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Please Remove My Home From the Internet

By Norma Toering Broker for Palos Verdes and Beach Cities

Real Estate Broker/Owner with Charlemagne International Properties BRE# 01147470

June 09, 2010 07:52 AM

I sold a property last fall and last week I received a request from the buyer, now the homeowner of record, asking me to remove his home from all my marketing blogs, videos and ads on the Internet.

Who knew Internet Sleuth was a new facet of an agent's job description? Okay, it was easy to switch the YouTube video to private and remove some interior photos (although the furnishings in the pics belonged to my seller and were posted with his consent). A note notifying the new owner of the removal was met with appreciation AND a long list of links where he found photos of his property.

Yikes, some were on personal websites of other agents, some were on sites that pick up listings from the MLS and so on and so forth. Josh, my business partner, removed pertinent photos from our website and numerous blogs. Needless to say it was a time consuming task, but I have to admit we were pretty impressed with the depth and breadth of our marketing efforts. My former listing had worldwide exposure!

I understand the new homeowner's concerns. He feels his privacy is compromised. It was no small feat to locate and eradicate all traces of the lovely listing I once sold. I'm sure we missed a few sites.

Will other buyers cringe when their new home continues to show up on various Internet sites? Will agents soon be required to remove all traces of listings that went viral? What is our obligation to the new homeowner?

Norma Toering & Team RE/MAX Palos Verdes Realty
(310) 493-8333

PalosVerdesLifestyle - Nominated by Relocation.com as one of the top ten Los Angeles area real estate blogs. Ranked by Technorati in the top 1% of all blogs. As seen in the Daily Breeze newspaper.

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Norma Toering Broker for Palos Verdes and Beach Cities

Charlemagne International Properties - Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Palos Verdes Luxury Homes in L.A.

Gina - I will not be surprised if this becomes a common request, especially for the higher price point homes.

Jun 15, 2010 05:31 PM

Virginia Tatseos

Stage-Show-Sell - Bloomfield Township, MI

The only thing that we should do is mark the property as sold.

It's against the rules to advertise a house that we no longer have a listing for.

Everything else is bull....When we can go into google earth and look into someones yard why would we care about what the past owner had in the house

Jun 16, 2010 09:00 AM

Norma Toering Broker for Palos Verdes and Beach Cities

Charlemagne International Properties - Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Palos Verdes Luxury Homes in L.A.

Virginia - I think there is a happy medium but I expect more "rules and regs" to arise in the coming years regarding this issue.

Jun 16, 2010 12:32 PM

Joanne Gillet EdgeOfTheBeach.com

Edge Of The Beach Realty - Pawleys Island, SC

Experience is not expensive. It is Priceless!

Wow ~ now that is an interesting discussion!

You did what I would have done and tried your best to accommodate.

I would think or hope we would not have too many folks who would care........

Has anyone else had this happen?

I think I will re blog this!

Jun 21, 2010 11:28 AM

Norma Toering Broker for Palos Verdes and Beach Cities

Charlemagne International Properties - Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Palos Verdes Luxury Homes in L.A.

Joanne - Although the request was next to impossible, I think the effort I expended in an attempt to honor it was acknowledged and appreciated. I hope this not a growing trend...

Jun 22, 2010 10:32 AM

Joe Colón, Jr.

Jenny L Colón, PC - Chesapeake, VA

I guess my question would be, does the same "viral" result happen if and when the listing is deleted from the primary sites? Meaning the same domino affect. I know we want our information to be plastered on as many walls we can get them on, but is our repeated blog just a carbon copy or is it connected to the host somehow? I sure hope these questions make sense...

Jun 25, 2010 07:29 AM

Norma Toering Broker for Palos Verdes and Beach Cities

Charlemagne International Properties - Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Palos Verdes Luxury Homes in L.A.

Joe - It's complicated and I'm not sure I'm qualified to thoroughly answer your question. I know the listing information migrated to a variety of sites--some beyond my control to gain access to and remove the information.

Jun 25, 2010 03:23 PM

Jeff Dowler, CRS

eXp Realty of California, Inc. - Carlsbad, CA

The Southern California Relocation Dude

Norma - great article with lots to ponder. I wish I had seen this before! I haven't come up against this personally but would not be surprised if it does happen at some point.

There is still lots of public informaiton out there about homeowners that is out of our control - the tax records, Zillow and Trulia, and so on. There is likely only so much we can actually do and I'm not sure we are required to erradicate all evidence of the listing from the Internet. And even if we delete the post, or the individual blog site if used, there will still be information out there we cannot access or alter in Google's index.

I think it's fine to take care of those issues that one can do readily, but otherwise it is not a reasonable request. Terrific commentary and discussion.

Jeff

Jun 28, 2010 09:41 AM

Mary Sheridan

Keller Willliams - 1033 Hamilton Place,Johnson City TN 37604 - Johnson City, TN

Creative Marketing, Buyer Agency 423-943-7655

Another frustration is when I get a listing after another agent got fired, and the internet continues to show him as listing agent, with pictures that don't reflect current condition, wrong price, etc. The owner really doesn't want that agent to have anything to do with the property, but I can't delete things I didn't put there. Does an agent who no longer has a listing have any obligation to at least try to present a true picture by deleting the ones he can delete? That's another can of worms.

Jul 02, 2010 11:25 PM

Steve Sandoval

Hacienda Heights, CA

I recently had a tenant ask why I was not giving him the opportunity to renew the lease after our one year agreement. I inquired why he assumed that and he replied that he saw the property for lease in a "Homes for Rent" website. Apparently this website pulled the lease listing from the MLS a year back without updating it once it was leased to him.

My main concern was why he was looking at that website in the first place. (? ? ?)

Jul 10, 2010 09:55 PM

Sylvie Zolezzi

Decker Bullock Sotheby's International Realty - Greenbrae, CA

I have had an instance with a seller I had fired (because he was refusing to lower the price on his home and claiming it was not selling because it was UNDERPRICED) when he asked me to remove all the online advertising for his home because he was convinced I was using it as free advertising for myself. He did not understand how listing are syndicated and that we don't always control or know where they end up. The challenge was that it was everywhere and many times it was showing up at the original listing price, and did not reflect a price reduction. A nightmare!

Jul 13, 2010 02:42 PM

Norma Toering Broker for Palos Verdes and Beach Cities

Charlemagne International Properties - Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Palos Verdes Luxury Homes in L.A.

Mary - I've encountered that one too. The previous agent left his ads up until it was time to renew the website. Although he was no longer the listing agent he continued to advertise the listings online--yep, a new can of worms.

Jul 16, 2010 04:55 AM

Norma Toering Broker for Palos Verdes and Beach Cities

Charlemagne International Properties - Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Palos Verdes Luxury Homes in L.A.

Steve - I believe one of the first things a consumer should look for is a date on any advertised listings. The Internet contains lots of outdated information.

Jul 16, 2010 04:59 AM

Debbie Sagorin

Coldwell Banker Realty - Irvine, CA

Marketing Irvine to the Highest Level

Well, I sure hope this "trend" doesn't catch-on!!!

Jul 29, 2010 08:51 AM

Norma Toering Broker for Palos Verdes and Beach Cities

Charlemagne International Properties - Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Palos Verdes Luxury Homes in L.A.

Debbie - Yes, it was a surprise to receive the request.

Jul 29, 2010 10:03 AM

Kathleen Barnato

Kathleen Barnato, Your Santa Barbara & Montecito Connection - Montecito, CA

Realtor - Santa Barbara/Montecito Real Estate

Only 1 day after submitting my listing to the MLS and posting a blog on Activerain, I found out that the photos the seller had given to me were taken by the previous owners. These previous owners asked me to remove the photos, which I did. However, zillow, yahoo, realtor.com, trulia, etc. had all pulled this information into their respective sites. Try as I might, I was not able to get rid of the photos. I even submitted a new listing to the MLS, with new photos, and the real estate sites just used the old ones! The previous owners harassed me every day, even calling the owner of Prudential CA Realty and accusing me of intellectual property theft, as well as going to my neighborhood around the listing and talking trash about me! I had to hire an attorney who specialized in intellectual property and she put a stop to their harassment. $150 worth of photos vs. $1000's of dollars in slander and libel fees stopped them in their tracks.

Oct 20, 2010 12:27 PM

Norma Toering Broker for Palos Verdes and Beach Cities

Charlemagne International Properties - Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Palos Verdes Luxury Homes in L.A.

Kathleen - Wow, your experience is one I hope I never experience! I did my best to honor his request but as you said other sites pick up the information and photos and run with it.

Oct 20, 2010 09:37 PM

John Woodward

Sarasota Real Estate Group - Sarasota, FL

Broker - Sarasota Real Estate

I do not think you can be held responsible for actions of others. In other words, if someone "lifts" the info, then they put it there and not you. I would think you can only remove it from where you put it and those places that it can't be removed, it can't. Just because a person sells a house does not eliminate the record of the sale at the county court house. When a property sells several times, that history never goes away.

I know the MLS has "dealies" to put our listings out where ever they feel. Perhaps they should also be concerned about pulling them. Certainly, when the listing is over, no NEW ads or promotion should go forward.

However, if it was a sale, you should be able to promote that for as long as it works for you. I know I had a seller contact the board about advertising I did on a sale 18 months ago. I was a compilation mailer into the neighborhood of sales I had and this home sold for more than list. The result was, it sold for more than list, that sale always did, and it always will. So as long as it is truthful, I could use that "sale."

I think any request to remove something you never put out there, is not your concern.

The internet footprint we leave never leaves us :)

Jan 16, 2011 02:17 PM

Norma Toering Broker for Palos Verdes and Beach Cities

Charlemagne International Properties - Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Palos Verdes Luxury Homes in L.A.

Kathleen - Thanks for sharing your experience with a similar request. I'm sure there will soon be "case studies" on the subject.

Jan 16, 2011 09:39 PM

Norma Toering Broker for Palos Verdes and Beach Cities

Charlemagne International Properties - Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Palos Verdes Luxury Homes in L.A.

John - Thanks for your thoughtful comment--I agree, our Internet footprint is part of our legacy.

Jan 16, 2011 09:47 PM

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