What Does Zillow's Aquisition of Trulia Mean for ActiveRain?

Can't wait to see what this news will bring.

I'm not a lover of Zillow, they always confused the clients and then we have to explain all what that website is about and take them out of that dream house they saw in Zillow that was sold years ago... It's kind of sad Active Rain is going to  merge with Zillow. We'll see if everything will be the same wich I doubt. Of course there is money involve, they must have seen  the big picture of what is going to happend in the future with the merge, with no worry of how it will affect our business.

Zillow buying Trulia buying Maket Leader buying Activerain is not good. 

I thought I'd go to Realty Times and grow that site. Then I thought. Hell, if Realty Times ever got real big, Zillow would just buy them.

I was remembering the saying "own your own dirt." Maybe I should blog the hell out of my website, and someday Zillow can buy it for $35B!

This can only mean an even stronger Zillow that will eventually become the 800 pound gorilla in the room with regard to how the National Association of Realtors will be forced to cooperate at the expense of its members.

Zillowrain?

Ernest Villafranca 

You mean ZillTruRain?

I think it would be better kept seperated.  No one entity should hold the monopoly on a specific industry.  They should of remained seperate.  Just my thoughts.  It seems now Zillow just has acquired the largest list of Realestate professionals.  

Will Allen I really don't see Z cutting off the hand that feeds them. I think some of the other answers and theories are a bit more plausible i.e. selling our listing back to us or anyone who wants to pay for zipcodes. But Oh Well, what do I know.

Comment #150 by Paula Hathaway is spot on!

I think all of us should stop posting content about our local real estate markets on Active Rain and only do blog posts here that are relevant to Realtors and how we practice our business. It’s far more effective any way to have your own website with great, local content that pertains to your market, good SEO along with regular, high-quality postings.

Let’s make ActiveRain into just a pure forum for Realtors and affiliates and make it completely devoid of any kind of market information. That will eliminate a source of market content for Zillow and Trulia and allow us to take back our customers by driving them to our individual websites.

Conglomeration of business seems to be the norm these days in the U.S., so why are we surprised that it is streaming straight at one of the most lucrative drivers of our economy - real estate?

I've been paying for leads from all 3 companies for several years. For the most part, the leads are not that great. People searching for real estate on the internet have been putting false phone numbers and emails like, "noneof yourbusiness.com" on sign in pages for years.

I get tons of calls about properties that have sold ages ago. I am left explaining that Trulia and Zillow are 'drag nets', that scour our listings, bury our lister info and never update the listings.

I am very seriously considering dropping all my ads and just putting the money into my own website, which I love, www.sandymccourtney.com, but without me plunging more money into it for SEO, it alone won't keep me alive.

Even our syndicated leads from our various brokerage houses have been less than desirable for years, also laden with bogus names, emails and phone numbers. 

Add the new mortgage crisis to the picture, i.e., nearly non-existent lending, and it surely makes me want to throw in the towel!

Sometimes to blow off steam regarding my hard earned dollars being spent on the public who has no knowledge of  the effort, time and money it takes to be a good realtor, I blare emails at "noneofyourbusiness.com". I know the email will bounce back to me, but so what? Isn't this the way Zillow, Trulia and even Realtor.com share holders see us realtors, i.e., "None of your Business".

Very soon, this may be our reality and whoever posted that NAR and our local associations do nothing for us is dead on! We pay and pay, but there is much to be desired and tons of spinning plates and wheels. What does it tell you when you see a realtor nominated to be a Treasure of NAR who has defaulted on three or four properties?

Greed, politics and corruption are running rampant through the real estate industry. How many realtors, albeit a handful, do you know who are wearing orange jump suits, i.e., jailed for fraud and are still working as realtors, i.e. licenses not stripped? In my own town, there are quite a few!

Instead of "Buyer Beware" I think the industry is singing a new tune, "Realtor Beware."

Can anyone recommend a good SEO person I can hire?

It is all about MONEY... how to get it out of the agents and for those who will run ads.  Our MLS now has an option that has to be checked on the feed to the MLS to let third parties get the information.  What I have been doing is for the first 30 days of the listing not checking the box to out-feed to third parties and try to sell the listings myself first

I'm not sure what to think about the Zillow and Trulia merger...  I'm just going to wait and see how things unfold.  I hope it is all positve for Activerain.

I agree with Bruce Hiatt at the top.  It's time that some of these websites, especially Realtor.com, start working for us instead of against us.

This will virtually put Zillow in the Brokerage business in Atlanta GA.   Our market, meaning our MLS data, is NOT owned or controlled by NAR.   We have a free and open environment.   We have Transaction Brokers that do not care if their name is branded to the public.  Agents are allowed to brand under a name of their own choosing.  So, if the public likes Zillow--and they do--and an agent is spending hundreds a month with Zillow, why not call yourself a Zillow agent?  The public doesn't care. 

Good morning Bob,

Yes, I do have a concern: Will it cost us now to be members of ActiveRain?

I do have customers calling me and saying they saw a particular property on Zillow and want to know more details about it. They trust Zillow dearly, but is the information accurate?

Time will tell.

This thread is bouncing all over the place and still rife with lots of new comments. It's obvious that many of us are very concerned about what the future holds in store for all three T, Z and AR. Sure glad I've got other things going in my life and in the RE Development world.

I say go long on  buy on Trulia and Zillow and hold. It's a great hedge and one way or the other you will win. 

Is this true? I heard today the woman Realtor that was recently murdered meeting a stranger at a property was from a Zillow lead?  Really?!?!

It is my understanding that zillow will no longer be getting listings from list hub but directly from the mls.  As a KW agent Market Leader uses List Hub for syndication.  Our particular MLS will not syndicate listings to zillow or any other third party for that matter.  I already have clients calling me to find out what happens to their listings on Zillow.  Some of my current clients our grateful that it won't be there any more and others are in freak mode.  I have some past clients that are glad to have the false information finally removed in April when they delete all the list hub listings.

The SEO effectiveness of the Active Rain blogs went way down when Trulia took over.  Only time will tell but it does not look promising to have zillow in the mix as well.