Ten years ago when I started in real estate, I was interested in the new potential of sites like Trulia and Zillow and what they claimed to be able to offer consumers and agents and how they would bridge the gap of what brokers had and what consumers wanted...information!
Now having this time to see them grow and become a popular source for consumers to view homes and sales information, I have noticed that their sites offer a wealth of information but have little control or understanding of what that information means to consumers and how to filter it best to give accurate and reliable information. Even with brokers across the country adding their MLS (Multiple Listing Service) information and data feeds, they still have out of date homes for sale and sold information on their site that is not correct and "Zestimates" that are highly inaccurate to the actual pricing going in in the local real estate market.
I think thy could be a great tool for consumers and brokers to work in harmony but now brokers have the same, if not better, tools to help consumers get what they want with speed, accurate details and ability to meet or chat with an agent, see a home, get a loan, underwrite their insurance all from one place...the Broker site or apps.
Apps have really allowed the broker to make the information accessible in a very accurate way and allowed the consumer to have a wonderful experience with learning what homes they like (i.e. favorites), gathering community information, schools, and learning the market by seeing first hand the sales so they have an accurate picture to local pricing and what is for sale.
In my area and the company I work for, we have an app that allows you to save searches by searching via a criteria search( circa 1990) or the new way to search via a map and drawing the area you want to see your next home. Then the broker has gone above a normal search. They have allowed the saved search, which can also send automatic email updates to the consumer with new listings that come into the search or sales every 15 minutes. Now that is fast and accurate information!
With the markets being very local and to truly understand values, Zillow and Trulia can't write an equation accurately enough to "guess" the pricing of a home. They don't know the features of the home, what condition it is in, being able to physically walk through homes in the area or that specific home that is for sale, or the seller's situation for selling the home. That kind of knowledge is where a professional real estate agent, a realtor, can help navigate the market and interpolate the information for the buyer or seller in a way that is not only accurate but the ability to show the differences and talk about what they saw in that house that make the pricing higher or lower than the market.
These are just a few ways that these sites are becoming obsolete. There is a trend that brokerages across the country are stripping their feeds to these sites because of the lack of oversight and control of good and accurate information to consumers. Brokers are learning what they have to offer is so much more powerful than a site like those will ever be able to offer.
What would you like to see in a real estate search app or tool for home buying/selling?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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