Zillow, Trulia, et al

[Bryan L.]

Just a heads-up.  There was some discussion about this a few months ago.  At that time, I made the comment that some local Realtor associations and some individual brokerage firms were ceasing to send their listing data to Zillow, Trulia, and others (for several reasons).  Now today, I received an email from my local association/mls stating that all of the listings in our local mls would no longer be automatically syndicated out.  Each and every individual broker would have to contact the syndication company and make arrangements for their listings to be syndicated out (if they wish for this to continue).  However, all of our listings will still automatically go out to Realtor.com.

[Jeremy T.]

I hope Zillow and Trulia had/have some sort of mitigation for this sort of thing.  To create publicly traded companies based primarily on information that can only be obtained by one (very temperamental, mind you) source is kind of foolish.  

Then again, if you were an agent/broker, why would you NOT market on Zillow and/or Trulia?  I guess you could always put your properties in the classified section of the Sunday newspaper, or, even better, one of those color booklets that they give away for free right by the door of the supermarket...now that is some up-to-the-minute information there.

I'm curious why this is "great news"? I mean, if you are developing a competing service it could be (but unless you are in tight with the board of the NAR and/or a lobbyist or 3, won't competitors be running into the same exact problem?). Also, I'm still a little fuzzy on how limiting the amount of data easily available to the consumer is "great news"? I have no rooting interest here, but limiting access to information seems punitive at best and collusion at worst.

Also, Realtor.com is a joke.  Half the time the app doesn't even work.