Real estate industry must tame syndication 'beast'
Letter to the Editor
By Inman News, Tuesday, January 31, 2012.Re: 'In syndication decisions, consider your real estate clients' Jan. 30
Dear Editor:
 Real estate syndication image via Shutterstock.com. |
I know that Brian Rayl and many others have all of the best intentions on the syndicated listing discussion. I respect their opinions but wholeheartedly disagree.
My perspective comes from being in the business for 25 years, and I consider that I have always been in front of the technology curve. I work in a two-town marketplace on Boston's North Shore but believe that this issue is the same in any market. Right now, I embrace the beast that I am about to "diss" because it is what our customers expect: comprehensive access to and exposure of every property available for sale.
We are all in the business as professionals and most of us are designated Realtors. We work hard and we prospect and nurture our customers. We make the business happen by listing real estate for sale and creating a brokerage relationship to get it sold.
We owe our listing customers the best exposure and representation, and this should most certainly include online resources.
Our problem resides in the way we disseminate our proprietary information.
For several years, I worked with a multiple listing service book. We owned it and the information in it. We were not supposed to share the book with anyone else (ha!) and the listing broker represented each listing. If you wanted to see a listing, you called the listing agent.
Times changed and the information went online, from MLS vendor to the office, and we still controlled the information. Knowing each listing in the newspaper was critical because that is the only place the consumer could find your product. Then the time came for the consumer to have access to our product independently online.
We fell short as an industry to not better protect our product and proprietary information. We let the consumer cry out for information loud enough, without providing a solution, to allow us to drop our guard. Listings syndication became a wagon on the dusty trail to the Wild West of information sharing. We exposed our product but did we cheapen the product in the process? Yes, we did.
I cannot think of another product advertised online for which someone that owns or represents the owner is not the direct source of the inquiry. EBay, Amazon, Craigslist, boats, cars and beyond are represented by the owner or an agent of the owner.
To use a popular commercial for a metaphor: Do you really want the caveman to get the call on your listing? Or Ferris Bueller?
I consistently receive calls from agents well outside of our area, and it is obvious that the lead was captured online. So far, 100 percent of the inquiries have not resulted in a sale, and most often they are not even a close match.
As the market heats up our information will become more valuable. Ways to leverage our proprietary information for third-party revenue will increase. Maybe it will take more abuse of the information for everyone to realize this, or it will happen when Hooter's, Home Depot or the local bar gets into the syndication game and further cheapens our product.
The opportunity to take our business back and to represent our sellers and buyers with the best exposure and representation of the product is critical before third-party practices takes a further hold on our industry.
The first step in this process would be to provide a comprehensive, trade-driven website that shared detailed information to satisfy the consumer need. This would be the central "go-to" resource for Realtor information for the consumer, with the listing agent's information and broker's information front and center.
I think Realtor.com could do this by getting rid of their baggage and focusing on this one task. After this is done, we the brokerage community would not have the need for syndication and other sites will become less accurate and relevant.
Of course, there will be broker and IDX (Internet Data Exchange) solutions that allow us to communicate with our own buyers and sellers to satisfy their informational needs. The bottom line is that the third party aggregators will not have the upper hand on our information, we as a trade would.
One could argue about consumer protection and the practice of disclosed dual agency. Well, I can tell you that I have never sold a house from a call or email from a third-party website. If I did get a call, and was lucky enough to convert it to a showing, I would meet the customer at the property and discuss agency.
As I rarely practice disclosed dual agency, I would advise that prospect that should they have interest in the property, then I would (that individual) to my manager to discuss other agents to work with.
Or, as most areas allow for, I could offer disclosed dual agency. I might add that it is even more rare that a buyer purchases the house that the buyer inquired about initially.
As we are coming from two totally different perspectives on this, I will only respond to Mr. Rayl's "major question."
I stand by my conviction, 100 percent, that the display of a listed property, with the misleading representation that it is someone else's proprietary information, is not at all in (consumers') best interest.
Furthermore, it is my fiduciary responsibility to represent the property that (the seller) contracted me to with a certain level of expertise and syndication, and a scattered syndication approach does not provide that in any way.
If we build a better mousetrap, we can give better representation and service to our clients and properly represent our listings to the buyer community. Feeding the syndication (platforms) will only grow the beast, and buying your listings back from them will be a necessity.
Monitoring all of the syndication tentacles will make it a full-time job to track the information and analytics, if not make it impossible. We own the contracts for the business and we should decide how we want that business represented.
We are the merchants in the trade organization called the National Association of Realtors, and we should call for change in the culture of the Wild West before it is too late.
Jack Attridge
Real estate agent
William Raveis Real Estate
Marblehead, Mass.
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Submitted by Dustin Kuschel on January 31, 2012 - 2:18pm.
I couldn't have said it better myself! As a REALTOR with Edina Realty (who recently pulled listings from syndicated sites), I firmly believe in taking back control of our data. In the short 7 years that I have been a REALTOR I have always wondered why we would give our data out for free only to have it sold back to us. It is a business model that is extremely broken and in great need of revamping.
Dustin Kuschel
REALTOR
Edina Realty
Submitted by Saul Klein on January 31, 2012 - 2:56pm.
There are many REALTORS who do generate business (closed sales) from Internet leads provided by portals, be they purchased leads, or leads provided at no cost by most of the big portals.
I have spoken with many REALTORS over the years as I traveled the US and Canada, both face to face, as well as online at http://RealTown.com and in our RealTalk Community. Some love the exposure, leads, and potential to find a buyer for their listings. Others are not at all enthusiastic.
That said, do what you believe is in your best interest and the interest of your business. If not sending your listings to web portals is in yours and your customer's best interest, don't send them there. Only you will reap the rewards or suffer the consequences.
If you have a moment, read the article, watch the video, and then check out the comments at: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/jan/30/third-party-syndicators/
Also, it is time for the industry to bone up on "Derivative Products." It is already happening. Are you aware of it? Does it matter to you? What is the value proposition offered by portals and does it benefit you?
You can be certain that whatever you do, some of your competitors will do the opposite to differentiate themselves. If I were still listing real estate, I would rather be on the consumer side of this argument.
Submitted by Leo Kingston on January 31, 2012 - 6:21pm.
The cat is out of the bag, basically. Buyers and sellers have access to other forums to buy and sell property now, so licensees using the MLS have to distinguish themselves with their matchmaking and closing expertise, in my opinion. Customers will come to listing agents or buyer's agents for their professional expertise, to make it through the maze of a sale transaction, not primarily for access to particular properties. I think it's too late for that now.
Leo Kingston
www.18002SellHomes.com
Submitted by Brian Rayl on January 31, 2012 - 10:45pm.
Jack, thank you for responding to my article. You say that you dislike syndication, yet you promote IDX. I don't know about your area, but in my MLS, we cover hundreds of miles in each direction. If an agent in Abeliene for example gets a call on my property, how is that fair to me? There is no way they are driving to Dallas to show my listing. This is not syndication, this is MY MLS system.
Listing syndication is identical to MLS IDX systems. People have the exact same chance -- strike that -- they have an even BETTER chance of finding my listing through syndication. An agent is going to be just as likely to not know the area when a home is found by IDX than they are by a syndication site. In fact, since ads are paid for in syndication sites, I would think they would know the area that they are paying for. I don't understand how you can be in favor of IDX but be against syndication. The "beasts" are one and the same.
I have received a couple of valid leads from syndication sites, but I have never paid to advertise. I do it through answering questions and blogging. I also make sure I have set up my profile on the major sites because then my picture shows up next to all of my listings.
I hope that other brokers follow the route of ARG and Edina in my area. That gives me a huge advantage when I go in a listing appointment. The fear mongering that was evident on the ARG video is rediculous. The exact same person could come on to my website or any other website in my area and find out the exact same info they get on trulia, zillow, or realtor.com.
You said that 100% you felt that your property being shown as someone else's is not in the sellers best interests. I would contend that your property not being found at all by the person searching for it would be an even worse representation of your sellers best interests.
Brian Rayl
Keller Williams Elite
Www.BrianRayl.com
Submitted by Spencer Rascoff on February 1, 2012 - 10:26am.
Jack,
We just wanted to comment on your point, "The first step in this process would be to provide a comprehensive, trade-driven website that shared detailed information to satisfy the consumer need. This would be the central 'go-to' resource for Realtor information for the consumer, with the listing agent's information and broker's information front and center."
Zillow provides this today. For consumers, Zillow provides data on more than 100 million U.S. homes, enabling homeowners, buyers, sellers and renters to connect with real estate and mortgage professionals best suited to meet their needs. With more than 23 million unique visits to Zillow’s websites and mobile applications in December 2011, consumers clearly are clamoring for this information on Zillow. For listing agents, once they create a free profile on Zillow, their profile picture, contact link and rating, if applicable, appear at the top of the buyer’s agent list. So, in addition to appearing as the listing agent, the agent receives four free placements on the page instead of one.
Submitted by Derek Eisenberg on February 4, 2012 - 2:38pm.
Every time a piece like this is published, I feel the need to say this again. Realtor.com's market cap is about $300 million. There are 1± million Realtors. That is $300 per REALTOR® to buy back the most visited (occasionally it is # 2 but usually 1) site out there.
Revamp it to give REALTOR® members all the enhanced features that they pay a fortune for now and beyond that, short of IDX, we would not need to syndicate to any other sites.
The disaster started started in the late 90s with RIN. Remember that...The Real Estate Information Network. After the NAR wasted 13 million of our money, they were scared to try again and licensed Realtor.com to Homestore now Move, as a publicly traded company.
It's all history now but it's time to right the wrong. REALTORS® need to buy it back.
Derek Eisenberg
http://www.mls2u.com