SkyRealty Will No Longer Syndicate Listings to Ad Based Real Estate Sites

mad-as-hell

A real estate brokerage in Austin, TX has decided to take a stand against advertisement based real estate companies. Be forewarned, this may seem shocking.

CurtisReddehase, Realtor and President of Sky Realty writes:

Sky Realty is making a major policy change that will effect how we market listings. We have decided not to syndicate our listings at the broker level to advertisement based companies. We are also asking all of our agents to pull their syndications through their individual sites.

We believe that many companies have consumers convinced that they are a source of real estate information, when their real purpose is to generate profit by selling advertisements. The motivation to sell advertisement is far different than the motivation to offer the consumer information that that they need. The motivation to sell advertisement is far different than the motive to offer consumers service. Companies that offer information for the purpose of advertisement have no fiduciary duty to buyers and sellers.

He added:

We have never received a productive lead for any of our listings as long as we have syndicated our listings to these national web sites. (emphasis added)

See the full post here. (Interesting comment by Kim Luttrull)

I have always maintained that the overwhelming majority of homes listed for sale sell through broker cooperation via the local MLS or broker/agent websites and NOT from national websites. Does anyone know of any studies to support this theory? If this is true, real estate agents are being snookered to list on theses sites, pay for featured listings and ads, and be jumped in the SERPS.

What do you think? Is Curtis mad?

Jody

I don't see much of an issue with 3rd party sites...I wouldn't spend extra time putting my listings in manually, but our brokerage adds our listings automatically to Trulia, Zillow and many other sites, so I don't have to do or pay anything extra. ...and I don't really care if they make money on providing their service to the public.

Any effort to try to limit access to information on the internet is ultimately not a wise policy. Sky may seem forthright in doing so, but it probably will reduce exposure and cost them business, especially if other brokers or agents in their market ARE adding their listings. It sounds as if they're making the decision on behalf of the consumer, which in certain situations may mean they're not listening to the consumer at all.

jfsellsius

@Eric

Most of the Realtors I talk too agree that 3rd party media sites do not provide a meaningful return and that most of the transactions are made via the local MLS system. Do you know of any study that supports this notion?

Eric Blackwell

A big A-men to Sky Realty!

They a) will not be sorry they did this! (While we do not have a brokerage wide policy a LARGE (95+) percentage of our agents do not syndicate). I also only wish that could and would include REALTOR.com. I do not see the difference between them and others. Both are not REALTOR owned. Neither have the REALTOR's interest at heart.

We have not suffered AT ALL as a result of us not syndicating.

They b) will hopefully start a trend. It is time for REALTORS to realize that to a large extent third party listing agrregators offer at best a parasitic relationship.

Guess who the host is!

I do not see many at all who have gotten deals direct through these parties...and it sure is not a percentage of their business.

To quote a good friend in the SEO business: "A feces throwing monkey could hit the side of the barn that often.."

They need us. We do not need them. Want leads? There are many better options IMO.

Way to throw down, Sky Realty. Nicely done!

best

Eric

Curtis Reddehase

What is the true cost? What happens when prospective clients think these sites actually are more complete data for an area than mine? What I find is that my experience is undermined and the client is not informed as much as they think. I worry about those sites showing up higher than mine when mine has what they realty need knowledge and service.

What need to do now is reduce our vulnerability and take back the perception that our information is better, because it is. All of this stuff happening caused me to get my “Beginners SEO guide for Real Estate” launched. We need to once again be the great marketers we once were and in order to do that we need to train agents how get their own websites going. This will keep them form feeling like they have to outsource their marketing on the web, which is dangerous for our livelihood.

Here is my guide for agents who want to get going on the web

http://www.skyrealtyaustin.com/seo-guide-for-re...

jfsellsius

You may be starting a movement Curtis.

Curtis Reddehase

I have it will not take to crescendo

Curtis Reddehase

Oops I ment to say I hope it will not take long to cresendo

jfsellsius

By your boldness, you have certainly inspired hope.

jfsellsius

Bob, how much are you willing to pay these third party sites?
Would you buy featured listings? Ads?
Are you concerned that ads (foreclosures, for example) are trying to pull visitors from your listings?

Bob Stoneburner

While the value of internet leads as a whole is poor, neither site is pulling web traffic from your own agent website. If anything, they allow additional exposure. This the same thinking as agent website 'compete' with brokerage websites in your MLS area.

Take the sites for what they are worth. Free additional exposure (even if they don't generate results) and access to a couple of well done free CRM tools, like the ability to frame or email market statistics branded to you. In the near future these guys will give you even better tools in exchange for your listings.

Portland Real Estate

Syndication to these places couldnt hurt if it were automatic. Ultimately though, I really do feel the same way that ad based sites don't really have the same feel and the same data quality as agent sites. An agent has an incentive to make sure the information is accessible and valid and up to date. An ad based site just wants someone to view the page, they do not care if the data is valid.

Deb Dahlberg Rowland

Lots of ads on Realtor.com that is for sure, official site or not! Isn't the syndication to Realtor.com done on a board level? I haven't directly participated there in over 12 years! Didn't like that I had to financially participate to "upgrade" to allow me to make sure the info that was already uploaded was correct! May have changed since then...

MaureenMcCabe

I asked Jim's Question on an ActiveRain post about this yesterday, whether Sky Realty would stop syndicating their listings to Realtor.com too. It is ad based real estate.

Jim Duncan

For kicks and giggles, isn't Realtor.com at least in part an "ad-based" real estate site?

LaurieManny

I shared my Trulia hits with Joe privately last week. The amount of hits garnered on the listings doesn't make it worth the effort to post them there. Over time I have received contact from a number of consumers through Trulia Voices, mostly they just wanted to talk about what a bunch of idiots the other agents answering questions were. I don't contribute any longer.

Benjamin Ficker

I have never received a call from a listing on Trulia or Zillow, but in the last year I have received probably one call or email a month from being a neighborhood expert on Zillow. That led to one listing appointment (didn't get) and a buyer who wrote an offer, but the financing fell through. I know a lot of agents don't like them, but honestly I don't think they are all bad. BTW, the neighborhood expert thing was from adding pics about the neighborhood, not buying a banner ad.

Glenn Sanford

TruZilla are parasitic in the way they intercept web traffic to their websites and then ask agents to pay to be featured and then also sell ads to other competing companies. As noted above, they are not for the client or the agent they are in it for themselves.

IndyAgent

Joseph - I don't know of any studies, but coincidentally, I received my Trulia stats yesterday and can tell you this:

According to Trulia, since 3/13/09 ( two months) I have had over 27,000 views of my properties, with NOT one call or contact directly contributable to Trulia. With these kind of stats, it would be easy to justify spending my time and money on different forms of marketing for my clients.

Stats copied and pasted for my listing book and on my blog.

I have also removed my listings from Trulia.

I don't think some agents realize a lot of these companies cooperate with each other. I have not directly enetered a listing on Trulia, however, through other syndicated sites, they were there.

Sellsius real estate marketing blog

SkyRealty Will No Longer Syndicate Listings to Ad Based Real Estate Sites