Open letter to brokers on ending listing syndication

Thinking about it further, I get IDX. I'm not opposed to it. And God bless the agents that generate business from it. But really, let's not say that a buyer's agent that gets an inquiry is the same thing as the listing agent fielding these questions. It's not. The level of communication about that individual listing is different. They are not on par with one another. So to say that all of this syndication and IDX exposure serves the seller, is much more muddy that it appears on its surface. The motivation of the agent that gets that inquiry….are you my next buyer paycheck…or would does this home fit your needs, is an entirely different mindset.

As said before this is NOT a video created to reach out to brokers, but is directed towards consumers. unfortunately misdirection in my opinion.

It was hard for me to watch this video, it might have been long list of titles and credentials that Fred started with (dude I don't care, I still don't know who you are), maybe his smug as$ attitude, or just his whole misinterpretation of Jim Abbots video. (answer all of the above) Maybe Fred is a good guy, but this video wasn't.

Some of what I saw as misinterpreted, started off with the explanation of "Middle Men". We all know agents are the middle men and women, that wasn't his point. He clearly states that the Syndicators "ACT" as middle men, saying they are not. These sites have valuable information from agents and use this info to sell ad space to other agents to "capture leads". As Jim said in short and long term, they don't prove to be of benefit for the agents, buyers or sellers.

These sites number one goal isn't to inform consumers of most accurate data, which Jim touches on in his video. I find funny that Fred totally skips certain parts, including that these syndicators are NOT held to strict rules and guidelines, and therefore do have misinformation on these sites. I know I have wasted time re-researching and explain to clients that were misinformed.

Fred talks about Jim's intentions of Dual Agency, but I don't understand how he can assume that. ARG would have pulled out of the entirely MLS if that was the case. There are many smart and Ethical agents that know how to work dual agency. It always up to BOTH parties to agree to that. In most cases I see it as if the agents is acting as a Escrow between the two parties and not Attorney. I've even met consumers at open house that prefer working directly with the Listing Agent because they believe they could get more information and a better deal.

When Fred tries to rebut about craigslist, I thought he missed the point totally. Information on these sites are free for anyone to take, scammers have taken this information and used it for False craigslist listings and other types of crimes. Jim never said that the syndicators post directly to craigslist.

I could probably go on, but this video battle belongs to Jim. What Fred should have pointed out is it would be hard to stop sending listing info to these syndicators unless everyone stops together. Most consumers are not going to understand downfalls of the system, and will continue to visit these sites for the information they do have. These site do attract millions of buyers daily. To stop syndicating to them is like stopping Real Estate Print ads, there is still a consumer base that uses them. So how do you explain to your seller YOU are not doing EVERYTHING you can to be in front of the 1 buyer that wants to buy their house for top dollar. Unless everyone stops, and then consumer will be forced to look to more accurate sources.

Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com are the most visited sites because brokers/agents send them their listings. If the majority of the listing brokers decided to stop sharing their listing data tomorrow, they wouldn't be the most visited sites anymore. The eye-popping traffic these 3rd Party sites are always bragging about (millions of visits) wouldn't decide to not buy or sell, or dream about real estate. Instead they'd simply visit broker/agent sites DIRECTLY. How can that be bad for consumers and broker and agents with listings or an IDX fueled web site.

As for syndication and exposure, how many IDX broker/agent and public facing MLS sites are there? I imagine there might be hundreds of thousands. I'm pretty sure that today's mighty search engines can point any consumer to any and all the information they need. Sellers wouldn't miss out on any exposure, they'd appear on ever IDX in america.

Additionally, the millions of dollars spent by brokers and agents enhancing their own listings and lead gen advertising on 3rd Party sites could be used to insure that their web and mobil strategies are modern, relevant and desirable.

Yes, it's a leap of leadership, faith and belief to be the first pioneers to withdraw, and they might regret it. But if it began to happen in mass, and 3rd Parties only had 75% or 50% of the listings, their traffic relevance would would wain, along with their income and relevance. Instead of 3rd Parties dominating the center of the online-real-estate universe, the originators of the listing data content – brokers and agents, would be.

My 2 cents.

Great video response Fred! I completely agree — seems to be all about wanting to "double deal" the listing and make the whole commission… How does that benefit the buyer or the seller? It doesn't — It only benefits the listing broker, which is why they pulled out of syndicating. I really think this is going to backfire for them…

but I also understand the the other side — not wanting to pay Realtor.com, Trulia, or Zillow for expensive "enhanced services" to get more of "my own" leads, and I think they are way too costly and something should be done to make them more reasonably priced.

This scenario is not unlike the MLS… We pay money to them to get our listings exposed right? So how is paying Realtor.com any different? They are one of the top 3 right? And as is everything, pay to play.

As for my company, we will continue to syndicate because that's what sellers expect from us — "give me the most exposure" they say. That's what we do.

I agree with Real_EstateMktg – Everything always comes down to money.

Please note, that I am mostly a buyers agent – although about 25% of my work is on the listing side.
So as a buyers agent – I tend to be on the losing side because I can't promote a lot of listings. However, I certainly am not willing to pay the extortionary rates that Zillow and Trulia want to charge to have my mug on other people's listings. Further, the bigger anyone lets them become – the more $$$ they can charge. So my vested interest is to keep their hands out of my pockets. Fred Glick also has a vested interest in his RentScooper site which Real_EstateMktg correctly asserts is a scraper site that would be impacted very negatively if agents pulled data from aggregators.

These large aggregators are always calling trying to get me to buy this or that. I always say "NO!" I have a site with IDX and these people are simply in my way. They are my competition not my friend. The last time I responded in this way, the salesperson from Trulia DRIPPING with sarcasm responded…"So YOU think that you can possibly compete with the millions of people WE draw in EVERYDAY??" First of all, when I looked at my last few listings, my web pages got more click throughs than Zillow for the listing. So yes, on a long tail search – apparently I CAN compete. Second, this type of hubris is wearing thin with brokers particularly since the information is not accurate and aggregators are not held to the same standards of accuracy that the MLS and supported IDX searches are. It also indicates that they are going to squeeze agents and brokers for more and more $$$ – That extra overhead will eventually have to be passed along to the consumer.

But in all things we have to ask the question….What exactly do these sites do for the consumer?

The answer is that these sites do absolutely NOTHING for he consumer. And in the end they do NOTHING for the agent either. If they disappeared tomorrow, the consumer would rediscover IDX – and they might (GASP!!!) get ACCURATE information right off the bat. How terrible for them! Aggregators pull in consumers because they crowd out agent and broker sites that offer more real value.

In the end, I have nothing against middle men – heck I am one. But the middle man has to serve a USEFUL function. Lead aggregators really don't do that.

Thanks for the video Fred. Totally agree.

I can't believe how many brokers in our industry are placing blame for inaccurate listing data on sites like Trulia and Zillow. That blame lies squarely with you, the agents and brokerages who have listings. There are plenty of tools to feed these sites with the correct/updated listing data, and the tools are free. If you believe the MLS is wonderfully accurate, spend an afternoon with it to see how many mistakes and omissions there are. The quality of real estate listing data is the fault of lazy or disorganized agents.

To the agents who believe that removing your listings from these sites is going to send consumers to your own site, think again. Buyers and sellers enjoy using these sites because they contain information that is useful AND the sites are well-designed and easy to use on a PC and mobile devices. Unless you've got a very compelling website (99% of you do not) and have the technical resources to keep improving it, consumers will stick with what they like for home research.

We are active advertisers on Zillow at the moment, and speaking from our own experience, it is clear that the site does help consumers find valuable information. Sometimes that is info about a property and other times it is a way to connect with an agent. Do inquiries about a particular property lead directly to a sale of that property? Maybe, maybe not, but that is true for all real estate advertising. A yard sign can lead to the sale of a house or just a lead for an agent if they choose a different property.

Personally I think that our duty to sellers is to advertise their home to the widest audience possible. That has limits, as some sites are of marginal quality and don't provide tangible results. However, in our market, it is clear that Zillow/Trulia play a role in the home search, and we'd be doing our sellers a disservice by not placing their listings there.

Yes,

I am here and I will be happy to chime in.

1. I am happy to comment on anything specific within Abbott's video. It seems that some people don't have the patience to watch a video of more than 2 minute. 11 killed me, but I did it because this was important. Please leave your specific questions and I will answer them.

2. Thanks to those that agreed with me, of course and thanks to those that disagreed. But, for those that disagreed, please not, that I am available in this post, by email fred at fredglick dot come or even by phone 215 852 4469 to talk about it. I like a full and complete discussion and even a debate.

3. About a debate, I would love to have a live video webinar debate with Mr. Abbott over syndication and dual agency. He has said NOTHING since my video came out about dual agency. What a surprise!

Let's keep it going!

If Realtor.com, Zillow.com and Trulia.com all disappeared tomorrow, does anybody think that their traffic will disappear too? If it does than people visiting their sites aren’t real buyers and sellers.