Wilson | As seen in Business Week

I help build successful REALTORS. One agent at a time.

Posted by Bartley Wilson on 12/13/2009 06:38 PM

Comments (153)

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153 Comments on The Problems with Syndicating Your Listing Inventory

DEC

2009

Thanks for all that great information, looks like you did your homework. I will keep this in mind when posting my listings.

I have received phone calls from people asking about a listing from a foreclosure database and of course the price is way, way off and it is not even an active listing in the mls. Some of the foreclosure sites lure the people in with false advertising.

Great Article,

Here is the link to the free download of the white paper which studies the Terms of Use on Listing Syndication websites authored by the WAV Group.

"What we have here boys, is a fail-ya to communicate." sayeth the Sheriff in, "Cool Hand Luke". (?)

Now for the post...oh my goodness! Thank you so much for doing this. I've learned a LOT. Nothing like reading the fine print, is there?

Excellen points Bart you are right on the money with this. I had noticed this at the beginning of last year and have made it a point to update some of the sites that "get behind". I must say it is a real pain in the neck!

Thank you for putting all this effort and research into this article. Very informative.

Mario

I had no idea that this was happening. I guess I had the herd mentality, thinking that more is better. Great post.

I will be more careful from now on. I guess I need to look up some of my old listings to see if they are out there.

Thank you so much for this post!

Great information !! Appreciate your hard work. I didn't know some of this existed.

You have to keep checking the sites you post to when you make updates to your listings.

Our MLS syndicates to over 30 sites - each one having its own "fine print". My theory is that I am trying to draw prospective buyers back to my site so that I may capture the lead. Why should I use my inventory to stoke someone else's lead generating system? No way, no how. If you want to find my listings, you have to go to MLSPin, Realtor.com or www.synergy-metrowest.com, where I also feature my listings on Active Rain and Facebook.

It is difficult to control syndication of your listings when your MLS has ListHub - - anything you enter into the MLS gets syndicated to all ListHub sites. I haven't had anyone call on a house for sale 3 months after it closed but I have checked various sites myself and found my own very stale listings on one in particular. The real time update would be a huge leap forward in the world of online marketing.

This has been a hot topic with the Virginia Association of Realtors. It was advised that we attach a disclaimer to our listings to help protect ourselves. I've been doing that now for about 2 months.

Tina in Virginia

I am sure also that some of this is the fault of the listing agent - they syndicate the listing but when sold and closed never go back to update it. I have a Point 2 site and notice this quite alot.

Very, very interesting. As a real estate assistant, I know first hard how much work it is to go to each website and double check and usually change listing info to make them all correct. I have to make a list of every single site that I can find each one of our listings on and save the link. It is also my job to go back and take them down or if I cant change a description to show sold. Very annoying and time consuming.

I guess we do it just in case a client cant find their property on a particular site and get upset that we are not marketing to EVERY site. Which I know the list is endless....

I had never hear of Kayyah and will be checking it out . thanks!

I've had calls as far as 6 months later on some homes that already closed. One of which was so far back that it had already resold after an investor had done renovations.

It is really frustrating once the data is out of our hands on those sites where we can't update or fix the data.

Fascinating and well thought out post, Bart! Like many agents, I'm guilty of syndicating and while I KNOW many of the sites my listings are syndicated to because I track them to see how my listings are "represented", what I DON'T know is where THOSE portals syndicate to as well.

We're all trying to maximize TARGETED exposure of our listings...and online certainly is the way to go. We know that our listings are reaching more of the specific buyers who are looking for the homes we have to offer...they get our listings in their search results based on the criteria that they, the buyer, have established. That's a good thing! However, if that data is morphed, if it's not updated with CURRENT INFORMATION (most notably PRICE CHANGES and STATUS changes), the only one who "wins" is the portal who is hanging onto data, ANY DATA, right or wrong, that makes it APPEAR they have MORE LISTINGS than their competition!

Right on the money man! We pulled most of our syndication over last summer and I do my best to educate the Austin real estate agents. You might enjoy some of the thoughts shared on ours as well, I hope you can gain some useful data for your cause from the blog we posted last summer. The real estate community is in hot water and most do not know what is about to hit them.

I am not sure who is being fooled more the real estate agents or the prospective buyers. The fact is that there is a ton of bad data out there and no one is paying attention or seem to care.

We can change this because we the the REALTORS have the chance to regain control of the data and should do so at once. If REALTORS do not wake up real soon about this topic our environment will continue to be more painful.

Turn the information feeds off and take back control of your profession!

Hi, Bart:

Great post! I try to remember to change the status of my listings in Zillow and Trulia, since it doesn't happen automatically. I'd better track down all the other places they may be syndicated to and make sure they're up to date.

Cheers,

Robin

This has been a problem for me also-Did not know about Kayyah-Thanks!!!

#1, don't post full address of home on syndicated sites

#2 the more unreliable syndicated web sites become the more a agent must be relied upon

#3 more is better if your contact data is displayed

Whew. Thorough post and dead on. I can calls months after my listings have sold from folks saying they found it on zillow or other sites. The latest one is several calls from a listing of mine that has the wrong zip code posted on a sydicated site. Who's responsible here? Me or the web site that pulled the wrong data? It's frustrating.

I am guilty of not reading all of the fine print. I guess I always thought that when I updated on postlets it automatically updated all of the sites the listings were syndicated to.

Thanks for all your research! You are so right - I have found listings that I sold over a year ago on sites I didn't even know were out there! And then, how do you get them off? Our MlS recently partnered with one of these sydication groups. I have been complaining that I can't find my listings on any of the sites "they" say "they" are sending them too. In addition, our MLS membership receives an email every other day from the syndication group wanting us to "pay" for a syndication membership that our MLS has already paid for (they also sell web sites etc..) We have really been dupped about this! I am going to pass your info on to our Board President. Thanks again for all your research and info.

Your article is very well thought out and informative, and certainly brings to light all of the marketing "messes" that we can get into without realizing it.

When I meet with a seller for a Listing Appointment, they are bound to ask about open houses, newspaper advertising, and internet marketing. I have found that even though many of these marketing methods sell less than 10% of the homes listed for sale, sellers still want them. After all, if you were selling your house, wouldn't you want to feel like your realtor was doing everything they could to sell your house? If I was to hire a Realtor to list my house, I would not hire the Realtor that tells me that they are only going to be putting my house on 4 websites, but the Realtor that says that I will be on 35 websites. We as Realtors are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

It really drives home the fact that, when it comes down to it, no matter much a buyer wants to find a house "on their own", without the help of a Realtor, that they can be chasing their tale when it comes to finding properties available for sale online. It is the same as paying for those websites that promise foreclosure listings...they can be advertised as a foreclosure, but they may not be saleable properties.

Improvement in these beta feed websites is certainly necessary, as it is virtually impossible to bring full exposure of our seller's homes without losing some control over the advertising that we are doing on our clients' behalf.

Thanks for the information - I have been using Postlets for my Craigslist ads & suspected it may not be the best thing to do. Is there another system, like Postlets, that allows you to make good-looking Craigslist ads & not charge?

Very interesting information here. Of course on thing that could help is that the listing agent keep their own websites up to date as well. This could help curve some of the issuse.

Anything that creates competition for the MLS is a good thing. MLS organizations are monopolies and act like such. Having competitors who are pushing the envelope on technology and with regard to the development of new marketing tools is important for the industry and important for real estate practitioners. Suggesting that syndication engines are "bad" and should be avoided is about as close as I can imagine to sticking your head in the sand and ignoring what consumers want and need when it comes to information availability and transparency.

Here is a simple thought: When you post listings to syndication engines, make sure to keep the listing information updated. Too many agents have no idea what they are doing and to simply post a listing and forget about it is unprofessional and ignorant. Don't blame the syndicator's - they are providing a service and will only continue to exist if agents, and more importantly consumers continue to find that the services add value. Take personal responsibility and MANAGE your online data. It really isn't that difficult. If you aren't willing to put the time and effort to manage the listing through the full listing cycle then DON'T USE SYNDICATION ENGINES.

Vito Boscaino

Managing Partner

North High Realty, LLC

Dublin, Ohio

http://www.ServingColumbus.com

Interesting that you should post this today. Yesterday, after presenting offers to my seller, we discussed homes on the market he might be interested in. He presented me with a list of three homes that I had not sent him from MLS saying they fit his criteria. My response was, "I sold this one in May." He told me the name of the website and I had never heard of it. So, I for one can verify that info sits around in cyberspace on some real estate websites.

As they say in advertising: "There's no such thing as bad publicity".

Any exposure I get is welcomed and often I convert inquiries from 6 month old sold listings to new buyer clients.

Bring it on! The more exposure, the better!

I'm sure that if I checked around the web I could find a few of my listings that shouldn't be up any more.

Unfortunately, the cat is already out of the bag. In most portals, you don't get to select what sites are chosen for syndication. It's the bag or nothing. The choices are already made for you. Most MLSs and Boards still don't understand data and the internet. Most came from a mainframe environment so they are still trying to collect and treat data the same way. Standardization of data would definitely help, but good luck with that. To make matters worse, the people we serve (buyers and sellers) think most information on the internet is "accurate" no matter the source. The reason "solds" are shown on some of these portal sites is the sites are providing CMA options to buyers and sellers. Some sites don't even have the ability to show pendings. Syndication is nothing to be afraid of. The positives definitely outweigh the negatives. The true source of real estate information is the MLS. I think it's a bit late to try and control the use of information on the different sites unless the information is completely turned off or we are able to put some capital in the game.

That was a very informative article. I often use many of these sites and would like to represent my client better. I will be looking deeping into this later today! Great information!

Interesting fact I'd like to use in a newsletter article: Because of the 1.7 million homes listed right now on a dozen websites, more than 37% of all homes listed on many popular listing portals contain out dated listing information right now. Do you have info about where this statement came from - a study or something?

and in the end the only database that is maintained is the MLS. the rest of them are just seeking "content" that is filler for the ad sales...realtor dot com included, but to a lesser, RETS fed degree.

i tell my clients they can look all over the internet but not to call me on saturday night when they find a "new" listing that i missed. it takes a few times through the process when they find something for me to look up (that foreclosure that went for $140k in a $400k 'hood) before i can illustrate the pure crap that is most other databases...eventually they believe me.

until there is a penalty for incorrect data, like our MLS, there will be no reason to maintain the other databases. indeed they DON'T WANT YOU TO MAINTAIN, they need content...and clearly accuracy is not important. they just need content to sell ads.

but, if the name of the game is to get the phone to ring i guess they have worked...no?

There is little or no value in syndication and it takes too much time to try to keep up with the various sites. I may syndicate through point2, but nowhere else. At least with P2 I can easily stay on top of things and retain control.

Wow!

Thanks everybody for such a great set of responses.

It's clear that loss of control of our listings is a problem, and mopping up the mess right now doesn't seem to be too much of a problem for everyone just yet. I am a member of RETS.org and I encourage all of you to at least join it and be on the mailing list. We have to stick together to help make sure our listing inventory is accurate and up to date -- regardless of how many real estate "fishing poles," we put into the water -- the REALTOR needs to have control of our listings.

Has anyone ever been yelled at by a new home owner because they found the house they bought was still listed for sale on some other syndicated real estate portal? Let me know.

-- bart

Great post! I plan on bookmarking it and re-reading. Regarding listings that are sold cancelled or expired, I wonder if state boards will get agressive and cite brokers for advertising violations.

Bart, this is a very well written, thought out post. Many sellers want their homes listed on these sites. The problem is when the status is not updated, or as you stated has been syndicated to so many they have been forgotten about. I regularly have questions on homes that have sold months and months ago.

I'd love to see you tackle the (somewhat related) RealtyTrac problem. The information on their website is SO out-of-date. You'd think the subscribers who actually pay for their service would run screaming.

It's true that even if I update my own website and the sites I post my listings to I still sometimes have listings out there. One of the worst was a print magazine that I ran ads with, who NEVER updated my listings and never told me I should be doing it. I didn't go to or use their website. I didn't post to it so until a client let me know they found their house there and I called I was not aware. It does get confusing.

This has been a problem for me as well. But our brokerage automatically syndicates. What to do? Control what I can and just recognize that there are some things in life I can't control. What I don't like about these sites is that their long term plan is to sell our own leads back to us. We are, in effect, making our competition stronger.

Great post and refreshing to see an article with a lot of though behind it. I'm passing this information on to my Realtor clients. Thank you for sharing this!

Wow, great post Bart. Getting on the Phoenix Bandwagon now!

I've noticed the out of date listings but couldn't understand why they should exist in this information age. Thanks for shedding some light on this. So, 3-5 yrs. OK. (And yes, I've ready your article that says 2-3 yrs), but I have 20+ yrs of software development and that timeframe translates to 3-5.

Thanks for all the research you did. This is something that is hard to define and keep in touch with. I had a call last week on a home that an agent in our office had listed in 2006. The agent hasn't even been with the company for 2 years (left the state). We all need to be sure we update any info we can on all our sites.

While representing clients, we cannot afford to lose control over the information we collected from them regarding their home.

Bart... nice post and very important. Syndicating your listings on the web is not Social Media, and attention to detail should be paid. It's marketing, and no different than if you were running a'for sale' ad in the paper after the home already sold.

I found this out the hard way with a transaction almost two years ago. He would call me daily telling me to take it off of "XYZ" website. I would tell him to just email me the name of the website and I will have to manually remove it!

Thanks Bart I am going to check into this issue on all my listings.

With all of this technology there also comes issues we have never had before. I guess we will learn as we go to some extent.

RETS sounds like a solution to the syndication issues we are all familiar with. Unfortunatley implementation seems to be down the road.

Great post, I will be recommending my clients check this one out, I have heard some complain about topics you have referenced. thanks.

Listing sydication is a listing management headache! Bart's article is dead on and should be the blueprint that every listing agent uses for understanding why and where their listings end up on the internet. Our value as REALTORS is that we can provide focused information to potential buyers. Not hit a button that sends our listings to a hunderd different places most of which we can't even control. If you are putting your listings on the internet you need to understand where your listings are going and how they are getting there (i.e. what sydication feeds override others!) Don't be the one who gets a phone call from an unhappy client who found their listing with a snow picture on it in July on some obscure website you didn't know about.

Nice carpet bombing analogy... and the ironic thing is all of the misinformation or old information on the internet brings us back to:

"REALTORS once upon a time were the only trusted source for buying or selling a home".

I wish I had a dollar for every phone call from a confused buyer or seller who calls and tells me they saw it on the internet...

In other words... REALTORS are still the source with the best information.

Bart: You've done your homework & very thorough post. My thoughts: Trulia sucks, they never keep up with price changes & when you call, they blame your feed. Every other site works well for me except Trulia. It's full of junk, junk & more sold junk. They just can't get their act together so I've just stopped entering my listings.

Have had no problems whatsoever with Postlets which I also put into CraigsList. Most buyer hits come from the Postlets that I put into ActiveRain. They have tracking for each listing which works well.

Zillow: Although better, they suck at #2. Zestimates, etc are so off base in my area they should be taken to court for the nonsense they post as accuracy.

I was actually going to call the board with an issue that I saw recently with my Google Alerts for certain areas. Companies are picking up on listings that are not theirs and basically advertising them as their own. There is no MLS recip language but they are notifying of new listing in a town & gee it's not theirs. This happened for my own listing just last week & I will be checking what I can do about it. This was the site for RedFin. I might have to send a letter saying to cease & desist but then I would have to keep track of it to see if it's completed. Is this considered scraping? OR just plain thievery?

Bart - It seems like education on the Brokers side is needed for the agents to clean up their mess or they get fined. I can see how the standard, like many other industries have tried to implement can be benefical. I expect one real estate and lending catches up to technology, as they seem to be behind, they will be like every other industry, with many systems and many don't communicate to one another.

I agree that there are WAY too many sites out there now. The information gets diluted and often times is inaccurate/outdated. It's too hard to keep track of everywhere our listings show up.

Interesting information. It really drives home the fact that, when it comes down to it, no matter much a buyer wants to find a house "on their own", without help they can be chasing their tale when it comes to finding properties available for sale online. The internet is still the new frontier and we need to keep up with it. Thanks for the update.

Thanks for the comparison between listing syndication sources. We are lucky in Northern Colorado to have IRES, who has teamed up with ListHub, so that when we update our listing status, it is fed to ListHub and updates all the syndication sources. It was a huge improvement from trying to manage all the various sites manually.

Bart - Points well taken... We as Realtors should keep an eye on our portals... I know personally how many times I get calls from people looking at listings that sold last year or even longer... Can be pretty deceiving to the general public and we certainly don't want to generate any more negativity towards us than it already seems there is out there... Just my two cents

I have stopped posting on Craigslist. I find that the scammers scrape my listings from Trulia and offer them for rent on Craigslist.

This definitely is a problem. Hopefully these syndicators will start doing a better job of followthrough when they start losing business. I have only had one call where a buyer of mine saw their home advertised online after they moved in. Not only was it still online, but it was showing as listed by an agent who had the listing before the agent who had it when it was sold.

More often, I get calls from buyers who saw properties online that were sold months ago. I direct them to use the MLS search through my site so they can be certain they are getting up to date information.

Bart,

I have read this with great interest....I have had issues with Trulia....they were scraping my website...it took me forever and a day to get someone on the phone to stop it....

You really laid this out well....I am bookmarking....and subscribing!

There are some very valid points here from both perspectives. It's unfortunately that syndicated sites don't have a way to automatically update data when changes have been make in the MLS. On the other hand, i have to agree that i don't mind at all when someone contacts me about a place that sold 3 months ago. It gives me the opportunilty to work with someone who might not otherwise have found me.

I don't have a problem with my listings going to as many sites as possible. As a listing agent, I was hired to sell a home. We strive to keep everything updated through processes and systems we follow. I know that my listings make it on to other sites I did not knowingly authorize, but it is extra publicity that exposes my listings to hundreds or thousands of extra people. Some sites don't update the listings. How is that any different than print advertising? Ten years ago, we would need to have ads turned in to the papers two weeks prior to publication. By the time the ad ran, one third of the listing prices, status, etc. were wrong.

Most advertising is going to be outdated by months, weeks, or even just hours. The Realtor is still the best source of current information. Would you want it any other way?

It is also worth mentioning that there are people on Craigslist that will flag and delete your postings is they are too "fancy". They don't like posts from Postlets, Vflyer and others and get annoyed when they are overposted.

Wow Bart, that's quite a list and detail to go with it. I had exactly the problem you mentioned, a new homeowner called me to see why his home was for sale. The website where he found it isn't one that I knew anything about or had any control over.

Thank you for the timely post. Two items: 1) Point2 does update from the MLS every 24 hours, to help limit stale information. 2) Point2 does allow you to choose the sites where your listings are featured.I'm sure it does have its problems, though.

And yes, I have a horror story! My Mother-In-Law bought a home out of foreclosure two years ago. 8 months after she closed, she heard a loud banging on her door at 9PM. Frightened, she called me (I live on the same rural road) and said a man and woman found her home on th MLS and had their green-as-grass Realtor with them. They wanted to see the property which was listed for $10,000 on that site. I yanked that brand new agent by the proverbial collar and showed her she was using MLS.COM, not the actual Realtor MLS in our area. She was looking at a "listing" for a second mortgage's lein, and the information was widly out of date. I wrote to her broker and to the owner of that site the next day. It was a very stressful and DANGEROUS situation, since you are likely to see the end of a shotgun if you bang on doors after dark in this part of the country. Thise sites, that troll the foreclosure filings and "post" them, are especially misleading and harmful! And, frankly, its our job to EDUCATE buyers about them.

very well done -- another point -- you can say the listings are syndicated but don't make promises that they will be posted nor taken down in a reasonable time --

Thanks so much for a wealth of infomation to digest. Very informative post!

I remember when REALTOR.com did not update listings. At first we all hated it, then some of us used it as a reason why buyers should not rely on REALTOR.com and should allow us to set them up with an automated e-mail search which will give them fresh, updated listings.

I have syndicated through my old Point2 site (and you could choose), but Point2 was not connected to my MLS and Stephanie's comment #68 is the first time I've heard about P2 being set-up with any MLS.

I've never had a seller or new buyer complain that their listing is still up somewhere or posted incorrectly (old price). If it's a portal I don't know about, it probably doesn't get much traffic to begin with. I constantly check google rankings for the address of my listings to see where they have been indexed and if the information is correct.

And if a potential buyer ever does contact me from a portal showing a sold listing, I just tell them that I have no control over that particular portal/site and that the home is no longer available, but can I set you up with an automated search so you don't waste your time on outdated information from these kinds of websites...

Bart,

Great article. I think that many agents are afraid of NOT syndicating their listings because their sellers are demanding it from their limited understanding of the media. The struggle for being #1 on Google is ridiculous, especially if one understands that you need to be THE Google of your marketplace. Most real estate is hyper local, ie a small town in Arkansas or Nebraska, or California (just using as an example) isnot gain anything from a world wide syndication. However, if a listing is exposed to neighboring towns, then syndicating in a market that is likely to attract buyers makes sense. There is no point deep sea fishing, if no one in that market will pay attention to your listing....Selective syndication is key!

Wishing you great success in 2010, Santa Fe is a beautiful place!

Thanks for the info. I syndicate my listings have ran into this issue before. I will reread the fine print.

It just points out that REALTORS are still the best source for information. I give all my clients a ListingBook account which shows all the current listings and is updated every 30 minutes directly from the MLS. If it isn't in ListingBook it isn't active.

Thanks for the great post on a touchy subject. While my listings are on some of these sites, some I try to avoid. A couple pressure you to report the sold price, which would be a no no in Texas as we are a non-disclose state. Realtors need to be more careful about where they advertise a listing.

Cheers!

Betina Foreman-Austin Realtor

I guess that might be another reason to keep track of where listings are posted and stay on top of those... see where the leads are coming from and give those the most attention...

I think it is a fine line between getting your listings in front of as many people as possible and overdoing it. I would like to see a little tighter control over inventory.

Bart - I agree that syndication can be difficult to maintain and update all your listings. For a while I thought your post was a commercial for kayyah. Not sure what the answer is to clean this up.

I've never heard of Kayyah, gotta check that one out. although I agree that old outdated info is not the greatest, having our listings out there after the fact has generated more business for us, so I do not think it is all bad!

Good Afternoon, Bart!

WOW. This post really made me sit up and take notice. NOW I understand better why some of my listings are seemingly "stuck" in syndicate land. Time to whittle down my list, that's for sure!

Just a note: www.onerun.com -- DON'T use them! I did and all I have gotten is spammers. Craig's List is getting to be the same way, unfortunately. Trulia and Zillow aren't far behind...

Thanks for opening my eyes today! I REALLY appreciated this post!

Bart,

I lost a listing because the seller could still see the old photos of their home on Trulia and the other web portals that Trulia uses. I told them I had no control and do not even post my listings to Trulia. I found out that a print media I used also uploaded our listings into their database which sent them to Truilia and who know's who else. Thanks for the post! Maybe it will push the right people to make the right decisions.

Bart,

I thought it was odd that I would get contacted after a property was conveyed many months prior. Liked getting someone to potentially convert but would not want to answer the questions about why am I getting calls on a house that sold previously.

The only part of this I have an issue with is the RETS system, which is still beta technology for all teh connectors I have found, and which if you use a custom IDX solution, as we do, it becomes extremely expensive to implement, and as far as I can tell, there are no real benefits to the end user (agents and brokers) with this, but rather only to 3rd party solution providers...

Other than that, the idea of bad data and lack of updates when status changes is a real issue... at least for the Trulias of the world, whose data becomes out dated almost as fast as it is posted. But to me, that is an issue Trulia nad the others should resolve, in tehir own interest, and it should not require me to update my own system pointlessly.

If their data is out of synch, it reflects on them, and not so much on the agent with the listing.

I am a board member of our MLS Inc. and we have been trying to educate brokers about the dangers of syndicating listings without knowing all the specifics of the sites. We hear many complaints from brokers about not being able to track down the "right person" to change the outdated listing. We really can't help them - once its out there, it's out of our control. Your article is great and very helpful. Thanks.

I have gotten inquiries on properties that sold and closed years ago. I never object to talking to a prospective purchaser. I am fortunate in that I have never heard from an irate seller or buyer whose privacy had been disturbed by a would-be purchaser. I shall certainly put some attention on Syndication Control in the future!

I have always had concerns about syndicating our listings, but have done it anyway so satisfy sellers not seeing their property for sale on every site they can think of. After reading your post I am going to focus on all the providers in green and put more thought into zillow and google base.

Bart,

Great post! I looked into this because with people searching the web, they're coming up with homes that haven't been on the market for ages! Then I look stupid for not being able to find them Active on the MLS. Thanks for educating!

Wow, the most educating piece of information that you have given is the chart showing what rights we retain in regard to listings. I will be the first to admit that I am just as guilty as the next person when it comes to being a syndication whore. I am going to reblog this, and then sit down to rethink my strategy. Great Post!!

This was a really great post. Hope this gets resolved sooner!

This is a response to Judy Orr:

Judy, our MLS just linked up with Point2 a few months ago (I've had Point2 for a few years now), and although there are a few kinks to still work out, I love it! No more manual uploading of my residential listings! Commercial and land still have to be done manually (not sure if that's just due to the feed my MLS is sending or if that's all Point2 can do). I do still have to go in and manually post to Craigslist, but the all updates, price changes, etc. are automatic now- very timesaving! have your MLs contact Point2 if they are interested- it costs the local Association nothing- Point2 just uses it as a way to sell more sites to agents, but the basic link is free.

As someone who represents a website that takes feeds from various syndication services, I have a few responses/comments specific to Zillow.

1. We only post information that is sent to us. We don't go out and scrape listings. So if you see information that is dated/wrong on the site, that means the misrepresentation was given to us. We have no way of knowing otherwise. What can you do? Two things:

a) Scroll to the bottom of the listing and locate in gray text where it says 'data provided by....'. Then change the information at that source, this will then be updated on our site. Most feeds process every 24 hours.

b) Locate the gray flag button on the listing, click it and describe the problem. Doing this triggers an email to our customer service.

2. We potentially can receive the same listing from as many as 10 different sources. So to determine whose data to use, we put the following trumping order in place (from highest to lowest): Agent entry, Broker, MLS and then syndicater (first in among this last set).

3. I don't think the number of sites one is syndicating to is the problem as much as the number of syndication services being used. If your Broker is taking care of syndication for you, there is no need to sign up for postlets or use the syndication service portion of the magazine you advertise in. This just makes for one more place an agent needs to remember to remove a sold listing from or update a price change.

4. You talk about the 'herd mentality' and how this applies to why agent syndicate. I don't think it was agents, so much as it was Sellers that are driving the need to be everywhere. 15 years ago Sellers wanted their home in every newspaper in town. Today they want it on every site. The idea of being everywhere hasn't changed, just the technology. And now fortunately, it is free (or low cost) to accommodate these Sellers unlike when you use to have to place a number of costly ads.

5. "If Google is generating 74% of your traffic, leads and conversions, then it makes sense to stay with Google Base for syndicating your listings. There's no need to waste your time on tinier portals that might bring you a fish." Why turn your back on the potential to get 26% more business, that could represent significant dollars for very little time or investment cost? If Google is working that well, then I say spend some time (and maybe some money) on how you can make it work even better, and let everything else go more on autopilot for the occasional fish.

I just went through the process of hiring a listing agent. Personally, I wouldn't consider using someone that wasn't going to get my listing everywhere. You never know what site that next buyer is going to use. You'd be surprise the lack of overlap of audience many of the biggest sites have.

Thank you for sharing all this information. Before signing up, lets always remember to read the fine print. By the way, Craigslist is awesome! I get tons of leads there!

We all want out listngs to be presented to all the buyers out there but the administration of the property can get very time consuming. Looking forward to the solution.

Oh my goodness! This post has so much information! I have had many problems with syndications myself in the past - While I may manually change the status the "other" portals that it feeds to do not get updated - some angry calls, believe me. I have become very selective where I syndicate my listings.

Thanks for the the great post. I was involved in one of the rental scams in the summer. It was very troubling because you cannot get any help from any of the companies. You can't even get responses from them. I hope everyone takes a moment to read this post and understand the consequences of their actions...............chris

Bart great article I am #1 agent for Trulia across the entire country that is top 10 questions I answer daily why are these websites not current trash our profession. My website provider draws direct from MLS one click I have registered in many locations where I can control with one click NOW how simple is that many should search web site providers who offer this service.

I spent several hours trying to correct a list price on a house that is listed on many sites. It was orginally listed for one price, then the owners dropped the price. Some sites caught the price change, others did not. It took me forever to try to figure out how to get some sites to recognize the new list price. It is so complicated and such a time drain. There should be an easier way for us to do all of this.

I've also fielded calls in the office on properties that have been sold for 6 months or more. We worked hard to figure out how on earth the caller found the properties and scrubbed the listing off the web. This took lots of time, too.

So, I was already not sure if I was going to go through all of this again. It ties up so much time.

A good point to make about craigslist is that it is a web 1.0 version and its not very powerful in the rich media context. However, within keeping it simple, its one of the best ways to advertise and yes alot of it is manually updated, but there is real estate software that can help you with that and shave off a step or two here and there.

I agree with your point on syndicates though, we have a very powerful proprietary database, but we don't push our inventory out to more than 3 major portals. It makes management way too cumbersome. People need to focus on generating better leads, not more leads.

Excellent points, be careful what you sign up for, it may come back and bite us.

Your post addresses many of my own concerns about syndication. Thanks for the fact filled informative post.

Great post. Very informative. I am a fan of as much syndication/distribution as possible. Your post really sheds a technical light on things in a way I hadn't considered. I'd really like to reblog this.

Evening Bart, Wow, so much information - so little time. This is an excellent reference piece ! Hope your Holiday Season is the best ever !

Thanks for the feedback and passion! We agree wholeheartedly that data quality is of utmost importance.

We get listing data from multiple sources, including directly from the broker source. So when you update the information on your broker's site, Trulia automatically gets the update - and depending on the time, it will be live anywhere from within a few minutes to 24 hours (something we're actively working on making faster). The same goes with data we receive from other sources like MLSs and third-party syndication sites; when new information is sent to us, we update the current listing info. We also follow a simple ranking mechanism and try our best to screen out duplicates.

We give brokers and agents complete control over the listing data they send us. Trulia's listing management tools allow for onsite information to be updated, pictures re-ordered, etc. We link back to the listing provider and a broker can remove their listing at any time.

We work very hard to put things in place to curtail these issues, such as our ranking algorithm which takes data quality into account so the best, freshest information comes to the top. You brought up some great points, but really if you ask any MLS board, other brokers, we all suffer from the same issue - old, outdated information. We are partnering with the industry to come up with the best solutions for purging stale listings. Our goal is to have the best consumer experience and that means displaying the most comprehensive, high-quality data we can, which is why we worked with with many of the most well-respected MLS CEOs to develop an FAQ for listing syndication (link <http://www.trulia.com/MLSsyndication> ). Finally, it sounds like you are working on a product that will help many people - that is awesome. The more innovation that occurs in the industry, the better.

Bart ~ Great post. We had an issue with Craigslist this past summer and posted the incident on our website: www.edhunnicutt.com. I like Tina Merritt's response: put a disclaimer on listings. Thanks for the information.

Bart I agree with all you have written. EXCEPT I have sold 100s of homes that were syndicated all over the place yet I have NEVER had a complaint from a new owner about someone contacting them because they felt their house was still for sale. I think this horse has already left the stable and it's too late to coral them back at this point.

In Texas it is a violation of the License Act to sell/market real estat without written permission of all of the owners. If your still marketing the property without the NEW OWNERS written permission through a syndicated website your in violation. So again, be careful!

Thank you so much for all this knowledge packed into one article. I am passing this along to our listings manager.

Hey Bart, thanks for the very informative post. I had a listing that had gone off the market several months ago but I am still getting calls. It does seem as though everyone is picking up on the syndication. Some of these sites, I have never heard of. I sometimes wonder if the site is helping you by posting your listing or you are helping the site. For some reason, humans have this built in mindset that if one works, ten is better. Go figure!!!

Interesting points Bart! I just received a note from a client on Trulia yesterday that was asking to see a home that has been off the market for months! Hopefully, the word will get out on these sites that their information is inaccurate and people will turn to a more trustworthy site.

Great points, I have often been frustrated when a client pulls up some long ago closed listing on one of "those" sites. I do syndicate and you bet I will be reading and watching even more carefully.

Bart - you have done an outstanding job on a hot topic that is just getting worse and worse, adn lcearly lots of agents are having issues with listing syndication problems. I agree Trulia ia an issue, adn Zillow certainly is as well. I wrote a recent post about my Zillow problem. It becomes a weighty task to find every place your listing ends up, and I suspect it will only get worse.

Jeff

Seems to me this might bite those sites that keep stale data and publish it. After a while, when their customers continue to find that the data is unreliable, they will start to seek more reliable sources.

As a buyer, I sure would not be happy to discover that the house I thought was "perfect", was old 3 months ago. What a disappointment! From that perspective, it is reminiscent of a "bait and switch".

Excellent blog post - while I am a fan of syndicating our listings to as many places possible you bring up many good points that I must now look further into. Thanks for the information.

Clearly something needs to be done, about commoditizing the information and by association, realtors. I dont understand how all the laws happened, that gave birth to the public websites, and the LEAD SELLERS..but I know I can control a few things..

I can control WHO is syndicating MY leads, and the quality of service and data I get, and where those contact leads go...

I can control..what I pay for leads... I WILL NOT PAY FOR LEADS FROM ANY SERVICE! Period. If we stop paying for them, they will soon be OUT OF BUSINESS...

I can control whether the ADDRESS shows on my syndications, I DONT SHOW IT. I think it does the homeowner a dis-service to have their address publicly posted on the internet. Remember they listed with a realtor for a number of reasons, one of which is security. I dont show the addresses on my listings.

As for an all in one, MLS that combines fsbo's and professionals.. Personally I dont like the idea and would not subscribe to such a service, because it FURTHER DETERIORATES the Value of a professional realtor, and infers to the public that they can do better on their own without representation. Its amazing to me how many dont understand that the LISTING agent represents the SELLER! The homebuyer that goes out and knocks on doors on his own?? ha..he'll learn quickly that he's better served by using a PROFESSIONAL REALTOR.

Heads UP to each of our local WAR and NAR delegates, as well as our local MLS. Lets see what we can do to STRENGTHEN our position in the market place, not further devalue it.

HA HA HA, Zillow is the worst! A real Joke!

Wow. Food for thought. I have been on the receiving end of this -Before gettting a RE license, I had a home listed & decided to take it off the market. Eventually relist as a fresh listing. Well, the agent could not seem to get if off a multitude of websites. It ticked me off big time.

Once again, everybody WOW -- thanks for the feedback! It is much appreciated. I'm learning so much from all of you.

I did not know about the laws in some states like Texas where you MUST have permission from the Home Owner to syndicate your listings first. Who can tell me what the FINES are if you post a home owner's listing to a website, and they get mad at you?

What are the penalties or fines per day? Let me know about that if anyone from Texas can fill me in.

Thanks!

-- Bart

Bart, thank you for such detailed information as well as your point of view. I am contemplating the many levels of discussion included in your post and appreciate the input. My results from syndication are mixed. I use Point 2 and some manual sites that I control as well. But letting my listing loose in cyberspace can be a blessing and a curse. The fish chumming analogy is so accurate! Your links and thoughtful narrative will surely help me make better decisions for my seller clients.

Good luck with your new book!!

I disagree with a lot of this post. When you syndicate listings the web sites also contain fine print to protect agents that the data may contain outdated or incorrect information, etc. and if a listing is expired or sold, who cares - it is lead generation and it is fair game. How can I be responsible for another web site keeping up expired infomation? Answer - "I can't" and I would like to see someone try to argue that point. For someone who "claims" to be an SEO "Rock Star" - you should know that the more content you put out, the better. P.S. I think I am going to use the SEO "Rock Star" label as I have the #1 ranked Pocono real estate web site. What have YOU got?

Tough one to fight, there is just not a lot you can do when your MLS ships it out on a live basis - but then again, that should update the status too...

Our MLS does it, so it's more tightly controlled, but it is a minefield out there.

You give us some definite things to consider. And, I appreciate the representatives from Zillow and Trulia to stop by and give us their opinion.

Real great blog. Tons of information. I haven't run across this issue as I work mostly with buyers.

DEC

2009

I have to play devil's advocate and say, Who cares if a home is still listed for sale on Vast or OLX a year after its sold? (Well, unless your in Texas, as someone pointed out!). From the perspective of a buyer, no one looks for homes on these sites. They are so non-user friendly. Have you tried to find your listing on Overstock.com? It's a joke! No sane person who is smart enough to qualify for a mortgage would waste time on these sites trying to find a home. Better yet, they are so cumbersome they probably drive them to call a Realtor and start using the MLS search! These sites are GOOD for our industry, because it shows the consumer that nothing is accurate like the MLS.

While I understand the theory behind the problems with lack of control, I fail to see a real problem concerning buyers. Most buyers who move into their new home aren't searching obscure sites to see if their home is still advertised. It's off of the MLS, it's off of Realtor.com, which feeds to the most popular...and it's out of public view. I doubt anyone ever had a knock at the door from a prospect "Hi! I was just looking on pad4pad and your home was listed for sale, can I come in?"

The problems truly begin when the home undergoes a price change, or is re-listed with another agent. You can have as many as 3 listings on Zillow, all feeding from a different site. Buyers aren't really looking there (the serious ones anyway), but your seller could be. And when they see their home listed at the old list price in three separate listings, can you say 'FIRED'? Listing agents need to be aware of which sites feed/control the others and act accordingly. Don't assume your price change automatically went through to all the other sites - check it before your seller finds it and flips out! You should be proactive in your listing presentation and explain syndication, and how you do not have control over the feeds, only the original source.

Great topic Bart!

Yes, these are good points. And the portals can really be a mess. I've run into this on several other listings before. But what to do?

Hi Bart, great post and lots of good comments. I agree that there is a lot of stale info out there and RETS may be the answer, but most of this problem is a result of agents not keeping their listing info updated.

Some agents here have complained that it is to time consuming to update, but they arent complaining about time when they were uploading their listings for free, telling their clients at the listing appointment that they would be putting their home on hundreds of websites for them.

Agents should use only one site like WWW.HOMESEEKERUSA.COM that will syndicate to all the other sites, then the agent only has to make changes on that site and within 24 hours they should be changed on all the others. Our site allows buyers to search the MLS as well as posted ads.

Other sites in our network that allow one stop free posting and syndication are:

www.bestbuy-realestate.com

All of us need to remember that all of the syndication sites are tools for agents to get leads, and most of them are Free! Lets not bite the hand that feeds us especially in this economy.

Dave

HomeSeekerUSA.com

WOW! Plenty of work with great information. I see this same challenge with autos (a teammate was looking at some cars last night and was very frustrated). Need to work this everyday to be sure to maximize sales.

have a great day

tony

i guess i do not have an evel mind, I could not think up that stuff on how to rip people off...but the information is really good.....forget the out side listing portals....if the lazy agents would just keep their MLS up to date!

All these out isde portals this is where the lax industry is at fault..in the old days a Profeeional Realtor was the only one with listing information and you had to contact a Realtor to get this secert and presious information

Thanks for your perspective. Is timely, too, as our local MLS board has very recently activated listing syndication via a nationally-known vendor. Best, -JC

Great, more work. I got an email on a recent closing asking if the home had sold, and it dawned on me that the outside sites like Zillow don't get updates in real time. What you are saying is that the problem is not a few isolated glitches, but systemic.

Wow lots of good information. I am very interested in hearing more about the Kayyah (PHOENIX) with a unique PhatKey technology that you mentioned- be sure to keep us posted on that.

I have noticed it a few times, when I get a call via syndication.

It is really up to the agent to monitor or take it off when sold, many agents don't do that. I called an agent last year who one of my clients found on Trulia. I could not find it on the MLS. She laughed, and said oh I haven't had that listing for a year, another agent listed it.

Needless to say it was not active.

Maybe RETS will help it.

I respect your thoughts and concerns and can see where the consumer can be miss-lead because of a listing not being updated.

Who put the listing on the syndicated site anyway? Diligence is not a one way street

Good point, when I look at the hits on some of these portals its next to nothing. And is worth even if the info was correct and it isn't. I'm going to re-think which portals if any I should choose for my listings. Thanks for the reminder. I would rather the buyers go to my website http://realtybydan.com and serach over 30,000 CT listings and the data is accurate,
How do these protals keep from duplicating listings as they're being fed from different siurces?

Thanks so much for this very informative post. It has definitely hightened my awareness.

The fact that the portals info is not accurate is the best way to take the internet away from the buyers and give them a reason to work with an agent. It's just one more way to show them how you as the agent will make life easier for them. Lets face it what will takes hours for the buyer to search on the internet the agent and do in minutes

Bart - because of the errors I noticed via the syndication to the bigger sites like Zillow and Trulia I started manually entering our listings there - it's a pain but at least I know it's right. And the errors were not necessarily from these sites but the feed was picking up e.g. 3 baths instead of 4 because you wrote 3 and 1/2 baths etc. I felt it was a risk I didn't want to take - to have so much erroneous information out there. Now of course I just read Sara's post about Zillow starting to charge for manual entry, which makes me now having to rethink about syndicating it there.

Nobody has yelled at us but we when we get lists of homes to see from buyers that pull them from these sites often most of the homes are not for sale nor have they been for a long time ~Rita

Bart, This was very interesting a lot of information. I also syndicate via several site to get the exposure. I would not really rely on those listings information, if our MLS is not up to date due to lazy agents imagine how it is with these sites where you have to go back manually and edit, I have cut back to where I post. These places are great for leads, but not to search as an MLS.

This is an extremely useful post that makes me pause and think.

Thank you.

The positive here is this shows why an agent is needed even more. I had a buyer who kept going to a big agency website torcheck listings until I got her on autoemail. She preferred to do this instead of going to our MLS site and check things.

A lot of times buyers want to feel they know more and are missing something so they keep searching various sites. In this example, regardless of how much I told her MLS would have the accurate data, she still told me she had to search other sites just in case.

This is a catch-22. We have to read the fine print, yes. But at the same time, our sellers want to know they are all over the internet. A balancing act indeed.

Great post and great homework! Will be reading the fine print more thoroughly.

Thanks!

Brenda Swigert,e-PRO

ReMax Unlimited West Chester, Ohio

www.BrendaSwigert.com

513-378-1461

I didn't realize I needed to remove my lisiting from syndicated sites until I received a call on an old listing. Yikes! I just figured it would be updated when posted as sold on Realtor.com which is syndicated by our MLS.

Slow down… the sky is not falling!

Let’s look a little deeper here. While there are risks associated with “blast it everywhere” approaches to listing syndication, it’s important to understand that not all syndication platforms are created equally. You can achieve broad online exposure for your listings without exposing yourself to the risks described here.

ListHub has some fundamental tenets that we keep when working with property search portals, or as we call them, “Channels.”

Here are some basics:

1. Your listing, your lead. We do not include channels in the ListHub network that sell leads back to the brokerage/agent community.

2. No re-syndication. We believe that the practice of re-syndicating opens the door to liability for the listing broker and agent. There are no guarantees that the recipient of the data will not display it correctly, update the listing with status changes, or refer the leads to the listing brokerage.

3. No hand-entered data. There is no listing input screen in ListHub. We only source data from MLS databases (using RETS) with very few exceptions (usually brokerage databases). By updating online listings directly from MLS we are able to assure price and status changes are consistently updated.

4. Links controlled by the listing broker. Listings must display with the broker’s selected link – usually back to the property page on the brokerage Web site.

We have cooperation from the channels we work with to accomplish these objectives. We also spot audit the Internet and are generally on watch for “bad behavior.” ListHub would not include a channel in the network that was out of compliance, and with 2 million broker-authorized MLS-accurate listings, most channels value the opportunity to serve the 20,000 brokers in the ListHub network.

Sometimes we make special arrangements with our partners. Hotpads, for example, makes a practice of re-syndicating listings in some cases. But they categorically do not resyndicate the ListHub listings.

In another example, VAST is a company that has demonstrated a very proactive approach in serving the ListHub community. They power real estate search for several sites, including Overstock.com. To give ListHub brokers maximum control they provided ListHub with the tools to allow brokers to select or deselect Overstock.com in the ListHub dashboard. Under no circumstances does listing data leave the VAST server.

ListHub does a good job of promoting broker and agent friendly practices, and reducing risk with the channels in our network. But if you are still unsure about the value or risks associated with a certain site, you can use ListHub to limit sites for your syndication accordingly.

This blog has raised awareness to many important questions that brokers and agents should be asking about listing syndication. But we must look a little deeper or else we throw the baby out with the bathwater. I would encourage brokers and agents not to adopt herd mentality with regard to fearing the online world, but to become educated in the various practices in online media and ask good questions before making decisions about syndication. Because consumers are already there, we can not afford to avoid the popular real estate portals. The online opportunites are too great to be missed!

I hope this helps!

Slow down… the sky is not falling!

ListHub has some fundamental tenets that we keep when working with property search portals, or as we call them, “Channels.”

Here are some basics:

1. Your listing, your lead. We do not include channels in the ListHub network that sell leads back to the brokerage/agent community.

2. No re-syndication. We believe that the practice of re-syndicating opens the door to liability for the listing broker and agent. There are no guarantees that the recipient of the data will not display it correctly, update the listing with status changes, or refer the leads to the listing brokerage.

3. No hand-entered data. There is no listing input screen in ListHub. We only source data from MLS databases (using RETS) with very few exceptions (usually brokerage databases). By updating online listings directly from MLS we are able to assure price and status changes are consistently updated.

4. Links controlled by the listing broker. Listings must display with the broker’s selected link – usually back to the property page on the brokerage Web site.

I hope this helps!

DEC

2009

RE: Craigslist.

There are systems in place that create the HTML code for the Craigslist listings that look just like a web page. In fact, clicking on any of the info (details, photos, agent info, etc.) will launch the individual property website.

The one I use is free and the best part about Craigslist is that the posts automatically expire!

If anyone wants to take a look at it please drop me a line and I can show you the way.

Michael Wolff

That post was a mouth full. It is a big problem. Worse I think many agents do not care; they just want to generate a phone call.

Great Post. I thought I was suppose to manage my own listings on all the websites. I didn't realize that a lot of agents don't check their stuff.

Thanks for the information.

DEC

2009

Great post! Google is forever asking me to be first place... for a price!

Meanwhile I have Buyers asking about MLS numbers that do not existanywhere... so garbage in and garbage out... and they do not remember which search they were doing that found the numbers!

I hope we can figure a better way for our future listings!

Once again, superb information that we can use today!

DEC

2009

#119 (Mr. Negative) claims to be #1 on Google. I just checked and he's nowhere to be found on page 1 OR 2. I think he needs to clear out his cookies and put a pin in his falsely overinflated ego. You always know that real estate agents who say they're top producers, are top only in their own heads.

DEC

2009

I can be a bit abrasive sometimes too. I don't like to sugar coat or white wash things. But at the end of the day, it's sad to see that some of us just don't "play very well with others."

I checked #119 SEO visibility. Couldn't find anything under the most popular key word searches either. Go figure.

An interesting point that needs to be said about stubborn people (or those with enough Hubris to fill the Super Bowl stadium) is that technology becomes the great equalizer. Jerks, morons, and stubborn people are all equal in the eyes of technology.

2010 is a real game changer. Thanks in part to Google's new multi-million dollar deals with Twitter and Facebook, a lot of these websites like those from #119 are certainly going to be affected by the "new rules," and may be banished to page 9 on Google's natural search results page. Nobody looking for real estate in any city is going to be patient enough to drill down to page 3 let alone page 9 to find #119.

Suffice it to say, there's still a lot of agents and brokers who have not yet learned how to Chirp on Twitter or frequent Facebook... despite all of the reports and evidence that has preached otherwise.

I'm not the only one thinking that 2010 is going to another mass (albeit forced) exodus for a lot of us. Bernice Ross, Barbara Corcoran, Michael Saunders, lots of us are seeing the same writing on the wall and we are all preaching for you to make preparations to survive the coming shakeout.

My educated guess will be that another 150,000 - 200,000 REALTORS will simply be forced out of the business in 2010 all because they were too stubborn or lazy to learn the basics of Social Media networking and now... for many, it's just too late for them to catch up.

Darwin Theory here at work. The top producers get richer, and the ones with zero visibility on Google get shown to the door.

AUG

2010

Bart, I noticed a $145,000 error one day on one of our listings. We had it listed twice, once with an extra lot and once without - someone somewhere and nobody at corporate or at the MLS or on the website, would fess up but they had made a huge error and if someone had contacted us and wanted to buy the house at that price, whose issue would it have been? I couldn't get anyone at corporate to even acknowledge that it might be a problem, even though it would be a very serious problem for them if a willing and able buyer appeared.

We also have had someone ask us to take a house off a website that was not listed anymore. And I have seen houses that have been sold for months still listed as Active. Like BB said, the house is out of the barn on this one - maybe RETS can help get it back under control. Great post.

AUG

2010

False Advertising of any kind is a hot topic for me right now. It's incredible and appalling how some agents that are clueless when it comes to Short Sales boast of hundreds of transactions and high closing ratios - neither metric being supported by the MLS.

JAN

2011

I really appreciate your post and it was superb .Thanks for sharing.I would like to hear more about this in future. Regards: http://www.blackitsoft.com/inventory-pos-software.aspx

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Bartley Wilson

Monument, CO

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VPiX® Corp.

Address: 590 Highway 105, Suite #276, Monument, CO, 80102

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