The shit just hit the fan…
Twitter was all a…twitter, I guess when Craig Kamman posted that Edina Realty (owned by HomeServices of America) was going to pull their listings from Trulia and other “3rd party aggregators” and possibly Realtor.com. The post is worth a read:
Edina Realty discontinues 3rd Party Sites like Trulia and Realtor.com
This was followed by a blog post by Jay Thompson who had his own take on the news, where he imagines a conversation between an seller and his agent:
“So Mr. Agent, you’ll put our home listing on the internet, won’t you?
Well, it will be on our brokerage site, but we’ve elected not to put your listing on some of the most highly visited real estate sites in the country.
Uhm, why is that?
Well, we want to be sure our agents get the leads your home listing generates. And those meanies at the third party site want to charge for them!
Uhm, isn’t the point to sell our home, not generate leads for you and other agents?”
Obviously Jay doesn’t think it’s a good idea:
Edina Realty pulling listings from Trulia and Realtor.com?
Then Rob Hahn went “Oliver Stone” or got “stoned” at one of California’s many marijuana dispensaries while he was out here for the 2011 NAR Convention in Anaheim. And I quote:
“There is, I believe, a real chance that in the next three to six months, we will see the splintering of the foundation of the industry: the MLS and the Associations. The world that comes next, a world without the Multiple Listing Service, will be one filled with unintended consequences.”
After reading Rob’s post I don’t know whether to hug my kids or ask him to pass the bong, because that is some good shit he’s smoking.
All kidding aside, I may be just whistling through the graveyard so his post is worth the read:
Extinction Event Horizon: Real Estate
This story is developing…
Jay’s incredibly smart and I can see the merit of his point, but the way I would position it is that “Site X has 5% online market-share. But that’s not even 5% of the marketing exposure of your house. If only 36% of home buyers find their home online (NAR stat), that’s really 36% of 5% – so site X only provides less than 2% of the total marketing exposure of your home.” That portrayal of value, and a discussion of site practices (not just the marketing cost that the consumer won’t care about) could form a reasonable explanation a consumer would be satisfied with. This doesn’t invalidate Jay’s point – it’s just how I would explain against it from a broker position.
Edina Realty had better get ready to receive more leads than ever. All those wasted “not good enough for me” leads that got filtered out by 3 headed monsters will now be Edina’s to incubate as they wish.
Daring? -Yes. Brilliant?- Absolutely!!