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Collisions and the "Not So Rosy Side" of Listing Syndication: Trulia

My Broker supplies our listings feed to Trulia. Here is my listing on Trulia. Notice anything?

My Web address is not condo.com. Condo.com is another brokerage in the Miami area that is supplying select listings (usually the lowest priced listing in any condo building, from what I can see) directly to Trulia from their MLS feed.

There is my pretty face (only because I went to Trulia and "claimed the listing"). My broker notified Trulia (over three months ago) of this and:

Have not rectified the situation
Have no policy for "collisions"

This is the fly in the ointment for listing syndication. Trulia makes money from our content. Ok, good, no problem. Did you know: There is ABSOLUTELY nothing that prevents another broker from supplying a feed to Trulia (of the complete MLS) which would include MY listing.

Check your listings on Trulia. Nothing will change if we:

Don't know about the problem
Demand that they take a responsible approach to protect OUR content to the best of their ability
Demand to know about their "Collision Policy" before supplying the listings.

If Trulia wants my content, I believe they should feel a sense of responsibility to "clock" unethical brokers profiteering from my content. If they don't want to deal with it--we have a choice "to feed or not to feed" Trulia.

The reality, so far, is that they don't really seem to care as long as they are getting content.

I care. I think you should too.

Here's another little nugget: Set up a Google Alert (of the property address of the listing) everytime you get a new listing. It's INVALUABLE to know where your listing is being used.

ONE LAST SUGGESTION: Go to Trulia and claim ALL of your listings.

UPDATE: This post is in no way meant to dis Rudy. Rudy knows (and so does Trulia) that he's one of us--but as "The Donald" says: "It's not personal, it's business."

Posted by Kevin Tomlinson - Miami Beach Real Estate on 06/04/2008 01:31 AM

Comments (90)

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90 Comments on Collisions and the "Not So Rosy Side" of Listing Syndication: Trulia

JUN

2008

Thanks for the heads-up Kevin. I didn't know anything about this. I will be sure to check it out. There are so many of these sites now, I don't know how to keep up with them.

Leslie,

All I have to say is "GOOGLE ALERTS!"

Set those alerts up, pronto.

Yeah Kevin, but all you will hear in the way of an explanation are reasons why you shouldn't care, it' all in the best interest of the seller, which is a lot of crap. It's in the best interest of the seller and the listing agent to have the listing agents information on the freakin listing and nobody else's. The listing agent is the entity that the seller decided to put their trust in and hire. The listing agent and the seller agreed on a marketing plan. The rest of them are just looking to cash in for nothing.

I don't see them clamoring to remiburse the listing agent for their time or dollars in acquiring that listing. It's a form of theft of services that our board, our brokers and the NAR are supporting.

It's all a lot of crap.

Get your broker licenses.

Divest yourself of anybody trying to steal from you!

Laurie

We should care, and the more WE care the more the more they HAVE to care.

It's reminiscent of organized crime.

Hey Kev, do you know the difference between our government and organized crime? The only difference is who is in control at the moment.

Our content is giving Trulia juice and it seems that all they care about is getting content whether it is "whitehat" or "blackhat."

I would think that a broker who legitimately supplies a feed of THEIR (and only theirs) listings should be treated a little better than someone who is clearly bastardizing Trulia at the expense of the legitimate brokers.

For example they could have a policy of: If you supply any listings other than your own, YOU'RE OUT. Period. How hard is that.

Amazing and disappointing.

I always Google my listings to see where they are showing up. Setting up an alert is a great idea.

Oh to make it worse---

Here's the kicker: They altered my comments. Look at those comments, they are heinous.

Actually, that is a clear violation of our MLS rules.

Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow morning?

Hey MPH.

Yes, make sure you check out your listings on Trulia, too.

I'm confused. IS that your listing? Does that contact "me" button go to you or someone else? Looks pretty shady. Did you contact Rudy?

Beth contacted our Trulia rep months ago and it seemed to me, from my conversation with Beth, that this really wasn't that important (to them).

Yes, that's MY listing. If you hit the contact me button it goes to me ONLY because I just "CLAIMED" the listing tonight. Otherwise, it would have went to condo.com

No Ardell, the contact me buttons go to the agents Trulia profile page. If the agent is lucky the consumer might find the links on that page to their site. But how many pages down will any consumer go? There are whole studies on this issue. Trulia and others know this and are playing the odds of keeping the consumer on THEIR site, which is why the link immediately above the agents links on the profile page redirects the consumer to yet another Trulia page.

Hate that! The print books we advertise in are doing the same thing and I hate that they're competing against me for my business.

Jonathan,

Rise up brotha, just like I'm doing here.

JUN

2008

Great point we all have to check, but how many other sites are out there that we are not aware and cannot check. The internet is a huge entity....

Kevin,

I'll take a look. Our MLS has solid rules about "advertising" another member's listings. Must have permission. I always claim my listings in Trulia and use the google alerts.

List and Sell (and only advertise your own listings) Gary @ RentonHomeFinder

Thanks for the tip on setting up a google alert on listings. GREAT tip!

Since Trulia resides in San Francisco I wonder if California's Department of Real Estate would look kindly on them allowing another brokerage to steal a listing. I believe this is against all rules of all MLS's and perhaps, dare I say, NAR? Now, NAR doesn't do much for us but if we rise up and begin to complain, and file grievences everywhere, in every state and with each DRE of every state, Trulia might stop this crap and NAR might help. (Okay, wishful thinking but maybe...)

Our new listing hasn't shown up there yet, but we're watching and will make noises if this happens to us. Keep writing about it, Kevin. Your posts will get picked up by others and move virally.

Right now I'm putting them in the scum bucket. I am really disappointed in seeing this from them. I have higher hopes for that company.

As a head's up Trulia is not the only site this is happening on. It is happening big time on Zillow as well. We have written them several times about this, but to date they have not offered a solution. When we claim a home on Zillow, and a feed comes in, the feed is overriding what we claimed. Even when we have changed what the feed did, it seems that about every 10 days or so the error is repeated, making it really difficult to even try and keep one's listings in good shape there. Suspect this happens on other sites as well, but have not had time to check into all of them yet.

Interesting. I'll have to go check ours out. I'm not so sure I'm even crazy about giving any of these sites content... Thanks for the heads up.

Hello Kevin, Within the MLS model rules adopted by all the states and re-adopted by the local regional MLS's in each state, there is proviso for just this sort of thing. You should advise your MLS of what you have found and allow them to deal with this. You just might be surprised of the power in the local MLS.

Stealing another agent's listing is unethical right?

Cannot we take this to ethics?

KEVIN - This is good to know. I can't believe that they don't have a policy stopping others from using your listings, even when you've claimed it yourself. From the looks of the page, it seems that anyone could click the claim button and start claiming listings. Do you know if that is the case?

How is Trulia getting away with this? Why are they not in trouble for not posting the broker info on a listing? It is the law!

Also, I thought Trulia only received listings that were "fed" to them from the brokerages that chose to feed them.

I had no idea all this was going on. I better check my listings!

great point - I was not aware of this.

Looks like Condo.com got to your listing to claim it before you did.

I looked at the "claim this listing" feature and it's ripe for abuse.

Boy, when you get involved with these Internet data mining sites, you have to watch
your back.

I wonder how many buyers Condo.com has syphoned off?????

Laurie Manny is right. "It's all a bunch of crap". They are making millions off the backs of agents and the agents are largely in the dark. The rush to "get it on the net" has probably caused as many sales to be lost as made.

I don't know why anyone puts their listing anywhere except in their own LOCAL MLS. But, the horse has left that barn. Listing agents, who work their butts off to secure these listings and bring the properties to market are the milk cows at which the Trulia, Zillow, etc, suckle.

This one is particularly abusive because it invites agents to abuse each other. "Claim this listing". What the *^%*( is that supposed to mean. We know it's not yours but you might be able to steal some leads from the real listing agents who worked his butt off to secure the listing and bring this property to market by simply "claiming the listing".

How much time is a hard working agent supposed to spend policing their own listing information, which is the property of their broker? Geez. Any agent or broker who "claims" a listing on Trulia that they know isn't theirs should be severely fined for advertising another broker's listing. But, we know that won't happen.

Kevin's broker has about $15,000-$25000 riding on this listing. The broker who "claimed" the listing has spent now a dime securing the listing, but gets a lot of free publicity and possible buyer contacts, and ultimately, their goal, a sale from their perfidy.

BTW, I do not believe that folks don't know what they are doing when they claim a listing that is not their own. Of course it is Trulia that took Kevin's broker's property out and set is beside the curb with a sign on it "Claim this listing".

Of course, the cure is to make someone pay and get the word out. Like when someone steals one of your maps. More on that later. If Condo.com has no written policy and procedure for advertising their listings, they are culpable. Folks don't "claim" property that is not their own without knowing what they are doing.

Kevin - Thanks for letting us know about some of the challenges with Trulia. I am going to take a closer look at my listings and see if there has been any changes.

Kevin, I think I posted a few weeks ago on all the blogs going around about this, not sure if it started on AG or BHB, one of them. I did go in and claim my listings in case a consumer wanted to inquire on that listing.

Only one of mine wasn't there. I like your idea of setting up a google alert for each of my listings.

I think a lot of people were hoping Trulia would be a kind and gentler r dot com.

I'll go check around later today.

KT,

I`m more surprised you`re shocked at T.com actually doing this.

To the best of our recollection this has been happening for years now.

Our listings are being used by others as well and i`m sure it will continue.

It`s amazing how T.com paints a different distored view...

Kevin thanks for bringing this to our attention - it's hard to believe but a great reminder we're not in Kansas anymore! Keep us posted on your progress with this. Love the Google alert idea.

I sit here just shaking my head. There is a small number of Realtors that truly understand this, and the majority just don't care, they are trying to keep their heads above water and are in survival mode. Hence why companies are getting away with it.

Just yesterday, we had an issue in our office with another brokerage advertising one of our listings. Had I not run across it, the Agent would have had no idea it was happening. This agent has not real presence on the Internet, nor does this agent understand. They called the board and their response was Again, we will take care of it. AGAIN???????????

It boils down to we need to protect our own interests! Shame on those that do not pay attention to this!

Aww man. My skirmishes with Trulia go back to its beginning ... and I kinda sorta think part of the problem was/is because Trulia was created by tech people with absolutely no clue about how the real estate business really works.

CJ,

Why not expand to Realtor.com?

Talk about organized crime and the MOB....worse guess who`s blessing they have?

Can you say NAR?

Sorry guys, I dont see a problem here. I know I must be missing something; but what's the worst thing that can happen here? Some buyer's agent brings you a buyer for the property.

Presumably you want to sell the property and have offered a co-broker commission split to help make that happen. Why are you now so upset that buyers agent's are using Trulia (and other means)to find buyers for your listings? If you dont want that help, just keep it out of the mls and keep all the commission for yourself.

I wrote a members only post last week about an issue with Trulia posting our private agent remarks instead of the public remarks. I sent an email to Trulia asking them about the problem with no response. Then I asked them to take down my listings which they did again without any email acknowledging an issue. In our area there are lockbox codes available for the general public to see! So who is going to be held responsible if someone ransacks a property after they find the code on Trulia? Our broker is working with them to fix the feed issue. In the meantime my listings aren't posted anymore.

Hey Guys..

Wow, I go to sleep and wake up to this. I have to run out now, but I'll be back to "tend to my garden" in a bit.

Isn't that illegal in some states, to put your name on another brokers/agents listing without permission. Does trulia break the law by facilitating this?

KT:

To clarify - I notified Trulia and the Realtor Board and so far nothing has happened. At least in our market this is an infraction of MLS and IDX rules. So while we work on getting this resolved, and I do believe it will be resolved, it is important to control your feeds. Make sure that as the listing agent or broker you provide the best photos, full comments and all of the relevant info that IDX listings lack.

Sometimes agents and brokers unknowingly cause their own collisions. Many vendors and Realtor boards are offering syndication which will collide with your own broker or agent feed. As a response to this you now have the claim the listing feature to aid the situation, albeit not the end all solution.

At least in this case the info, although sparse, is accurate. Worse than just putting up a listing that is not yours is putting up a listing that is not yours at a lower price to lure buyers. You won't find this on trulia - but it is happening on some of the other syndication sites. We had an incident with this when an agent syndicated through a vendor and never went back to update the vendor site... so same listing, same agent but two different prices... and worse, the seller is the one who brought it to the agents attention.

Bottom line, this will ultimately sort itself out and in the meantime, tuning in and paying attention to what is happening out there is important.

Thanks for the information, Kev. I didn't know about this, but I do care. I guess we should all check our listings and make some noise, huh? Thanks again!

One other thought: Seems like no one is so upset about Trulia that they've stopped participating in the Q&A section..... :-)

One thing that is often overlooked is the value of a listing as a resource for more than a buyers agent bringing a buyer.

Listings have significant value for advertising the listing agent's services to other sellers.

Listings have value for name recognition.

Listings have value for Google juice.

Listings have value for recruitment.

Listings have significant value and agents or brokers should not be able to use another brokers listing as a benefit to themselves.

It's amazing to me how many brokers advertise other brokers listings on the Internet. And the fact that Trulia's whole business model was to steal, (I mean borrow.) No, I mean steal content from other sites until they could convince us to give them content voluntarily 'cause they were so big and successful.

This happened to me on 2 of my listings. I had to set up an account and reclaim them. I'm heading to Google Alert right now. Thanks for the post.

thanks for bringing this up. These internet sites are great for gaining additional publicity for our listings, but I Find these collisions as you call them to be confusing for the consumer, and also not good for us to pick up new leads from our listings which we fought so hard to get!

Hi, it's David G from Zillow.com,

@Bob & Carolin - Sorry to hear that; that's certainly NOT how listings are supposed to work on Zillow. Manually posted listings on Zillow trump listings received in a feed. Your listings should not have been claimed and updated via the feed. Please e-mail me the address for one of these listings [davidg AT zillow DOTCOM] so I can investigate further. If it's a software bug that caused this problem we'll get it fixed. My apologies for the frustrating time you've had trying to get this resolved.

To clarify how this stuff works on Zillow ...

We're most interested in receiving information about homes and listings directly from their source. So, broker-fed data will trump data from listings syndication services but data directly entered into the site by listing agents and owners trumps any of those bulk feeds. Brokers can obviously only feed us their own listings. All of this is not simple functionality and it's taken a huge investment to cater to the many different ways that brokerages and agents across the country like to operate. At this point, we've implemented functionality that caters to practically every scenario and the listings count on Zillow is growing nicely as a result.

Yesterday, Greg Swann wrote an interesting blog post that discusses the importance of this functionality in some more detail.

That all said, I recommend to agents that you simplify the ways in which you syndicate your listings. Automation is a good thing but pick one or two services that cover the sites you want to be on and stick with those tools using only one of them to post listings to each of the sites you advertise on. Select the tools that best use the functionality offered by the listing services - we can take 50 photo's with your free listing on Zillow - how many does your syndication service support?

Thanks Kevin- I think setting up Google alert, for all our listings, is a great idea

I just went to claim my listing - my lone listing. This makes me mad. Unfortunately, Trulia knew the perfect carrot to put before our noses - FREE LISTING!!! and that was the camel's nose in the tent.

Now, the camel has done a good job of displacing us.

Hey,

I'll start with Mike Saunders' comment. In this instance it is a clear violation of OUR MLS rules. Here's why: we have a "ok to advertise" field in our MLS input forms. EWM (my Broker) has a policy of No. So another Broker can not advertise my listing.

I think this problem (other Brokers advertising/feeding listings that are NOT their own, or without permission of the listing Broker), in general, is much larger than any of us knows. Get out there; check your listings and GOOGLE ALERTS!

Kevin, I just trolled Zillow to see if my listing was there - it is NOT but here's the strange thing I found. A picture of MY listing is showing up as the MAIN PHOTO for a different listing on the same road! Crazy! I alerted Zillow to it (lots of luck I know) and I also contacted the listing agent for the other property. I told her that neither one of our sellers would be happy to see this and we need to get it corrected ASAP.

Bizarre - I don't like how they allow users to "add things" - on Zillow you can add photos! You sign a disclaimer PROMISING that you are the true owner of the home. Oh great, yeah, that's secure....good Gravy, what a slippery slope this is getting to be~!!!

Karen,

I believe that sellers hire us to manage the sale process and that includes where/when/how THEIR property is being advertised.

GOOGLE ALERTS.

Hi Kev!

We have identified the technical issue and are in contact with Condo.com to resolve it. We will also contact you and Beth shortly.

Thanks,

Rudy

Social Media Guru at Trulia

Hey Rudy!

I'm sure you know it wasn't personal, right? Beth had a convo with the rep and got a lot of "theory talk." I think you, and from Beth says, the rest of the people at Trulia have good intentions...but when it may cost me $---that's a deal-breaker.

I'm glad to hear that this can be resolved.

kt.com

Hi Kev!

Of course, nothing personal. But just want you and everyone else to know we are a pretty tight group here at Trulia and we have nothing but the best intentions for you and the rest of our broker and agent partners. We'll resolve this Kev.....stand by my friend.

Rudy

Thanks for the heads up. One more company trying to steal your business.

Thanks for writing about this. More people should be vs. blindling providing listings to syndicators who've already leaped our broker sites in organic search using our data.

Kevin, You definitely identified a problems. As I read thru the comments, it looks like trulia and Zillow may have some quick solutions. That was pretty quick turn-around. AJ

@Kevin -

Your listings will certainly not get indexed on Zillow if you don't post them. ;-)

Seriously though, you're right that Zillow has massive opportunity in SEO. We've also realized that and have been working on it. Recent progress is looking good; we're indexing 4X to 5X more home detail pages than we were 3 months ago. Zillow has more original content than many RE sites so once we've made the site more google-friendly, it's just a matter of time and page rank will follow.

Homes in Miami are getting more than a million page views a month on Zillow; some of your buyers are most definitely on the site!

Hey

To be fair, I've had a few conversations with Rudy and I'd like to tell you about them.

It seems that there were a few technical issues that they (Trulia) were not even aware of. There were actually two listings in Trulia, mine and the condo.com one. When I searched for the particular listing the condo.com listing came up, not mine.

I've learned a lot from this post and the comments.

David G:

I appreciate all your comments and thank you for opening my eyes to another possible marketing opportunity. Because Zillow isn't huge here in South Florida, the reality is that I forget about exploring Zillow and any possibilities for me, there.

I didn't want to fry anyone, it was more an issue of ME not being fryed anymore.

Hey Rudy

Now that I have a chance to look further, here is condo.com doing the same thing at Canyon Ranch.

http://www.trulia.com/property/1056083544-6801-Collins-Ave-1BR-Miami-Beach-FL-33141

What they are doing is subbing the bedroom field in the unit #field to get the listing in there.

Bad, bad.

IT's way too easy to take over someone else's listings on Trulia. All you have to do is log in.

Zillow has the same problem with home pricings. Anyone can say they own a house as long as they're willing to lie about it.

Bogus.

Thanks for sharing. I did not know this.

Hi Kev!

Great speaking with you. We'll contact you when we have resolved the technical issue.......In the meantime, I'm glad to see you were able to brand your listing with the correct info. Looks great.

Hi All!

Our policy has always been to credit the listing agent or broker of each listing. Other brokers or agents can not supply us with IDX based listings/feeds from other brokers to our index and brand them as their own. We do not support agents stealing other agents listings or advertising them without permission.

We are constantly working on improving the accuracy/freshness of the data we recieve. Should you find an issue with a a listing, you can flag it right on the listing itself. Just go to the "Report Listing Error" link, select the error type, add more details about the issue, add your email and then press send. This will help us address your issues expeditiously.

Regarding the contact information on a listing, when a user clicks on the name link or photo, they will go to that agents profile page where they can learn more about him. When a user clicks on the "Ask Me About This Listing" button, they can send an email to the agent directly.

Hopes this helps.

Rudy

Social Media Guru at Trulia

In the MLS here that is a big fat fine. Why have you not file a grievance?

The Broker is checking that out now.

Damn Kevin!!! That sucks. But look at the power of AR. You not only got Rudy to reply but David G as well. WOW!!!

BTW, the google alerts for the addresses or our listings is brilliant!!!! Good job.

Yes, I was chatting with a muckety-muck today and we all came to the same conclusion---though I, again, wasn't "flame-baiting." It was a real business matter to me.

Hey Kevin - want some popcorn?? Diet cokes?

Thanks for the tip about alerts for each of our listings - had not thought about that one. And I must admit I've turned a blind eye to this stuff, never checking, but you can rest assured I'll be checking my listings out now.

Ann

I said it before and will say it again---I'll steal this line from another AR member:

We should be protecting the integrity of the information that our clients/sellers entrust us with when marketing THEIR property.

We NEED to know, as listing agents, exactly where/when and in what form our clients information is being used.

GOOGLE ALERTS.

Ann

Hey girl.

Can you believe I gave up Diet Cokes almost 8 weeks ago.

Kevin

thanks for hte heads up. I belong to Truila and never even gave this any thought. Good luck on the sale of your listings and hope we all have a banner year.

Sean

Hi Kevin,

Great post to alert people to this. I'm pretty sure it's not l limited to just Trulia, and I have also heard that your "claim" can be undone by being overwritten when they get new bulk feeds in. It might be necessary to check and "reclaim" every week or whatever time frame it turns out to be.

This post is a great example of how blogs can be used in a non-confrontational way to resolve a negative situation. I'm impressed with how you framed this as a business issue, as well as how Rudy and David G. offered some really constructive comments. Whether we like sites like Trulia and Zillow or not, they are part of today's online real estate landscape, and consumers are using them in increasing numbers. Great suggestion on Google Alerts to monitor and manage our online presence.

John,

Thank you very, very much. Nice compliment. I agree that it was interesting and VERY productive post. I was telling a colleague today how much I learned from this post.

Interesting subject, great comment stream. We learned.

JUN

2008

Thanks for this. I learned two things - google alert my listings and make sure my listings get claimed by me. And to agree with everyone else, we have a responsibilty to our clients and to ourselves to manage and know about every nook and cranny of the internet where our listings may be found. Good job.

Kevin - what's the beverage of choice now? Just wanna know for future adventures. ;-)

Ann

A big Crystal Light raspberry iced tea. Lots of ice.

Delicious.

That sounds good - I could give that a try myself. Yummmmm...

;-)

JUN

2008

add mint leaves or a mint tea bag = yummy

JUN

2008

Thanks Kevin for the post & the time it took to investigate this for ALL of us. I have listings on Trulia just the other day where all the pictures are wrong on one spot, I could not log in to "brand" my own listings, etc. Everyday seems to be another problem. After I check this out a little further I think I'll just dump my link to them. So far, no leads either. Trulia is not as dangerous as Zillow in my opinion.

Never thought about the Google Alert for the address, I have them for other things. Will give that a try & I bet you're telling me I'm going to be surprised?

Kevin, unbelievable. I'm heading over to Trulia to get an update on my listings. Talk about having to put up a fight for what is right!

JUN

2008

Hi Lyn S!

We looked into your issue and it should be resolved with 48 hours....I'll email you with the details.

Thanks for your patience.

Rudy

Social Media Guru at Trulia

JUN

2008

Dear kevin,

Nice information but I really think virtual tours could enhance you business.

GDL

AUG

2008

I had the same thing happen to me in Fort Worth, TX and our local board did not have the culprit registered. I turned him in for directly marketing my listing without permission. They held a meeting on it but do not know the outcome yet. Trulia says it is basically not there problem and I should go to the person violating my right to exclusively market. Good luck on that one. If this happens to you email Trulia. Email them any way. Many of us work hard for our business and those trying to make a living by being parasites have no place as far as I am concerned.

Gabriel

I don't need anymore business.

Alexander

If Trulia wants the Broker's feeds, on some level it should be their concern. If they won't police the content ON their site, then the people that play fairly should go somewhere else.

My issue with Trulia was quickly rectified.

AUG

2008

Thanks for the info. One of my listings once came up on some site as a condo and the sellers were upset.

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