Note: most of the content of this post was first posted on my Facebook Business Page
On Thursday, April 9, 2015. the Memphis Business Journal reported MAAR [Memphis Area Association of Realtors] no longer using Zillow. The headline does not clearly represent what is happening with MAAR and Zillow.
Consumers, you love looking at real estate listings on Zillow. There is lots info, and you don’t have to have any contact with a real estate agent until you are ready. Most Zillow fans see it as a trusted source of RE information. It’s consumer friendly, and has made great advances over its main competitor, realtor.com.
What makes Zillow run? Data!
In the past MAAR and most other multiple listing services provided data to Zillow through a broker-opt-in syndication service, Listhub. You may have noticed that there are not so many Memphis listings on Zillow as there were a few days ago, and listings that showed as for sale now show up as not for sale.
Here’s what happened:
the National Association of realtors has a deal with Move.com which runs the realtor.com site. Move.com also owns Listhub, the syndication pipeline from MLSs to Zillow and many other real estate portals. So, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. purchases Move.com and takes control of the whole operation – Move.com, realtor.com, and Listhub. News Corp. realizes it can deal a serious blow to the competition by cutting off syndication via Listhub, which, with fairly short warning, they have now done.
Many MLSs around the country have worked out deals to provide data to Zillow, and the transition away from Listhub has been seamless. Memphis Area Association of realtors has not chosen to act in a timely enough manner to come to terms with Zillow about syndication; therefore, there is not any Listhub syndication of MAAR listings. Of course there are some work-arounds, and many of the listings will return t0 Zillow. There are other syndication systems available to companies and agents, and listings can be entered to Zillow manually. If no arrangements have been made to keep listings posted via 3rd parties by companies or agents, Zillow has been legally required to remove listings and revert to their general public data about the properties.
One of the commenters on my Facebook page likens the withholding of listings from Zillow to a recording artist deciding not to sell their music on iTunes or list on Spotify. “They are missing a major group of consumers.”
Bottom line – the consumer suffers. Maybe Zillow information occasionally has errors, and maybe some Zestimates are occasionally inaccurate, but consumers like the site; according to statistics, they like it about twice as much as they do realtor.com. Zillow has almost become a generic brand in real estate, mainly due to its customer-friendly approach. Murdoch’s strategy is not going to drive consumers to realtor.com. My clients want their properties displayed online and they know that Zillow is the top real estate portal. My home buying customers spend more time on Zillow than they do looking at the fresh information I send them. Whether MAAR and Zillow reach a syndication agreement or not, my listings will be on Zillow unless my clients specifically forbid it. If your home is currently listed, check with your agent about Zillow inclusion.
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What do you think? Leave your comments.