Today some past clients contacted me to see if I could help them out. It seems the house they purchased over 2 years ago still shows as Active on the listing agents website. Now that might not be such a big deal...okay it is...but what makes it even worse is as a result of it being Active on the agent's site it is still Active on other sites as well.
They have had people knock on their door and ask if the home was still for sale or ask if it was a "coming soon" listing. It also gave them pause as it know looks as if the house has been for sale for over 2 years and they worried whether that would have an impact when they went to sell. Now here lies the rub. According the local real estate records, the agents license expired at the end of 2010. It is likely that she is out of business and that there is no one maning their old website.
I've sent an email to her former broker to see if the site which has the company name attached to it can be accessed by someone to remove the listing. It's just another reminder that we have a responsibility to maintain our websites to make sure the information on them is accurate. With so many of our sites being the portal that pushes information to dozens of other aggregator sites keeping a listing Active can have some unintended consequences. And certainly if you are going out of business you need to make sure you clean up your website before you do.
Darn! There goes my plan to leave my listings active on my website for two years or more. :)
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