Rumors of threats loom overhead
In two separate emails provided to AGBeat, rumors abound that Keller Williams and Coldwell Banker have both threatened to pull their listings from Trulia, citing that the two real estate companies insist that Trulia must change their business model to position the listing agent ahead of (or in place of) subscribed buyer agents. One agent at Keller Williams told AGBeat they believed listings were already in the process of being pulled from Trulia.
In May, boutique brokerage, Goodlife Team made the choice to stop syndicating based on a similar reason, and the listing syndication debate rages on, as reasons for pulling are now diversifying, as each brokerage becomes more aware of what the real estate search companies have been offering.
Truth to the rumors?
Trulia spokesperson, Ken Shuman told AGBeat, “KW and Coldwell Banker never threatened to pull listings. We have been very proactive meeting with all our partners and the results of those meetings have lead to all the new offerings being rolled put now.”
Shuman added that Trulia recently completed updates to their Industry Offerings. “Based on a regular feedback process with Trulia’s broker partners, several updates were made to Trulia listings pages that benefit brokers, agents and consumers. All listings on Trulia now include clear listing broker attribution, display listing agent contact information and prominently mark real estate advertisements.”
Separately, Trulia recently added new features for Trulia Local Ads customers for free, allowing subscribers to receive “higher quality leads with phone numbers and pre-qualification information,” Shuman stated.
“These improvements are part of Trulia’s continual process of evolving our product lineup to help agents meet more clients and complete more transactions,” said Shuman, reaffirming that the rumors are false, and that Keller Williams and Coldwell Banker have not threatened to pull listings, particularly in light of recent changes at Trulia that have circumvented the threats.
When asked if specific teams or brokers were threatening to pull listings from Trulia, Shuman said, “My feedback comes from the top of KW and the top of Realogy. Neither has ever threatened.”
As of publication, Coldwell Banker has not responded to AG’s request for comment. Keller Williams’ Executive Director of IT, Cary Sylvester said, “At Keller Williams, we maintain a philosophy of ‘my listing, my lead.’ In exchange for receiving our listings, we hold every publishing site we work with to return all leads back to the agent and not to anyone else. The listing agent worked hard to earn that listing; they deserve all the leads from it.”
