Yes, we agree. Someone tell David G. He doesn’t listen to us

Whomever pays more.

And by “virtual trespass” we mean without homeowner consent to it appearing on zillow.com.

I think there is an implied consent by the home seller that the listing broker can advertise they sold the home, at least for some period of time — the sold sign on the lawn– and that consent probably extends also to the broker’s website. But the question we pose is– does that consent extend to third party aggregators who are using it to generate ad income for themselves. Our opinion is no, it does not. And we also have the question of the new homeowner– does he or she give consent to the sold sign on the home which is no longer a listing?

The thornier question is whether the details of the home sale– the broker name and contact info — are part of the public record. If they are, our position is harder to defend & we would probably concede it to Zillow but argue in that case, the buyer agent should also be listed.

Zillow is going to change real estate-Hype
Zestimates are going to replace Realtors-Hype
Make me Move-Hype
Zillow Ads-More Hype
Zillow Q&A -more Hype
Zillow Virtual SOld Signs-Even more hype

When is the hype going to end?

Zillow and Trulia are like the Facebook and Myspace for the Real Estate world, except noone is really hanging out in the social real estate world. Zillow want’s to be but will never be a social network for real estate. To be that, it has to be open source. Open source is allowing other people to guide, direct and have say in your online community. Sellsius has already let us know that Zillow doesn’t exactly do that.

I guess I wouldn’t decide if this is a good idea or not until I saw it implemented. I think it’s useful to know who’s the dominant lister in a particular area, so I guess I don’t really see a problem.