This is me in today’s Arizona Republic (permanent link):
Realty.bots will make sellers happy
We talked last week about the move by Realogy Inc. to supply millions of real estate listings from its national brokerage chains to upstart Realty.bots Google Base and Trulia.com. This puts the Realty.bots on the map. Who else is affected?
Sellers should be happy. Realty.bots are really not effective real estate search tools, but they are excellent home shopping sites. Listed homes will be exposed to thousands of users who might not have seen them on Realtor.com or local brokers’ Web sites.
Buyers could be happy. Trulia.com can seem like the Disneyland of real estate: Bright colors, interactive maps, even a Google Earth interface.
But buyers might stop to reflect that a Realty.bot listing is not very different from an exclusive listing. My wife and business partner, Cathleen Collins, was out with a buyer who saw an “exclusive” sign and asked what it meant. Her answer was concise and stingingly accurate: “It means they don’t want you to have representation.”
In fact, Realty.bot listings normally are not exclusive listings. They just look like it. When you click through for information, you are contacting the listing agent directly — or the listing brokerage or brokerage chain. If you proceed with the purchase of that home, you will either be unrepresented or you will be represented by the listing broker. You will not have your own buyer’s agent.
Realtors probably should be unhappy with Realogy’s move. Realty.bots tend to cut buyer’s agents out of the transaction altogether. This won’t save the buyer any money. The listing broker will just get paid double.
But listers also have cause to be unhappy, because the listings Realogy is providing to the Realty.bots will click back to Realogy, not to the listing agent or brokerage. My thinking is that their plan is to sell listers the leads their own listings generate.
It’s a brave new world in real estate. It will be fun to see how this plays out.
Technorati Tags: arizona, arizona real estate, disintermediation, phoenix, phoenix real estate, real estate, real estate marketing
Michael Wurzer says:
Whether the leads will go back to the franchise or the broker or agent from the Realogy supplied listings will be interesting. Most of the listings I’ve seen on either Google Base or Trulia tend to go directly back to the listing agent or broker’s site. I suspect Realogy could have some concerned franchisees if this was not the case with their listings. No matter what, the listing portal war is heating up.
March 23, 2007 — 12:19 pm
Jonathan Dalton says:
Trulia/Google Base both lead back to Century21.com, which would then lead the prospects to my office.
In theory (and with a heavy dose of optimism) I’m told that someone asking about one of my listings will be sent through to me. Whether that’s the case and whether I’d be expected to pay a referral back to my broker, I’m not sure at this stage.
From a larger standpoint, if it does stop at broker level and/or if I’m required to pay a referral, so be it. It’s the brokers’ cash paying for advertising on a listing that belongs to them under the current system. So I have little room to complain.
Though, being a Realtor, I’ll still find some room to complain regardless.
March 23, 2007 — 1:49 pm
Cathy says:
It appears that C21 and ERA listings go the office or the corporate C21 or ERA site, probably depending on whether they are “company owned” or franchises – or perhaps depending on who within their corporate structure aggregates listings for their region. CB listings seem to go back to their “*moves” (e.g., newenglandmoves.com) sites. But intracompany referral fees are nothing new for Realogy companies. I am told that newenglandmoves.com charges referral fees of 40% or more to their local offices.
Prudential at Yahoo! Real Estate seems to click back to one office designated for a large region, and it’s fair to surmise that that office receives referral or some sort of fees (and then perhaps splits them with another corporate profit center?) from the local offices who have sent the listings in to begin with.
This multiplicity of corporate profit centers making their money from their own agents’/brokers’ commissions is not new. It just doesn’t get much play.
March 23, 2007 — 2:44 pm
Grasshopper says:
Greg,
Thanks for reporting on this issue which I brought to your attention a few weeks ago. To clarify a few points mentioned in the comments above, let it be known that all C21 and ERA listings link back to their respective corporate sites (c21.com, era.com), unless–and herein lies the rub–the broker pays Trulia an advertising fee. Presumably, after paying this fee, Trulia will then link the listings back to the brokers’ site and display the brokers’ company logo (i.e. C21 DBA). But, until and unless the broker ponies up, Trulia is contractually obligated (yes, Trulia and Realogy have signed a contract) to link all listings to the corporate site.
Whether this will lead to C21 or ERA collecting referral fees on leads generated from these listings (which brings up another interesting point about who owns the data, the franchisor or franchisee) is an unknown. My sense is, however, should this happen it would upset an awful lot of independently owned and operated companies who, not to be ommitted, already pay substantial royalty and advertising fees purportedly for corporate marketing efforts.
March 23, 2007 — 6:21 pm
JeffX says:
It would be nice if someone made a Realty.bot for the buyers agent…
March 26, 2007 — 12:44 pm
Greg Swann says:
> It would be nice if someone made a Realty.bot for the buyers agent…
Is that a hint? We introduce new products more thoroughly than any other RE.net weblog…
March 26, 2007 — 12:48 pm