I do not go around pointing fingers and criticizing – it’s just NOT my way. But today I was on the phone with a gentleman from New York that called our office and gave me an ear full about Trulia. The conversation started something like this:
“I just found a listing in Miami Beach that seems too good to be true, so I decided to call a reputable Realtor to see if it’s real”
Don’t know about you guys, but when I get a call from someone saying a listing seems “too good to be true”, I usually want to stop them on their tracks and say “if it seems to good, it usually is!”.
So here’s what this gentleman found:
As he described the house and gave me the North Bay Road address, I knew it was a multi-million dollar property. I quickly looked it up on the MLS and this property is currently listed for $6.9 million, not $540,000 as the posting reads.
We have received a lot of these calls lately and it’s getting to a point where I don’t even know what to say – is it Trulia’s fault for not monitoring their listings? Are brokerages not providing accurate information? How could a discrepancy this huge even occur? I did go into Trulia after the call and flagged the listing for improper information. I totally understand that all these portals cannot be held responsible for information provided to them, but I do believe that this reflects poorly on them since the consumer is trusting them as a provider of current and factual real estate information.
I did not write this post to single our Trulia by any means, other real estate portals have tons of mistakes as well. I’m writing because in this age of New Media and “transparency” – how is the consumer protected against false information? All these listing portals have a responsibility to provide accurate information and if they don’t, they should make sure inform their readers of such.
