Real Estate Blog - Trulia; Friend or Foe?

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Trulia; Friend or Foe?

Trulia is in business to make money, period. Trulia is not here to help consumers as they would like people to think. Trulia, like Homegain and others is here to ride the coat tails of Realtors® and try to make money from our listings.

Consumers in no way benifit from this companies service, I think as Realtors® it's our job to educate the public, let them know that Trulia does not have all the listings for an area the consumer is shopping in. Trulia only has listings from agents that have been fooled into believing Trulia is offering them a service they need. Any other agents reading this, I hope you realize that Trulia is your competitor, they very smoothly have tried to give you the impression they are helping you market your listings. In Reality Trulia is competing with you, so don't be fooled by their offers of a map with your listings for your website and other features that can be found elsewhere. They are nice gimmicks to give you the impression they are helping you when in reality you are giving them one-way backlinks to make sure they are at the top of the search engines, not you!

Agents, your clients should know that you are the expert in your market, not Trulia. you have ALL the listings, not Trulia. If we as Realtors® support a company like this by feeding them our listings and adding their mapping to our websites we will soon be paying them for leads, that's right. We will have helped create a company bigger and better than Homegain. Bottom Feeders that want to suck money from us.

Keep in mind, these are our listings. Your fiduciary responsabilty to your seller is to market and sell their real estate. Not to sell your business and soul to a company like Trilia.

Spread the word!

Florence Oregon Real Estate

Posted by Dennis Pease on 04/04/2007 02:10 AM

Comments (25)

25 Comments on Trulia; Friend or Foe?

APR

2007

My listings are fed to Trulia through Century 21's agreement with the company (or at least in theory - not all seem to be there.) Anyone clicking on one of those listings is passed through to the Century 21 website. Any leads coming through that listing page are directed to me.

If the end result is the prospect ends up with me, how is Trulia competing against me?

They are currently not charging for this service as they grow. They have already started charging for some services and they will continue to add more pay services as they grow. You don't really think they are offering this service just because they like you, do you?

This is a major business venture aimed at gaining huge profits.

Why should they profit from our listings. As business owners we should be building websites that offer our clients everything they need, so these type of businesses can not thrive on us.

There is much talk of this all over the internet. Educate yourselves, this your business. Take control.

Dennis is correct. As an industry NAR should take a more active role in educating their agents about national companies that want to control our inventory of listings and then sell these leads to us.

Trulia is growing by leaps and bounds because naive agents think this will help sell their listings, when in reality Trulia is out to steal your business.

Wake up!!!

Jonathan, Why would C-21 make an agreement like that with Trulia. I am astonished.

Look at RE/MAX, they have remax.com with ALL the listings from the MLS. Why would C-21 settle for a company that can not provide ALL the listings and is in this game to profit.

It's like C-21 is selling their business because they can't handle it.

That is like your local supermarket chain deciding to let Walmart do ALL their marketing for them. Who do you think would benefit most from that?

Jeez I really am stunned that a company like C-21 would make such a big mistake.

Trulia may be a bottom feeder - but they are appearing in search engines organic searches - many of our listings show up there from other marketing - I do not work for a national chain - but much of my marketing is fed int Trulia - in all honesty - if I have the listing I frankly do not care who brings the buyer - my job is to get the house sold and represent the seller - it is vital that my clients know my website provides all the listings available in Central Oregon no matter who has them listed - unlike many search engines. You have some real valid comments here. Thanks

dennis,

So what you are saying that they want to be famous and then charge fees to list in there ? Interesting blog, but I am kind of confused.

Dennis I agree wholeheartedly with you. But add a few more bottom feeders to the list. Zillow, Oodles, Inest just to name a few.

I'm guessing that Trulia and Zillow will tap out eventually- we have to just wait out customers that attempt to sell their properties that way, don't, and return to real people. A waiting game...

I agree with Thesa. My clients best interests are served if my advertising extends as far as it can. I'm not charged for the basic listing and it has my website information in the listing. There is a fair chance that the consumer will click on the website, and I will get the lead gratis.

I think the internet will transform the real estate industry, just like it did with car sales,

or auction (ebay ..).

I think we just don't know what form will this industry look like at that time.

As a new agent starting out, I have a cautious eyes on these developments.

http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN0430048120070404

Dennis, where does the insanity stop? Googlebase, Oodle, Trulia, Hotpads, CraigsList, LiveDeal, Propsmart and on and on! There has to come a day when there will be one or two major players in the real estate information business and an end will come to the dozens of new sites per year that claim to be the biggest and best out there. Take care

I also agree with Thesa.It is my job as listing broker to market my clients property by any means necessary. If that means listing it on Trulia, Zillow, or any other website, so be it. I don't get paid until the property sells, no matter who brings the buyer.

There are way too many sites. It's crazy. I get WAY TOO many calls asking me to subscribe to this service for leads or that service for leads. And each tell me why not to go with the other.....it's just maddening

Just to play devils advocate. How is what Trulia's doing differently that say print advertising. Yes, they make money but they also provide a business benefit through additional listing exposure.

Trulia hurts our Consumer because we pass the extra costs on to the home seller and buyer. Realtor.Com is the real problem. If it was done correctly we would not need trulia.com because people would go to realtor.com.

Also what trulia is doing is bypassing the agents and going for the brokers. They are making deals with our companies to send people to the company website and NOT to the agent whose listing it is website.

I do agree that Realtor.com should provide a better service. Why haven't they? Does anyone know?

A lot of real good comments, I encourage everyone to bring this topic up everywhere you can. As members of NAR we have the strength to make changes.

Cody: I am with you.

Thesa:You are correct, they are appearing high in organic searches. That is my point exactly, how many of you rank higher in your market than Trulia. In google type in "your city real estate" Is Trulia ahead of you? You do not need to be affiliated with a national chain to rank at the top of the search engines. But why would you add your listings to a site like Trulia? You do realize their plan is to rank higher than you in organic searches.

James: Not true, Prudential and Yahoo have an agreement that uses IDX which shows ALL listings. RE/MAX.com also use IDX and provide ALL listings. These real estate brokerages have every right to display IDX listings just like we do as agents.

Danny: You are 100% right on the mark!

Maureen: I don't consider a large company that is attempting to siphon huge profits from our hard work as Progress.

Chris: You have a fiduciary duty to your client to market and sell their real estate. Does that mean you have to market it everywhere? Absolutely NOT. Wouldn't it be better if you were at the top of the search engines so buyers found your website? Do you really believe Trulia will continue to give you these leads gratis. Are you a betting man? I guarantee it will change....soon. Keep in mind their motive is huge profits. These are very smart business people. They have fooled many of you already. You think you need them.

Paul:Thinking like that is the power behind Trulia. You have no confidence in your own ability. Very short sighted thinking, why don't you just get a job. I don't mean to be insulting but if you have to rely on a competitor to make a living, your not a very successful agent. Do you buy leads from Homegain too. Don't take this personal, I want to provoke thought.

Christy: Exactly my point.

Matt:Big difference, Do you really believe Trulia is just giving you a free service because they are good guys?

Sam: Is right. If realtor.com changed with the times, stayed cutting edge there would not be a place for Trulia or Zillow.

I hope everyone spreads the word about this topic.

APR

2007

Hi all - Kelly from Trulia here. Normally I’d keep out of this important dialogue among real estate professionals, but in the spirit of remaining transparent I was asked to comment:

Why is Trulia here? Before launch, we met with many brokers and agents who expressed frustration reaching home searchers online and dealing with paid lead gen models. Our resulting goal: offer interested brokers and agents a simple, viable way to connect with home searchers who aren’t already clicking at your online doorstep.

Friend or foe? This is for you to decide, but here’s why I work with Trulia: I’ve heard a million entrepreneurial pitches on the next “new new.” When I met Trulia co-founders Pete and Sami, I thought: these guys have the potential to help meet an industry need -- 1) They know how to turn technology into a tool; 2) they insist on transparency in their business model; and 3) they acknowledge they are not the real estate experts. To build a business that truly meets an industry need, they aligned at launch with several successful real estate leaders to address one big challenge brokers and agents face online: getting serious home searchers to their site, without paying for their leads or having them sold to others.

Broker-centric? Yes, we have great partnerships with brokers, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t agent-centric as well. In fact, 12 months into business, we began offering free agent tools like TruliaMap (http://www.truliablog.com/?p=37), with more coming your way. I can’t provide details, but hopefully you'll believe it when you see it!

Down to the dollars: We are an advertising company, offering an advertising choice (without choice, there are monopolies, high prices, lack of innovation). In our for-profit model, we can only stay in business by delivering performance-based, quantifiable results to our real estate partners. Like Google, the basic search results always remain free. And if one opts to use our paid advertising, they can do so at a fraction of the cost of newspapers. Again, it's your choice.

With NAR reporting that 80% of consumers search for homes online, the data shows consumers are driving an increased shift of ad dollars from offline (newspapers) to online –irrespective of Trulia.

We invite you to give us a test run, then blog about it if it doesn’t succeed. Best, Kelly

APR

2007

Kelly,

Do you really think that consumers could not find homes for sale online? Have you ever searched for homes before? This has got to be the absolute most absurd reason I have ever heard. What you are talking about is not transparancy - it's called spin. The only industry "need" you are filling are someones pockets. There was no "need" for yet another place to list homes for sale.

Thesa,

Your responibility is to market homes effectively - not everywhere. There is a difference.

Why is it so hard for some of you to understand what is happening here? The more places to search for homes, the more diluted and difficult it will be to market homes effectivley and the more money it will cost consumers to find buyers for their homes because you have to pay to list a home for sale.

It is extremely short sited to think that you are doing your clients a favor by listing a home for sale on these websites.

Maureen,

This is not about whether or not they should exist. It is about the fact that we are creating a monster for no reason and it will hurt us and consumers.

Maureen,

You seem to be missing the whole point. To compare Trulia to newspapers and homes magazines is absurd. Times are changing and our industry is changing and we should be the ones filling these voids. So if Gen X and Gen Y buyers favor the online experience, lets give it to them. If we don't these companies that admit they are not agents or brokers will.

In my area I offer ALL the listings, not just some of them, I know the area, why should buyers go to Trulia to look? I offer mapping to see the locations of homes and information about the area, check it out: http://www.dennispeaseteam.com/, and most importantly I can respond quickly when buyers have questions and.......I dont have to pay some company to advertise my listings online which means I'm still in control of my business and not at the mercy of some advertising agency when they decide to raise their rates.

Don't get me wrong, this site is not perfect, any good website is a work in progress. I am continueing to improve it, but I am on page one of google. Why shouldn't the best agents that know the area be at the top of the search engines. Do you think buyers are better served by Homegain and Trulia.

This is your business, if you are too lazy be one of the best at what you do then companies like this move in and we all loose. Every area of the country should have the areas best agents at the top of the search engines, don't you think?

Ryan has written an article about how NAR and Realtor.com have dropped the ball, this is a great article that may clear some of this up for you.

http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/blogs/ryan-ward/1118/show/

I do not support waiting for NAR either, but it is because of them that we have this situation.

I am a little confused, you stated that;

" The COO of my company is on Trulia's board so I don't want to slam Trulia..." and " Our listings are on Trulia.".

Now you state that;

" My company made an investment in technology and has a successful lead generation system. I think all companies should generate their own leads. ".

I really don't understand that, but I do wholeheartedly agree that companies and individual agents should generate their own leads. In fact that is exactly what I am advocating here.

Oh, by the way. I did not refer to you as "lazy or uninformed". I did say "This is your business, if you are too lazy be one of the best at what you do then companies like this move in and we all loose. ". Do you see the difference? Maybe you felt that fit you but I did not refer to you specifically as that.

You ask the difference between trulia and print advertising and state that they benefit business through additional listing exposure. This is a repeat of everything that has been discussed here. If you are at the top of the search engines, why do you need additional listing exposure on the Internet? From a third party that is not even a broker or agent? Why?

MAY

2007

I picked up on this blog topic a bit late but just have to comment...

I can not believe the nonsense I have read on this topic, what is the proof you have that Trulia is hurting anything at all? I must inform you that I have proof to the contrary, my company has generated leads from Trulia and we continue to do so on a daily basis. If you actually visit Trulia's website you will see that a request for more information on ANY of the listings there bring you to the respective broker's website. I do not see how this is a problem... If you are just raising your blood-pressure because of "what if" in the future, then I think you should calm down a bit and learn how the Internet and the websites you are talking about actually work. Instead, you seem to be reading articles authored elsewhere and putting your own hype into the subject simply for the sake of your own exposure.

Why don't you talk about the lack of accuracy in Zillow's Zestimate instead, at least that topic actually has some merit to it.

JUL

2007

Dennis I just posted a new blog entry at my blog about Trulia. I really want to know more as I've heard of some being approached with "opportunities" to advertise with Trulia, I really do want to know more opinions, are they there to help? What is their long term business plan? Just to sell advertising to them? What do they really add for a consumer? Fancy maps? Or just another place realtors can pay to get click thrus? Check out my blog and comment if you have learned anything new since your blog entry was published a couple months ago. THanks!

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