Click here to view the embedded video.

This is going to be an ongoing discussion for most of 2012 I would guess, as brokerages and agents around the country decide whether or not listing syndication makes sense for their businesses (I think it does).

[via AGBeat]

A few comments from buyers/sellers/home owners:

Andrew M

Why Does Abbott view it as the intellectual property of the real estate company when it’s a series of picture of MY house and details of MY house (which are all publicly available) that I’m trying to sell to the largest audience possible?

Christopher S:

Talk about completely going the wrong way. My wife and I just bought a house and we had a buyer agent only represent us. Bottomline, from a buyer’s perspective Zillow, Redfin and Trulia are invaluable tools that save time and inform the buyer.

Yes, you DO need a skilled agent but what Abbott is completely missing is that Zillow, Trulia and RedFin are merely tools that the buyer and the agent need to leverage. They don’t replace the agent, they enhance the agent to client experience.

Also, who’s he kidding with the multimillion dollar ocean front property as an example successfull house marketing? Not all, not even a fraction of sellers can afford a TV ad to sell their house.

“To our industry colleagues, please find our listings as you always have, through our cooperative, sandicor MLS…” Again, consumer’s don’t want a site that’s clunky and antiquated like sandicor. Even the new sandicor is a poor experience in comparison’s to the zillows, & redfinds of the world. The raw data is meaningless without the ability for the consumer to sift through it and make sense of it (neighborhoods, schools, comparison’s, historical tax, etc, etc).

I’m sorry but this kind of thinking reminds me of the candle manufacturer legistlating law’s in France to force people to close their blinds due to stiff competition from the sun.

Brandon G:

If I was a rival broker, I would love this. How is ARG going to explain to their customers that their listing will only be seen by half the people it was seen by before? Hopefully the word will get out, if you want the most potential buyers possible to see your house, don’t list it with ARG.

Geoff C:

Way to go. I am looking at purchasing in the future, and it will not be through ARG now. Sorry guys, but you just closed down a whole lot of options for yourselves.

Sarah M:

I agree with you… my husband and I recently bought a house, and both Trulia and Zillow were integral to our search. And yes, they sometimes have inaccurate information, but the benefits outweighed the problems, for the most part. They are shooting themselves in the foot this way.

Pretty telling, don’t you think?

The real estate industry is buzzing about Edina Realty and ARG pulling their listings from syndicators.  The announcement, one strong view, and a different response.

Most of the arguments about syndication are ignoring the elephant in the room.

Real estate brokers and syndication sites are battling for SEO.

9 out of 10 home buyers today are online.  The first business to grab a consumer’s attention is likely to get that consumer’s business, or generate revenue through the online traffic.  Buyers and sellers create income for whichever business has the most-accessible presence online.

All real estate companies are in competition.

Brokerages, individual agents, vendors, and syndicators collaborate in many useful and productive ways, but we are all in competition for the consumer’s dollar.  Brokers owe a high level of professional representation to our clients, while maintaining a competitive and sustainable business model at the same time.  When we disregard the competitive nature of our business, we lose focus in our decision making.

When you give away your listing, you give away SEO.

Unique content online is king for SEO.  Own a unique piece of online real estate, and you own the traffic and revenue that come along with it.  The more times you duplicate and syndicate that content, the more diluted it becomes, and the less-valuable your share of it becomes, in terms of SEO.  An individual listing is a unique and valuable piece of online property.

Who is #1 when buyers search for [Your City] real estate or homes for sale?

Is it a national syndication site?  Quite possibly.  When buyers search for your listing, “123 Main St ,City State”, they also probably find the syndicator first.  Why?  Because you gave it to them.  Thousands of real estate brokers give their SEO to that site every day.  Brokers create thousands of links to syndication sites’ listings, and effectively encourage their clients/consumers to do the same.

Is diluting your listing’s SEO good for your client?

Who is best to receive the inquiry from a buyer?  Better yet, who would the buyer want to receive his/her inquiry?  Trulia doesn’t know where Seattle homes are in the neighborhoods of Inverness or Arroyo.  Realtor.com can’t find Newport Shores or Surrey Downs, because it doesn’t list homes for sale in Bellevue in those neighborhoods (yes, I am pushing my own SEO right now).  A local agent would know, but they’ve all given their rights to that traffic away through SEO dilution.  It doesn’t matter who is “best”.  All that matters is who is “seen”.

Listings create consumer traffic.  Consumer traffic creates revenue. 

It’s true that these large sites currently have far more national traffic than most brokers’ local sites.  That traffic comes from brokers’ listings. Listings are the holy grail of online real estate.  Consumers certainly like maps and research features, but in the end their #1 goal is to find a home.  Without listings, a website is just an informational resource, without a solution to the home buyer’s ultimate need.  [Zillow has an amazing real estate website.  It used to generated its revenue through beverage advertising.  Until real estate brokers' listings and corresponding agent ads grew the revenue significantly, this company was not in a position to have the big, successful IPO they they had last year.]

Who should consumers find when they search for homes in your neighborhood?

That’s debatable, and really outside the SEO topic.  Most real estate brokers know dozens of local associates that they respect for their knowledge of the local market.  Unfortunately for them, they all point their web traffic to a national aggregator who may or may not.  Collectively, they’ve told the consumer to ask a syndication site.

Real Estate SEO will determine the direction of our industry in the long-term.

The companies that are successful selling real estate online will continue to gain greater power and influence over consumers, brokers, and even legislation that affects the real estate industry.  As a handful of companies gain larger shares of the market, more brokers are taking notice, but far too few are focusing on the source of that power.

SEO is your real estate online.  It is much like real estate in the physical world. 

Those who own the best real estate have usually worked hard for it, paid well for it, and will protect it fiercely.  The more they acquire, the more powerful they become.  Those who disregard its value and allow their real estate SEO to be acquired by others will see their influence wane and, over time, fail in their efforts.

In the end, brokers will decide on their own what is in the best interest of their clients, and their business.  The answer is not as cut-and-dry as many might assume.  Page views, traffic, experience, local knowledge, and a host of other factors will determine what is best for each individual’s clients.

Bottom Line:  Buyers will search.  They will find listings.  If they’re not at the syndication source, they’ll find them at the broker source.  The key is not in pointing as many people as possible to just any web site.  The key is pointing the right people to the right listing source.

As reported by Inman News (“Premium” content – sorry), Abbott Realty Group (ARG) recently announced that they will no longer syndicate listings to third-party aggregators. Subsequently, a big ol’ agent food fight ensued. OK, it’s more of a heated debate. But there are definitely two camps in the syndication discussion, and it’s an important one for buyers and seller, as well as agents, to understand. If affects us all.

If you are one of the three people remaining who hasn’t seen Jim Abbott’s video on the subject, here it is:

Click here to view the embedded video.

ARG’s decision followed a similar announcement by Edina Realty back in November. At the core, the arguments against syndication involve two issues: Data integrity and data control.

I’ll start with the issue of data integrity, because that is the simpler of the two. Sites like Trulia, Zillow and Realtor.com – let’s call them the troika – display loads of inaccurate data. There is no argument there. Because many of their listings are manually entered, many are outdated. I can point to numerous examples of homes being displayed as for sale that sold six months, or more, ago. I have seen my own listings entered by other agents as their own. There are foreclosure sites who routinely list homes by street – no address – that are not for sale but simply have had a Notice of Default filed, with the idea that buyers might contact their agents or sign up for there foreclosure listing services.

Some have argued that the likes of the troika do not have a corner on the inaccurate data market – that MLS listings are, too, fraught with errors. And while this is true, MLS errors represent agent input mistakes, oversight, or mere sloppiness. You won’t find double entries or intentional deceptions – or scams.

And then there are the rental scams which not only pose an inconvenience to our clients but present potential security risks. Where Craigslist used to own the rental scam space, we now see our listings appearing on the troika sites as rentals, and this happens nearly every time we list a home.  One of our clients learned that he was our latest victim when the first of a series of would-be renters knocked on his door – this one a Highway Patrolman who caused our elderly client much undo anxiety. Another client learned of the rental posting at the conclusion of a showing and from the showing agent who, having seen the listing on Trulia, was there only to help her client secure a six-month lease.

Absent syndication, would we eliminate rental scams? Of course not. The photos and listing information can be lifted just as easily from my site or any site with an IDX feed. But eliminating the ability for the scammers to do their one-stop shopping will make things a little more difficult.

Let’s talk about the larger issue of control. It’s about our information being hijacked for fun and profit and, yes, we handed them the keys.  It is about extortion. You gave us the car, and now you must pay for the ad, the enhanced positioning or profile, if you ever want to drive the conversation again. We are starting to see what this means for the agents and brokers. What does it mean for the buyers and sellers?

Let me share a story, a story that most agents have no doubt heard before. Our listings are on Realtor.com (no, we haven’t opted out), but we discontinued paying for the “special premium featured titanium agent” package on Realtor.com years ago when the bounty got a little too pricey and, philosophically, we got a little irked. So when I visited the page for one of our listings this week and filled out the contact form for more information, I wasn’t surprised by the outcome.

First we received an auto-generated response ensuring us that our inquiry had been sent to a “local area expert.” The “expert,” I’m sure, is a very fine company. It just happened to be one I had never heard of, with an office twenty miles away, and one who to my knowledge has never sold a home in this particular area. Next came another email informing us that an account had been set up for us on the referral agent’s website (“Our website has every listing in the San Diego area and it is updated daily”).

The next email was short and sweet; it gave us the name of their preferred “partner” lender who was standing by to help with all of our financing needs. It was the fourth and final email that finally hit on the subject at hand. “I have checked the status on this home and it is currently available. It is a traditional sale with no banks involved (like on a short sale or bank owned home). Did you have some particular questions about the home that I can answer for you?”

That’s it. Now with several hours and two pots of coffee separating me from my original query, I have a mortgage broker referral, I have an account on an agent’s IDX site, yet I still don’t have any answers nor have I been offered an opportunity to view the home I have expressed interest in. This is what we call a buyer left behind. The seller’s home was exposed, all right, but had I been a real buyer, the system failed him.

Further, relinquishing control of the conversation surrounding your inventory violates the most basic principle of Real Estate Career 101: The most valuable thing to a real estate agent is a stick in the ground. This is because listings breed listings, listings breed buyers, and listings build reputation. So when we “virtually” hand third party aggregators our body of work that took years and boatloads of money to cultivate, we slowly erode our own future growth potential – unless of course we pay for the opportunity to redirect the fruits of our labors back home.

Defenders of syndication say that an argument against syndication is an argument for dual agency. Nothing could be further from the truth. Much like you can opt out of syndication, you can opt out of dual agency.  Take the call, answer the questions, and then send the buyer to the nearest competing brokerage to view the home and write the offer if that helps you sleep nights. At least by having had the conversation, you haven’t opted out of your role as the champion for that home you signed on to sell, because that would not be in your client’s best interests.

Both Rob Hahn and Jay Thompson pointed out that Internet Data Exchange (IDX) sites like yours, mine, and the sites of every brokerage in the country, are no different than the Troika sites. I don’t agree. The data accuracy issue becomes a relative non-issue where IDX is concerned save the MLS input errors. Even then, the MLS’s have procedures in place for policing and ultimately ensuring compliance. More importantly, IDX sites lack the resale component of the troika sites. While an inquiry on my listing may in fact go the agent-owner of another IDX site – and often does – consumers are generally clear on the fact that they are on a particular broker’s or agent’s site. And while some ambiguity may still exist where an IDX site is concerned, they are not simply trying to sell the customer to the highest bidder.

On a larger scale, this is about an industry handing over the car keys. We moan about the flaws in the Zestimates and then we send Zillow the eyeballs. We gripe about how Trulia and the likes are using our data to redirect our customer contact opportunities (what some agents might call “leads”) and spawn their own IPO’s, yet we continue to click the submit button. We lament the fact that buyers are confused and that the best interests of buyers and sellers alike are not necessarily served by the pay-to-play lead generation model. We defend syndication by saying that our sellers demand it, but our clients in fact look to us to explain what works and doesn’t in marketing their home. If you don’t believe this, then ask yourself when the last time was that you promoted your extensive newspaper advertising program to a would-be seller. Just because it is “free” does not make it a beneficial marketing strategy.

Sure, some sellers may not get it, and therein is the conundrum for both the agent and the brokerage. That’s also the genesis of our fear, our inaction, and our continuing down this dangerous road.

You see, my client’s home does not really need to be on 400 national websites. That is just a myth we have propagated out of convenience and our desire to win listings. It is rhetoric we bought into, rhetoric delivered by those who are in the business of profiting from our business. My client’s home does need to be in the MLS, because it is through that platform of broker cooperation that the overwhelming majority of sales still take place. Of course, through the miracles of IDX, my client’s home will still be exposed far and wide on sites other than the MLS and my own. But those sites are owned and operated by other agents and brokers, not by those who are in business to repurpose and profit from my efforts.

When Brad Inman opened the New York Real Estate Connect conference with a clip from the movie “Network” in which the news anchor shouts, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore,” he was talking about prevailing consumer attitudes in our “cottage economy.” It will take this same kind of outrage within our industry to reverse this trend toward putting distance between our customers and us. Taken to the extreme, this road could be leading toward a destination of disintermediation. In its more basic form, it is a flawed delivery system that benefits neither the customer nor the real estate community.

And it will take more than one ARG with 25 agents or even an Edina Realty with 2100 agents. One little San Diego Castles Realty with 11 agents would most certainly go unnoticed. But, I suppose, that is how big changes start – with little ripples. I, for one, applaud ARG’s move. It was bold and, in my opinion, it was right.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Since regular readers already know what I think on this topic given the Edina article I wrote, just head over to Jay’s blog and read his take. It’s spot on.

Who’s next?

It’s a new year, so what better time to take on a controversial topic: listings syndication. There is a lot of discussion about this in our industry, and I thought it was time to give Zillow’s thoughts on this important topic. My comments below will also be the basis of my speech at this week’s Inman Connect in New York.

First, let me emphasize that Zillow has a lot of usage. In December 2011, more than 23 million unique visitors used our websites and mobile applications. The primary reason

they use Zillow is because of Zestimates, and the other unique content we have on our website. It is because of this traffic that nearly every major real estate brokerage in the nation puts their listings onto Zillow, for free.

Because the number of real estate websites has dramatically proliferated, real estate brokers and MLSs are now giving a more careful review of what sites they send listings to. I applaud this, as I think it is important to carefully evaluate which sites make the most sense. This trend towards “strategic distribution” is different from the more shotgun-like approach that characterized listings syndication for the last few years.

Strategic distribution is all about making the right decision on where to put listings based on criteria that makes sense for your business. Brokers own their listings, and can put them on whichever sites they choose. But in my opinion, brokers should carefully consider several important criteria when making these decisions:

1. Which sites are most likely to provide my listings with exposure to the most buyers. After all, that’s what the listing agents and their brokers have been hired to do by their home sellers: get the house sold quickly, at the best possible price.

2. Which sites have business rules which are most acceptable to my brokerage. Listings on Zillow receive exposure across Zillow.com, Zillow Mobile – the most popular suite of real estate apps across all major mobile platforms – and the Yahoo!-Zillow Real Real Estate Network the largest real estate network on the Web (according to comScore Media Metrix, 1), so clearly we have many millions of buyers visiting our website and using our mobile apps. Sellers benefit from their listing receiving as much exposure as possible.

Some in our industry have commented that although Zillow has more than 23 million unique monthly visitors to our websites and mobile apps, perhaps Zillow and other national media sites “don’t have very much traffic in my area”. That’s incorrect. Zillow reviewed November 2011 data from comScore Media Metrix, the leading third-party source of website traffic information. Note that this data does not include traffic on mobile applications, where Zillow and other national brands have overwhelmingly more usage than others. Just looking at website statistics though, the Yahoo!-Zillow Real Estate Network is the #1 or #2 real estate entity in all 20 of the top 20 local markets in the United States (2). The data simply does not support the argument that “those sites aren’t big in my area.” [If you'd like to learn more about Zillow's traffic in your area, please email me; we will happily share Zillow's internal traffic statistics for your region.]

To emphasize the mobile point further, let me stress that not putting listings on Zillow, REALTOR.com and Trulia is tantamount to abandoning any hope of finding a buyer who is using a mobile device. In December 2011, Zillow had more than 36 homes viewed every second of every day on a mobile device. Zillow has leading real estate apps on iPhone, iPad, Android phones, Android tablets, Blackberry, Windows Phone 7, and Kindle Fire. Mobile usage accounts for about a quarter of all of Zillow’s usage — it’s too important a channel for a seller or their listing agent/broker to ignore.

Brokers and MLSs should not only consider a website’s traffic when making syndication decisions. But they should also consider how each website gets its traffic. At Zillow, most of our traffic comes directly to Zillow.com or Zillow’s mobile apps, rather than coming to us through SEO. Our tens of millions of users are attracted to Zillow’s unique content, including over 100 million Zestimates and 100,000 consumer reviews of real estate agents. We bring this traffic to the table in these syndication discussions; it’s not like we showed up at the potluck with just a fork.

Putting listings onto top real estate sites is what sellers want, because it helps sell their homes. But don’t take my word for it — let’s look at the data. Zillow data shows that homes which receive the top 10% of page views sell more than a month faster than their counterparts in the bottom 10% of views.  Similarly, these highly viewed listings achieve sale prices closer to their asking price than those with less exposure. The difference is especially pronounced among homes priced less than $250,000. It’s obvious, but if you give your listing exposure to lots of buyers, it will sell faster and at a higher price. The data proves it.

The Objections

I’ve already addressed one objection to sending listings to leading media sites: the local traffic stats.

The second objection I sometimes hear is that ”the media site is selling my leads“. Most major media sites (including Zillow) have free models which pass buyer contacts to the listing agent — all they have to do to be presented as the first choice for buyers on their own listings is set up a free account and free profile on the site (which ensures that the buyer contact will get through to them).

In addition, some listings syndication services such as ListHub, owned by Move, Inc. (operator of REALTOR.com), have recently introduced dashboards to help brokers and MLSs understand different media sites’ business rules, and decide which sites to send listings to. This allows the MLS to facilitate the efficient distribution of listings under the direction of the broker who owns the listings.

Diverse Solutions

No discussion of listings syndication would be complete without mentioning Zillow’s acquisition of Diverse Solutions, the leading tech provider of IDX for websites. Many of you have told us what a great company, staff and products they have. But there are some conspiracy theorists who have speculated that Zillow will simply flip a switch and take all of the IDX listings through Diverse and put them up on Zillow.com.

It won’t happen and can’t —due to contractual and legal reasons.

However, from the day the acquisition was announced, we started hearing from brokers that asked why they needed to continue to send Zillow a direct feed, when it was already coming to Diverse through their MLS. Therefore, if a broker wants us to use their listings from IDX, and their MLS agrees, then we will do this. We are in the midst of conversations with many brokerages and many MLSs about this, since it significantly reduces the complexity for the brokerage and it improves accuracy of listings on Zillow, which benefits brokers, agents and their MLS.

Speaking of listings accuracy … Zillow invests massive resources in making our listings as accurate as possible, and it all starts with what’s provided to us by our partners. Complaining about accuracy while providing us with a less than stellar feed or no feed at all does none of us or our industry any favors. Those who decide to pull listings from sites like ours due to their own business reasons have the right to do so. But to take that step and then say a key reason was listing accuracy feels disingenuous when they have removed the very direct feed that is the most accurate, often leaving their agents to rely on less reliable options.

Conclusion

Strategic Distribution is an important part of a broker’s marketing strategy. It is very important for brokers to put their listings where buyers will find them — this is critical for agent recruitment and retention, and to help sell clients’ houses. 

It is for these reasons that nearly every major brokerage in the country has chosen to put their listings onto Zillow. We are very proud of our partnerships with companies like RE/MAX International, Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Windermere, Halstead, Prudential Fox & Roach and hundreds more.

I look forward to further discussion of this important issue, and I hope to see you at Inman Connect later this week.

Data Sources:

(1) comScore Media Metrix Real Estate Category Ranking by Unique Visitors, November 2011, US Data.

(2) comScore Local Market Key Measures, November 2011, Real Estate Category by Unique Visitors

Here is the statement they released:

Edina Realty is responding to the changing business models of third party aggregators.

Third party aggregators are not brokers and they are not required to abide by the same rules and regulations as a broker. They get listings for free from brokers around the country and then display them online, collecting and distributing leads for a profit. While some of you in the industry may understand that Trulia.com is an independent company, many of you may be surprised to learn that Realtor.com is NOT affiliated with NAR. They are a separate, publicly held business. Just like Trulia.com, their business model is based on selling lead generating advertising to agents.

We’ve since discovered that much of the data and information showcased on aggregator sites is inaccurate if it comes from non-MLS sources. According to a recent data quality study conducted by Trulia.com and published on Inman.com, 69 percent of errors in online real estate listings information were directly related to third-party syndication of information by non-MLS sources. This points to the need for more diligence regarding ownership of our clients’ data and where we send it – be it directly to an aggregator site or through syndication.

“The company reviewed about 1.2 million listings from about 250 data sources during the third quarter and found about 120,000 inaccuracies in listings information. More than half
(51 percent) of those inaccurate listings had errors in price, 41 percent had status errors, and 8 percent had errors in both price and status.”*
*Source: Trulia.com and Realtor.com respectively

Edina Realty will no longer provide a broker feed of our listing inventory to Trulia.com starting Nov. 30, 2011. We also intend to discontinue sending our listings to Realtor.com by the end of the year. Third party aggregators are not brokers. They get listings for free from brokers around the country and then display them online, collecting and distributing leads for profit. We believe it makes the best business sense for our agents and Edina Realty to control our own listings in
order to ensure that:

• Our agents don’t lose future business opportunities because a non-listing competitor pays to present themselves as the contact for your listing.
• Our agents don’t have to pay – directly or indirectly – for leads on their own listings.
• Our sellers can be assured that leads on their listing are being handled by an expert
• The quality and accuracy of your listing data is assured.
• Potential buyers are provided with fast, knowledgeable responses via the listing agent or our seven-day-a-week customer service department.

I really don’t get how NOT sending their listings to the largest real estate sites on the web (for free) is good for their clients. When an Edina Realty agent takes a listing — they are paid to sell the house. End of story. Ask a seller whether it is okay for you to not advertise their listing on the real estate sites with the most buyers, and I all but guarantee of what their response will be. The conversion would probably go something like this:

Seller: “Huh? Why would you not want to do that? It’s free”

Listing Agent: “They charge me for leads because they have more traffic than my own site”

Seller: “And why should that impact me? I’m paying you to sell my house, right?”

Listing Agent: “Yes, but…”

You get the picture.

I totally get where Edina Realty is coming from in terms of not wanting to pay for leads from sites that drives traffic from their own listings (as well as listings from other brokers). No one WANTS to do that. But this is business. Driving traffic and leads is hard work, and takes a lot of time and/or money. The Trulia’s of the world have spent millions of dollars building great websites that draw consumers to them. Brokers are not in the consumer web technology business. They are in the business of selling homes (MOST brokers are in the business of recruiting agents, but that’s another discussion for another day).

All that business strategy is meaningless in the minds of a seller. They want their house sold. Listing syndication increases the chances of that happening. PERIOD. End of story.

In short, I’m with Jay on this one.

Do you think more brokerages will follow Edina? Or do you think Edina will end up eating their own words and putting syndication back in place later in 2012?

Trulia, YAHOO!, Zillow and others would claim that their ad treatments are no different from the standard industry practices of “cooperation and compensation” and IDX display, where someone other than the listing broker works with a buyer and where competing brokers advertise the listing broker’s properties. However, as noted above, closer examination suggests that consumers often are not aware that their inquiries are being directed to someone other than the listing agent. And the user experiences on these sites often actively disadvantage the listing agents. Moreover, the IDX infrastructure is specifically designed to help brokers provide permission for their counterparts to advertise their listings (with prominent attribution for the listing broker). Many publishers would be hard pressed to argue that the listing brokers have knowingly granted permission for third-parties to advertise and capture leads on their listings, and the treatments on Trulia, YAHOO!, and Zillow are in no way comparable to typical IDX display rules.

In my mind, there is no question that IDX results in the same confusion regarding who the listing agent is that Z/T/YRE has. Ask Jay Thompson or Kris Berg how many phone calls they field from buyers who find their websites as a result of address searches for a particular property they are interested in and have no clue that they are not calling the listing agent. The answer is “a lot”.

In any case, I don’t know why this is such an issue. Last I checked, the goal of listing agents was to sell their listings — no? Why does it matter who the buyer contacts once they find the home? In many cases, it’s NOT in a buyer’s best interests to contact the listing agent in any case. A listing agent has a vested interest in selling them THAT home. A buyer’s agent has a vested interest in selling the buyer a home that’s right for them. At least, in theory.

Would buyer’s agent rather not pay for leads? Sure. But is that reasonable to expect? No. Finding business comes down to time or money. You can either invest the time yourself over an extended period of time to build your network & book of business, or you can pay money to other’s who already have significant reach to bypass or speed up finding clients. It’s a pretty simple equation.

Strategically this is a great move for Zillow, and will effect the real estate industry in several ways. From a real estate agent’s perspective, this expands marketing reach and puts everything into one user interface…saving agents time and allowing them to focus on other tasks.

On one of the MLS committees I sit on in Maui, there is a lot of opposition to large real estate sites like Zillow. While I understand why some Realtors might see these types of sites as a threat, I encourage you to think about this as an opportunity to gain more exposure for your client’s listings.

So, back to my question. Did Google dump their real estate listings because of partnerships like this between Zillow and Yahoo (and Trulia and CNN)? Well…yes and no. Google does state that one of the reasons they cancelled this service was because of, “the proliferation of excellent property-search tools on real estate websites” (and this blogger would argue that Zillow is one of the best real estate research tools around). However, Google has some of the brightest minds in the industry, and if they wanted to throw their programmers at real estate, they could blow everybody out of the water.

Personally, I think Google has bigger fish to fry. I don’t think Larry Page is taking being dethroned by Facebook as the most visited website very lightly.

For the brokers and agents reading, here is a short survey that I’d appreciate your quick feedback on. I’ll share whatever findings comes from this in a later blog post.