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WHAT??? NAR RESEARCH DIVISION QUOTING ZILLOW??? AM I DAY DREAMING? OR IS FOX BUSINESS PLAYING TRICKS

I'M SITTING AT MY COMPUTER WORKING ON A WEB PAGE, JUST WORKING AWAY.

FOX BUSINESS IS IN THE BACKGROUND. . . . . SO FAR, SO GOOD.

WAIT!!! I hear in the background the words "National Association of Realtors". That will get my attention.

I take a peek and on the screen is Stuart Varney, a business broadcaster that I like a lot. His guest is Dr. Paul Bishopof the Research Division of the NAR.

I see Dr. Bishop and Mr. Varney discussing the condition of the housing market and the fairly negative outlook for the immediate future. Of course, Dr. Bishop's views are national and rarely relate to my particular market.

BUT WAIT! ! ! In a box under Dr. Bishop are the announcements:

ZILLOW says housing prices down 10% from last year.

ZILLOW says 25% of homes selling for a loss.

ZILLOW says housing prices down 10% from last year.

ZILLOW says 25% of homes selling for a loss.

I am very confused. Is Dr. Bishop sourcing his opinions by Zillow?

Is Stuart Varney sourcing housing statistics by Zillow?
Does Fox Business believe that market announcement from ZILLOW is news?
Does Fox Business believe that market information from ZILLOW is accurate?
Does NAR use ZILLOW as an authority for anything?
Does NAR use ZILLOW information?

OR, is it a coincidence that Dr. Bishop is speaking concurrently with the general housing statistic announcement from Zillow? Is Fox Business News using ZILLOW as an authority??

Please. Tell me it ain't so.

Stuart Varney, Fox Business

UPDATE: I'm watching Fox Business again. They have a feature about foreclosures in Chicago repleat with tours of foreclosed homes, interviews with a home buyer that was upside down (managed to sell at a loss), and an investor specializing in foreclosed homes, etc. . . . .

Every time they provide a statistic, it's from Zillow.

We're doomed.

O.K. I accept that Zillow can report facts. It's the dang estimates that are so horrible and unrelated to reality.

BTW, I deleted Spencer's comment below because he didn't remove the links in his comment. I welcome comments and opinions, but I'm not going to be a referral site for Zillow's web site.

Posted by Lenn Harley, Broker, Maryland and Virginia on 08/13/2008 03:23 AM

Comments (76)

mortgage mess, zillow

Post is included in group: Club Chaos
Post is included in group: Mortgage, Foreclosure & Elder Abuse Housing Fraud
Post is included in group: Realtors®
Post is included in group: SubPrime Loans and the real estate market.
Post is included in group: The Ninety-ninth Percentile

76 Comments on WHAT??? NAR RESEARCH DIVISION QUOTING ZILLOW??? AM I DAY DREAMING? OR IS FOX BUSINESS PLAYING TRICKS

AUG

Hi Lenn, The contradiction stems from real estate being local and national market perspectives being - well - national. Good selling to you !

That does'nt make any sense!? If Bishop did'nt know the crawl was there, he should be Po'd. If Bishop knew then I'm PO'd...

Lenn,

Zillow publishes a lot of 'news items' for universal consumption...Fox probably caught that stat first and tried to discuss its believability with the NAR rep...maybe Active Rain should have an 'editorial board'...just kidding!!! Thanks, Fran

Never know what you will see on TV. A real estate expert on the Today show stated that FHA financing is only for first time buyers.

Roy Kelley

Bill. Which is the source of my confusion.

Get. My thoughts precisely.

Fran. I'll volunteer for the job.

Lenn, scary but equally scary is the fact that banks are using the same robotic AVMs to determine whether they will give a loan - in one case the valuation was $250,000 and the real appraisal was $440,000. It was a navigable waterfront property and we just couldn't get the bank to comprehend. Went to a local bank still using humans and they got it.

If we can morph Localism to include a more accurate valuation of Solds, then maybe we can silence Zillow. Zillow reminds me of "If you say something that isn't true enough times, it becomes true."

Roy. I've heard that from folks for years.

Sharon. I don't see Localism helping with much in the way of real estate information. Most of my community posts have been dumped. The editors thought they were listings and dumped them. What is so funny is that I don't even list real estate. I describe communities for the benefit of home buyers. Localism now appears to be focused on shopping, sightseeing and other local information excepting real estate.

Lenn--Reading your post...I was surprised. Reading your comments...shocked. Your localism is getting nixed too? Sad...Glad it's not just mine.

Sorry Lenn, but I have to say this is exactly why I don't watch FOX News for anything. Could it be more skewed?? (Don't hit me!! Please!)

Lenn- This is the third post I have read in the past 24 hours with Zillow as its headline. I too do not know what is going on but how can did Zillow become such an all mighty authority on real estate across the nation? Somebody, somewhere needs to take them to task. Can you tell I am miffed? We as agents across the nation should write localism posts about how inaccurate they are. Oh yeah, right. We can only write about sightseeing, shopping and other local information.

Lenn, that's scary. Our NAR dues at work...?

Well, that beats this morning's "home buying advice" on Good Morning America....guest speaker....Donald Trump !! Well, hey at least he said "IT IS A GOOD TIME TO BUY".

Lenn, NAR needs to get smart and recruit their marketing team from Zillow!!! Zillow is excxellent at what they do. It's just what they do has nothing to do with reality BUT.....it will. Give it a few years and I bet their data will be very accurate. They are leaving NAR and everybody else in their dust. And that's a shame.

Zillow seems to be able to inject itself into nearly every real estate discussion. I used to believe that knowledge was power, but now I believe that you don't need knowledge, you just need a large marketing budget. I wonder if Zillow is hiring...maybe I need to jump on board (only half kidding).

Teri. As I've said many times, Localism threw me under the bus. I purchased a ton of communities and most of them don't even have one of my posts. Not to worry. I have other plans.

Jennifer. Of course Fox is skewed. However, find all of the other news sources with the exception of C-Span even more skewed.

Martha. Zillow has assumed the mantle of the authority for home valuation. Unfortunately, the consumer doesn't know the difference. Zillow is zealous in their self promotion and obfuscation.

Christine. I don't know that there was a connection. It was just a shock to my system to see an NAR representative being interviewed by Stuart Varney at the same time the Zillow news reports were crawling below. It wasn't a regular crawl. It was like several head lines posting.

Bryant. The NAR reports housing facts collected from sources, MLSs, etc reporting data input by real estate agents. Local MLSs and Associations report very valuable and accurate data and information. At least my area associations do.

Kelly. Indeed. Sort of like the drunken uncle that shows up for the wedding.

Pleae Note: These predictions are deemed accurate, plus or minus 30%.

So I'm confused as to how Localism is going to rival Zillow if they aren't going to have all things real estate as well as all things about the local area.

Marilyn. You cracked me up with that one. So true. So true.

I don't know. I believe that they must think that if folks search for information about neighborhoods, if they read neighborhood descriptions written by agents, that will somehow translate into business for the agent who wrote that post or sponsored that neighborhood. That's a chance I'm not willing to take.

I can't be a stealth real estate broker. I am what I am and proud of it. I market directly to consumers who consume what I offer, real estate brokerage services. That's not going to change. I'm not a tourist service.

I'm too focused for that. I'm posting about real estate in neighborhoods, not neighborhoods, businesses, services, etc. in close proximity to real estate.

I'm watching it for 30 days. I've got a ton of neighborhoods for this month. I'm watching for synergy.

Lenn- I just posted a comment (to you) on Rich's blog. I checked some of your communities on Localism and your posts are there - maps, pics and statistics.

I don't think it's a bad idea to have general community information on Localism. People will likely appreciate getting to know about a community, to which they may want to move, while non-real estate related visitors should add to the Google juice. But, it's foolish to publish local highlights, to the exclusion of direct real estate information.

Lenn: I gasped when I read it today... it's totally true!! Their lobbyists must pay more...

Marilyn. I have some but there are many, many more missing.

Jan. That's what it is. Shucks, they're on ActiveRain.

Oh my, I can see why you would have been shaken! Personally, I dig up my own stats as I have yet to have ANY economist give good numbers that pertain to my area. Although, there are issues with the MLS data as well. Even tax records are wrong...we just do our best, right?

Diane. Indeed. We do our best and it is light years ahead of the economists and web sites with defective systems.

Lenn my question would be, did Dr. Bishop know that this announcement from Zillow would be scrolling across the screen while he was be interviewed, which would then give more weight to Zillows announcement?

I sure hope they don't think Zillow is the market expert.

Ummmmmm... tell me it isn't so..... From what I can tell ZILLOW's site is off it's self. How can they be an expert in this situation..... What are we coming to here.. Hmmmmm

The apocalypse is upon us! ; )

AUG

Lenn- Oh MY! Tell me it ain't so! Who is going to set them straight? ZILLOW? The ones that are so off base it ain't even funny? NO, we must do something to alert the world their stats are wrong! And Fox has the largest viewing audience. We will have our work cut out for us.

Lenn remember when we talked about NOT talking about Zillow back on RealTalk? In 2006. Z.

The image you see onscreen is delayed by a minute (sometimes more). The ticker typer heard the comment and keyed it in. The ticker evidently has less of a delay than the video and thus the ticker appears to magically say the same thing at the same time.

Zillow and NAR..... strange bedfellows like the blind leading the blind. Neither have good data from NYC. Zillow's business model is based on selling ads. Fox's business model is based on selling ads. Maybe Rupert Murdoch has his eye on Zillow.

Here are some facts

NAR gave away our information

That information is being used against us

We pay the NAR

We will pay the others too.

My question, who owns all of these sites? I bet that you will find that they are owned and controlled by the same folks behind the scenes. We are in the 1st inning of a game that will ultimately knock out a lot of folks.

Don't believe me? Look no further than localism. Sounds good on the surface. Our faith in the powers that be at Active Rain made us jump on its potential. To this date, we still don't know how it is going to work. I bet the owners are laughing all the way to the bank. Let's see, lets promote the biggest social network. Give Realtors a chance to "claim" the tens of thousands of neighborhoods. Next, let's not return requests for information, let's not post anything that we think has advertising in it, let's continue to operate our way with no consideration to the participants. How much money are we making?"

Active Rain is the perfect portal for professionals to come together and discuss the real estate industry without all the emotion that would come with us all setting in one room. We can and shall be a force in the industry. The problem is others are controlling our agenda and we will be the losers.

I think that they were just trying to put "pertinent" news in the crawler that could be associated with what Bishop was discussing. Personally, I find the crawlers distracting.

Lenn: We all know that the media only seeks the sensationalim to improve ratings. They will publish ANYTHING that they think will make their ratings go up - the crazier, the better!

George. I don't know but I don't believe in coincidences.

Terry. With the Zillow announcements posted below Dr. Biships face, someone must believe that Zillow is an expert at something. Boy, could I sell them a bridge.

Roland. Zillow and "off" in the same sentence is a redundancy.

Pam. Perhaps. It's up to the consumer. Are they going to be sucked in by a commercial site using a failed valuation model or are they going to use the services of an experienced fiduciary?

Katerina. I sent a copy of this post to Stuart Varney. I don't expect any acknowledgment.

Maureen. I refrained from giving Zillow any notice in public until they wrote a post on ActiveRain that listing agent may be violating their fiduciary to their seller/clients if they failed to enter their listing in Zillow. That was such an outrage they had to be outed. http://activerain.com/blogsview/512431/ZILLOW-S-HUBRIS-IS

Mitchell. I described the announcements incorrectly. They weren't crawling as in those news crawls at the bottom of the page. They were announcements from Zillow and were posted directly under Dr. Bishop during the interview. It gave the imprimatur of the Zillow market reports by the NAR. As I said, I don't believe in coincidences.

Home Realty Group. Other than your comments about Localism, I haven't any idea what you're talking about.

This would be a very disappointing development for Fox News if indeed they are relying on Zillow for information. Who else but Fox could have been counted on to be fair and balanced?

Brian. I believe that the real underlying problem is that Zillow is making these announcements with some claim to "news" and "accuracy". Zillow wouldn't know an accurate home value if it hit them in the corporate board. They've got their gimmic software to provide numbers that have absolutely no relationship to value.

Now they're claiming news value for fig newton numbers.

We're doomed.

Fox doesn't know any better. They're a news channel, not a real estate channel.

Lenn, It's pretty scarey. Maybe we shoul all drop out of the NAR and join the ZAR.

I guess it proves a point. To be considered an "expert" you really don't need to actually be the best or most knowledgeable. You just have to promote yourself the right way and eventually the perception is all that matters.

It's the same here at ActiveRain. If you present yourself well, you can be considered an expert in your area. It might be that you just moved there recently and hardly know it at all.

Lenn, Up until recently the only customers/clients who mentioned Zillow were generally in their 20's and 30's. In the past week I've had two potential clients in their 60's also mention Zillow during a iisting presentation. It (Zillow) is becoming more pervasive.

NAR spends so much on researching/producing industry statistics I can't believe the Zillow tv crawl data was provided by them.

OH, goodie- maybe I can send the NAR some unfounded info that will boost sales around here and get our company on the ticker- one would think that it would work both ways. I LOVE Zillow- my house is showing a value that's over 100k higher than I'd ever get- easy to love 'em when you're not motivated to sell, but a tad diametrically opposed to the dues paying real estate agents that really just hope for legitimate representation from the NAR.

I never thought Zillow was very accurate and Fox Business is probably in the same boat but it is not good when you have sevral sources putting out flawed information!

Hi Lenn --- I was beginning to think it was just ME!

I was taken back when I saw a couple of posts on ACTIVE RAIN from Zillow --- particularly their new view on the national HOUSING market --- which they have been shopping around most effectively.

And, I cannot believe that "journalists" are, again, using press releases and info from any company or other "spokespersonalities" that are not experienced in the actual trade, real estate business or even in business for more than 10 years! ( or 5 years for that matter ! ) . In my former life, I was in charge of PR/adv for a major multi-national company and while we were extremely successful we had to be responsible to shareholders and our consumers so our pubicized information was scrutinized AND evaluated heavily so not to mislead the general public.

My particular view of their zestimates... YIKES! Their home value proposition is based on old tax data --- value of lots, for example, before a new home is constructed so the new value is not captured; properties that have not been through a revaluation in 10 years; quick claim deeds for 1 to 10 dollars all are captured and put into the data. ARGH! Such a skew of the data with the ability for a novice to search, share and presented to the masses via tv personalities is blantantly irresponsible.

Unfortunately some types of media rely on this type of information because they have immediate access to it via the net for their breaking story, therefore, they have little research work to do and "facts" are now...whatever appears on the internet. And, those "facts" actually end up to produce the story.

I am just glad to see your post....because I was beginning to think that I was very, very alone in my opinion and fear!

Hi Lenn-don't you find it typical in news media today as to who the experts are and their sources of info? I don't watch any news anymore...except BBC news.

I don't blame Zillow at all..... I blame the person obtaining information and providing to the world!

I'll have to read up on zillow a bit more!

Lenn -

I heard the same thing but I think they confirmed it with someone like the President of NAR or something. They also said the drop in values was due to the foreclosures bringing values down....

Midori. I don't blame Zillow if someone who makes editorial decisions uses them for an authority. That just shows that the producers for that show don't know the real estate market.

Pamela. You are smarter than the average bear. I agree with every word. As I've said many times, the Zillow model is a fatally flawed and has no relationship to home values.

Laurie. I still don't know that there was a nexus between the NAR spokesman and the Zillow statements below. I'm sure we'll never know. It just hit me between the eyes when I saw the two on the same screen.

Richard. I don't believe so either. Rarely do I speak with a serious buyer or seller, particularly a seller who doesn't mention Zillow. They're like a recurring nightmare.

Tim. Absolutely. Perception is reality.

Bob. Thanks for the chuckle. I needed that. Everytime I read or write about Zillow, my blood boils.

Not sure who made Zillow the authority on anything. I hope this isn't a sign of a partnership to come in the future.

Lenn.. Maybe Fox News.. had the Zillow banner on the bottom of the screen because they thought both issues were related? I don't see how they could have done this.. What is NAR thinking? Here NAR has been putting out commericals telling buyers it is a great time to purchase property. Now they are stabing themselves in the back with this.

Lenn,

I'm just going to reiterate what has already been discussed at length by others that can put it more eloquently than I. I partly blame the mortgage industry for all of the sub-prime loans that were made in the last few years. A good part of these loans have led to foreclosures and we all know why. I just can't believe that NAR would take any info from Zillow. I hope this was purely coincidence, but I have my doubts. Thanks for posting!

Great post. I think all the statistics these days are a mish-mash! Nothing makes sense. There was a blurb on the ticker the other day about 33% of all homes in the US are upside down in equity...then the source was quoted as "Zillow!" Zillow doesn't have any house value right to begin with.

What? Lenn, you don't think Zillow is accurate? Why their Zestimate of the value of my house has changed so that it's only $100,000 below market value instead of their orignal $250,000 below.

Patricia. Me too. They average about 25% low in my area. Zillow doesn't know the difference between assessed value and market value. Neither does the consumer.

Jim. That no doubt is a stat taken and misquoted. It might mean 33% of listed homes are upside down. I don't even believe that. Every few days we hear from HUD or NAR that XX # of home owners don't even have a mortgage.

Joshua and Kathy. Thanks. I hope it was a coincidence too. But, that's almost surreal.

Valerie. I have notified Fox about the indicent and they should publish or announce the discrepancy. That the announcement quoting Zillow was in no way connected with the pronouncements of the NAR Research Staff. I'm not holding my breath.

Jan. You voiced my worst fear, that Zillow would ever be considered an authority on anything.

If this is true, I am scared.

Zillow is real estate junk food. Quoting them is like saying Mickey D's is five star fare.

I think <and hope> NAR would use NAR stats. Zillow just released their 2nd quarter 2008 stats yesterday and I am sure they made every effort to feed the findings to every major press outlet. It's unfortunate the ticker had to go while the Dr Paul Bishop was speaking on their shows but this is the reason why I hate cable news channels.

I know this, you know this but the general public ... ???

I am seriously having a hard time convincing buyers that there are multiple offers on properly priced properties, until they lose one or two or three homes they love. It's when stuff like this fills their subconscious...

Wow - I would sure hope not! That would be like talking to your ten year old brother about the Real Estate market.

It seems that any time Zillow is mentioned in a post, agents are quick to degrade them in the comments -- without providing any real alternative. Suppose the crawl left out "Zillow says" and simply said "Housing prices down 10% from last year." Many of us would probably repond "at least 10%." My figures show the median selling price for single family homes in Henderson down 24% when I compare July '08 vs. July '07.

Instead of bashing the AVM models amongst ourselves, we will get a lot further as agents and an industry if we can provide solid and consistent content to our local media. We need to sit down and tell them "real estate is local. Here's what I'm seeing in our market." There are plenty of Rainers who could do this effectively; we just need to take action.

Lenn - I am pretty sure that this is one of the Seven Signs of the Apocalypse.

Jason. LOL. That's the best explanation yet.

Spencer. I have said it before and I'll say it again. You are a fantastic wordsmith. However, the focus on median is misguided. No agent worth their salt even looks at median for value. No doubt buyers would prefer that valuation, but sellers surely wouldn't.

The fact that Fox used the Zillow reports in their news blasts doesn't say anything about Zillow, but it severely diminishes the value of anything coming from Fox in the future.

You wrote: " In our opinion, looking at the value of all homes rather than homes that sold is a much better indicator of what is going on in a given market."

Which translates to me as including the wishful thinking of home sellers along with the reality of the actual market value.

Now Spencer Dear, go back and remove the links advertising for Zillow on the comment on my blog.

Lenn

John N. I disagree. If Zillow were just another aggregator or just another web based real estate network using real estate information to generate revenue, it would be different. However, Zillow has promoted to the public a seriously flawed model for property valuation. With the slick promotion and web savvy, they have gained national prominence and a degree of credibility with the public giving them the traffic numbers needed to sell advertising. They have also cause agents, the persons with the skill, along with appraisers, to provide accurate valuations to have to justify our numbers when they differ from Zillow.

I didn't write and rarely even spoke of Zillow for some years, except to point out the flawed valuations to my clients, until they made the suggestion that we may have a fiduciary to our seller clients to enter our listings in Zillow.

That proposal told me just how much hubris Zillow has.

As for providing solid and consistent information to the consumer, we do that locally, one consumer at a time and in doing so, have to overcome Zillow.

Well as I was reading, Lenn, I thought Drew might possibly weigh in as he did on my post a number of weeks ago. But we got Spencer instead. Guess I don't see how what he said changed anything about what you said in your post.

Jeff

Jeff. Thanks for noticing. Nothing Spencer can say is going to change what Zillow is. I guess one of my objections to them is that agents and brokers spend years gaining experience in understanding the critical skill of property valuation. Along comes someone with some software the puts some numbers in a bag, shakes them up and comes up with a "valuation". It cannot be done.

Zillow's property valuations are, IMO, a hoax on the consumer and an insult to every hard working licensee, real estate agent or appraiser.

Zillow sure has made a reputation for itself. But from all I see I don't think its good. They seem to be off almost always in their numbers. As they say, one shoe doesn't fit all.

Richard. I'm not sure I get the analogy. Does "one shoe doesn't fit all" mean the same thing as Zillow housing values are off by 20-30%?

I head there was a snowball in Phoenix the other day... (just kidding)

Zilloooowww: Is there anybody in there?

I'll have my valuation software call your partial database and lets do this deal at a vending machine.

(Just thought I'd add a little fun to this bizarre scenario)

AUG

Unfortunately.. that's what happens when you make predictions about the housing market that don't materialize...or even worse... go the complete opposite way... You lose credibility.

While there is no argument that Zillow does not have all of the data and is the equivalent to AVM's that so many banks relied on during the boom... Zillow has never (that I know of) made predictions about future home values but only reports on what has already happened. As Spencer has proven above... it's getting completely eaten up by the major media outlets.

Why? We can sit here and debate about Zillow and point out the faults all day long.. but Zillow and Spencer are not out running around telling everybody prices are going to go back up, it's a great time to buy and sell, etc.. etc.. They just report what has happened.. and hey, even if it's not complete, the information they do have and report is accurate.

That is the difference and precisely why the NAR has taken a serious hit on credibility. If you don't mind me putting a link here, I posted about this back in December on my own blog about Home Sales and Median Prices Rebounding according to the NAR and specific commentary about the complete waste of $40 Million dollars spent by the NAR.

Unfortunately, the leadership of the NAR has found it neccessary to tell consumers what they want to hear... and not what they need to hear. Until the NAR gets out of the practice of being a big sales association, .. the "Voice of Real Estate" might as well be the "Cheerleaders of Real Estate" and the credibility will just continue to erode. It hurts the credibility of all of us.

I suggest everybody spend a little time on a couple of the popular real estate bubble blogs for a day or two and read about all of the picking apart they are doing about REALTORS and real estate related industries. It'll certainly open your eyes of what our faults are.

It's absolutely amazing how often I've been coming across real estate reports from sources other then the NAR in the past 6 months that are now perceived as the authority -- just because they don't make predictions when there is so much uncertainty taking place.

And...John Novak's comment above hits the nail right on the head.

Kent. Thanks. I always enjoy a good laugh and Zillow . . . . .

Things do turn bizarre when the word "valuation" is used in the same sentence with Zillow. Wait!!! That's an oxymoron.

Paul. I submit that the information that Zillow reports is worse and more dangerous to the consumer than the predictions of the so called "experts". Predictions are notoriously dangerious because no one can see into the future and forsee influences that would affect their predictions.

You stated, "the information they do have and report is accurate." What?????? When?????? Where????? When Zillow reports on national statistics, that's merely reporting what other sources are reporting.

However, when Zillow provides real time estimates of valuation for individual properties, that is when we get to La La Land and that is where the consumer is so mislead.

They have portrayed themselves as an authority on housing valuation, yet their estimates are consistantly innacurate. A task as important as home valuation needs, IMO, needs to be within a range of accuracy of 5% or less OR IT SHOULDN'T BE PUBLISHED.

Example: Pittsburg estimates are within 20% of Sale Prince 59% of the time.

No more need to be said.

Zillow is coming up a lot lately. They have the worst information and should never be used as a resource for anyone especially a newscast.

Paddy. Agreed. If they would just report facts, show listings or solds, etc. it wouldn't be so troubling. It's the off the wall estimates that are the problem.

Zillow's estimates are a classic case of "garbage in. . . garbage out".

If I had an agent who attempted to value a property without visiting the property and comparing it with similarly recently sold properties in the area, they would be in for some serious training.

Fox News, There is your first mistake. More like fixed news.

James. Advice taken. I've switched to CNBC Power Lunch.

Lenn,

Quote---

"You stated, "the information they do have and report is accurate." What?????? When?????? Where????? When Zillow reports on national statistics, that's merely reporting what other sources are reporting."

--- End Quote

Key phrase in my comment -- The Information They Do Have. I never said it was the right information, all of the information or that it was good information.. But.. with the information they DO HAVE.. they report their findings.

Every time we say it's wrong and blast Zillow or Trulia reports, Spencer magically shows up through the beautiful tool of name alerts on Google and responds and defends their position. (Spencer and Rudy are very good at what they do when you look at it from a neutral view. - Something we all could certainly learn from.)

As John Novak commented above, we are in a much better position to report what we have and make a compelling case that we are the authorities of the local real estate market... and you do that by reporting the facts... good or bad.

Once again, I'm certainly not defending Zillow but merely suggesting as to why Zillow is starting to be perceived as an authority through the media outlets. When you want to get into the prediction game and don't take into consideration key underlying factors, you lose a position of authority when you are wrong.

And the $40 Million dollar Ad campaign back in November of 2006 was certainly wrong.

"NAR's first-ever newspaper blitz features the headline, "It's a great time to buy or sell a home." The advertisement (650k PDF) points out that interest rates have fallen seven months in a row and are near 40 year lows, inventories of existing homes are higher than they have been in decades and prices have stabilized. But the perfect conditions for buyers are likely to change as sales pick up, prices gain traction and conditions improve for sellers next year."

Have you ever seen Zillow or even Trulia for that matter come out and say anything like this?

Paul.

I'm certainly not defending Zillow but merely suggesting as to why Zillow is starting to be perceived as an authority through the media outlets.

Indeed. Unfortunately, whenever they are quoted in the media, they gain more name recognition and, the consumer will go to their web site and get an estimate of the value of their property.

Then when they call an agent to view a property, they'll want to write an offer that is about 30% below market.

We're doomed.

My post is about Zillow, not the NAR. Many ActiveRain members have written articles about the NAR ad campaigns. We don't like them either.

AUG

Unbelievable - not the way we should be represented by NAR! How disappointing. I like Jason's explanation above.

Kevin. Which shows that you read the comments as well as the article.

You will be wise enough to survive the Apocalypse.

AUG

Lenn,

Did you see today's New York Times Business section? Lots o' Zillow data. Sorry to ruin your day.

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