I have recently grown concerned about the way information provided by local real estate agents is being used on the internet. Don't get me wrong, I understand the power and utilty of the internet, and have nothing against a properly displayed listing on someone else's site. What I do take issue with is the information being framed or displayed in a way that hides the provider of the information or misrepresents the status of the property. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Recently, I stumbled across some of our listings on the Bob Vila site. I was thrilled to find it showing up on Bob's site. I was so excited that I couldn't wait to tell one of our clients. He was excited too and it looked like a win-win. The next morning the client called and he was furious. It seems that his listing was being displayed on another site (Realtytrac.com) that was linked to the Bob Vila site. Not only was it being displayed on the Realty trac site, but it was being displayed in a way that to any reasonable person would make the property appear to be in foreclosure. Copy this link into your browser's adress window, and it will show you what I mean. ( the image I am using is not from my client, but is a screen shot of actual search results taken on July 28, 2007)
http://www.joanneknauf.com/rt728.tiff
To a trained eye you can tell that the properties displayed are resale properties. So what's the problem? The problem is that to the untrained eye, the properties appear to be in foreclosure. What else would you think when there is a header in bold font that says "Harrisonburg City Foreclosure Search Results" and two lines from that it says (again in bold) "Search Results: Foreclosures in 22801". Needless to say, after the embarrassment faded, phone calls were made and after several days,and a dozen emails, our listings were blocked from the Realty Trac site.
After speaking with my broker, I learned that this type of thing happens all the time. One company buys the data that realtors provide via various online sites and strips the listing agent information from the listing. It then forces you to go to them to learn about the listing and attempts to take the realtor out of the loop. This is a relationship business and we should all be up in arms over the misuse of our data. The lesson from this? Be aware of where and how your listing data is being displayed on the internet.
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