4RealzEd and RCG get picked up in NYT’s story about…
…using social networking sites like Facebook to generate business.
A HUGE thanks goes out to Jonathan at the Matrix for making the introduction between Stephanie and myself!
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Dustin
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Dustin
Redfin releases a genuinely interesting update!
According to their press release, they are now commingling MLS, FSBO and Foreclosure listings on one map… and this has me scratching my head!
Are they allowed to do this? Isn’t this type of commingling of listings against MLS rules?
Notice the purple and pink icons… Those are REO (foreclosures) and FSBOs, respectively (green icons are MLS listings).
I have four ideas about how they are able to get away with this:
- They found a loophole in MLS agreements that let’s them commingle listings (but I would find this hard to believe).
- They got buy-off from all their local MLS organizations (but I would find this hard to believe)
- They have reason to believe they can win this battle in the courts… (maybe a DOJ brief in support of this or something similar?)
- They just don’t care about the rules and believe that consumer support for this feature will be so great that they’ll risk MLS fines.
None of these scenarios seem likely to me. What am I missing?
With that said, I REALLY like how they are approaching the foreclosure data. I’ve received a few press releases recently from real estate search sites that “announce” they are now publishing foreclosures on their site. However, inevitably, when I tested out the feature, the sites were just regurgitating RealtyTrac data that required consumers to pay a fee to get the actual address of the property. Redfin is providing the address.
Also interesting, someone from Redfin let me know that they are going to phase in a flat-fee buying option in order to accommodate these new listings types.
I want to send my congrats out to the Redfin team for pushing the boundaries yet again. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re working pretty darn hard to deliver features and tools that they think will do a better job serving their customers.
UPDATE:
There’s some debate in the comments about whether there are local MLS rules against commingling of data, with some people claiming it’s just a misunderstanding that the data can’t be commingled. However, someone (who wished to remain anonymous) send me the following email which demonstrates that for at least one MLS where Redfin is commingling data, the rules are pretty clear:
Check it out: http://www.imrmls.com/centsite/idx_policy.htm
“4.13. Listings obtained through IDX must be displayed separately from listings obtained from other sources, not including information provided by other MLSs.”
What that says to ME (having experience with MLS rules) is that MRMLS doesn’t allow FSBO properties side-by-side with MLS listings.
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Richard Dale-Mesaros
Congrats to RedFin for pushing the envelope! I guess their challenge will be to make this available nationwide as fast as possible. We’re looking for this kind of service to add to our member offerings, but even with RealtyTrac, their coverage is spotty in certain areas (eg: New Hampshire).
The next big goal for RedFin will undoubtedly be free access to MLS comparables for the general public. The NAR is clinging onto this data by their fingernails…. I wonder how soon they’ll loose their grip on this, too?!
Yours with boundless enthusiasm,
Richard
Chief Deal Weaver
http://www.BlackWidowNetwork.com -
Jan
Actually windermere.com has been “commingling” listings for years. Go look for listings in Long Beach, WA, to see both NWMLS and RMLS.
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Ellie at Redfin
Glad you like the release, Dustin! As to your question about co-mingling listings, we researched that one pretty hard. We found that what the rules actually require is that we clearly mark the source of a listing, such as with different color icons for non-MLS listings and clear messaging on the listing itself. We’ve done that, because we don’t want to misrepresent a listing as an MLS listing if it isn’t.
Also, if a listing is both a for-sale-by-owner home and is in the MLS (perhaps it’s an old FSBO listing, or the seller is trying both approaches), we show the MLS listing first by default.
And finally, thanks for noticing that you get the address with foreclosures. We looked at a few ways of doing this and really didn’t like the idea of teasing searchers with a foreclosure, only to send them off to a fee-based site to get the address.
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Jon
What we’ve found is most MLSs specifically note “This MLS’ Listings may ONLY be commingled with other MLS’ listings.”
However after reviewing NWMLS rules, I don’t see anything of that sort. Seems (for now) redfin is in the clear. UNLESS other rules implicitly apply to data in a Member’s (Broker) site in general (ie. Framing rules).
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Anthony Longo
We launched this on our site back in January. Not quite as detailed however we did a deal with Foreclosure.com and Forsalebyowner.com and have those listings fed to our site daily.
We were unsure of the commingling issue so we dont pull onto the same page/map…rather you have to perform separate searches.
Check it out at http://Boston.CondoDomain.com click on search and you can see you can search for: New Developments, Exisiting Buildings, Full MLS, Foreclosure, FSBO and even Auction.
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For Sale by Owner Center
We caught wind that our FSBO listings were appearing on Redfin searches via the Redfin press release and with further research found one of our Long Beach CA listings included ( http://www.redfin.com/CA/LONG-BEACH/307-LOMA-AVE-90814/home/7602890 )
I personally think it’s great for the consumer but part of the reasoning to move forward is for the PR attention they may get from a possible MLS that file complaints which would make Redfin appear even more pro-consumer.
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Jessie B
This is from the Redfin press release…
“Consumers’ first question of any real estate site is whether it shows all the homes for sale,” said Redfin Chief Technology Officer Michael Young.
I 100% agree with the above statement and it’s exactly what is driving the development of our beta site.
Although other sites have claimed to do this… I think it will be very interesting to watch how the re.net will react to this.
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Andrew
there is no rules against this whatsoever. the only site that cannot mix fsbos is realtor.com. they have an agreement with NAR that does not allow this. Google tride to strike a deal with NAR but since they were not allowed to mix listings Google said forget it.
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Joseph Bridges
I think providing customers with the latest data is extremely important and real estate professionals and MLS organizations should take note and make sure that they give the customers what they want. MLS’s that give the consumers all the data first will provide more value to their real estate agents who pay them dues. After all it is in the best interest of the consumer and the agent that they get to see ALL properties that meet the buyers criteria. While the rest of the redfin model may be up for debate their committment to data to the consumer is great.
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property bulgaria
What we’ve found is most MLSs specifically note “This MLS’ Listings may ONLY be commingled with other MLS’ listings.”
However after reviewing NWMLS rules, I don’t see anything of that sort. Seems (for now) redfin is in the clear. UNLESS other rules implicitly apply to data in a Member’s (Broker) site in general (ie. Framing rules).
Dustin
Remodeling 4realz: Adding a library!
So far I’ve added a wiki I started building the other day that describes the various blogging options available to real estate professionals as well as links from my internet marketing presentations.
Feel free to add your ideas for what should be added to the 4realz.net Library! 
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Eva
What about http://www.moguling.com? Both free and paid for.
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Dustin
Never hear of the site. Do you know any real estate profesionals using the service?
Dustin
Pat just tipped me off that Google updated the…
…PageRank status for websites.
RCG went from a 5 to a 6 (no real surprise there since RCG was at a six a while back)…
More interesting, 4realz.net went from a 4 to a 5. Not bad for a domain that launched at the end of November and includes a bazillion links on it’s sidepanel!
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Kevin Tomlinson
Hey yeah! Congrats. Wow a 5 already. Even my blog went from a 4 to a 5…Woo hoo.
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Dustin
I’m seeing so many different sites from the RE.net get a bounce in this round. It definitely demonstrates the power that we all have to bump each other up!
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Trace
Dustin: You are no no limits link soldier. I showing you have 1387 links of which 488 are wordpress tags links…..You’ve nofollowed a total of 4 links. You have more links on a page then I’ve ever seen…..
Dustin
One of the many reasons to blog on WordPress.com is…
…that the wordpress.com domain does REALLY well in google searches for the various “tags” that get associated with posts.
For example, the wordpress.com tag for REALOGY shows up just below the wikipedia entry for the company and above the Inman news page on REALOGY:
And because Rob and I are the only people on the platform talking about Realogy, we get an outsized influence in how Realogy is represented on the web.
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Trace
I can’t say I see wordpress tag pages rank noticeably for most of the searches I do day to day… I’m inclined to think that this example might be more influenced by lack of competition for the specific keyword more then anything else….
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Dustin
Trace:
It’s only recently that I’ve started to see wordpress.com tags show up on search results… Combined with your point that they only do well on niche tags means that you’re right that they aren’t a dominant source of traffic (yet).
But in many ways, I live for the niche traffic since it is often extremely relevant, so I’m more than happy to get the jumpstart from WP.com’s.
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-Rob
Now if we can only somehow combine our powers, Dustin, to extract outsized financial rewards from Realogy….
C’mon, doesn’t anyone over at Realogy want to bribe a couple of RE.net bloggers for some spin?
I kid, I kid!
-rsh
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Sherry Chris
Hi, it’s Sherry from Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate (Realogy) We can’t bribe you but we can say thanks for blogging about us!
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Dustin
Sherry:
Thanks so much for stopping by! And so very cool that BH&G has a blog!
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floridamoves
C’mon Goofinheimers, stop clogging up my reader with your inane rantings. Like there is soooooo much money in the real estate industry these days that you will be paid for writing a blog about Realogy. Sorry haven’t had my coffee yet.
Having said that, WordPress is the way to go. It’s growth far exceeds Blogger and it offers a more advanced platform.
Good luck with your little extortion experiment fellas!
From the Beach Chair,
Matt Gentile – 300 Days of Sunshine
FloridaMoves.com
Dustin
Looking forward to the TweetUP this…
…Friday. For those of you in the LA area, I recommend avoiding the last minute rush and registering on Upcoming now!
(and while you’re at it, consider joining the RE.net event group on upcoming so you can get updated on all kinds of good events like this!)
Dustin
David G: What if Zillow got “Quantified”?
We all know that external sources of traffic are off, but what if you guys “quantified” the site so that a third party could transparently track your traffic?
I think that would be a great way to nip the traffic question in the bud.
And by the way, I “quantified” RCG about two weeks ago and, not surprisingly, the uniques from Quantcast are really close to Google Analytics (maybe 5% lower at most).
jd are discussing. -
jd
Zillow’s numbers have every reason to be accurate. If they plan on a public offering or even to maintain transparency with their existing investors, they would be crazy to have a company representative like DavidG post inaccurate stats. There is no way that DavidG’s traffic stats could be off; Rich Barton and the board would have pulled the plug on that very quickly. The same reason that they never disclose revenues is the same reason that you can believe their traffic numbers: If it’s good, it will be disclosed.
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Dustin
jd:
It’s not that I think David is lying or wrong about his numbers… But my experience is that different stat packages will ALWAYS give different results.
To give one example… While at Move, at one point, I was put in charge of organizing an A/B testing program.
Up to that point, Move (like Zillow) had been using Omniture for internal stat reporting. (By the way, you can see this for yourself by looking at the page source for the various websites).
However, I really liked the A/B testing capabilities of Google Analytics, so I helped convinced the powers-that-be to put Google Analytics on every page on realtor.com and move.com.
I won’t say which way things went, but it is fair to say that the results from Google Analytics were often substantially different than the results from Omniture…. despite the fact that both stat packages used the same technology (i.e. a bit of javascript on every page).
I say all this only to make the point that I have good reason to be extremely suspect of internal numbers… especially if you’re trying to make comparisons to other sites. 3rd Party sources may be wrong, but at least they offer a better apples-to-apples comparisons among sites.
To your other point, I was told VERY clearly while at Move NEVER to talk about internal stats for the very reason you suggest… I’m pretty sure no one wanted to open up the internal stats to investors, so we were always best off quoting 3rd party sources.
As a matter of fact, the only numbers you’ll ever see quoted by Move officials are from 3rd party sources (mostly Media Metrics).
Also interestingly, the reason I like Quantcast for Zillow is that it would offer the benefit of being 3rd party source… and, at least for me, the numbers more believable than Omniture results.
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David G from Zillow.com
Yeah, Dustin, you calling me a liar, huh?
We regularly report our site’s Unique (monthly) Users. That data’s collected for us by omniture. If we’re ever running behind on an update, just ping me. We sell ads and so we discuss our site audience statistics publicly and with our clients and potential clients. [5,2M UU's in March - 46% of whom have annual household incomes over $100,000!] We need accurate and public traffic numbers. For better or worse, we decided to discuss UU’s and have done so pretty much since launch. We did look into being “quantified” but we unfortunately had to pass for business reasons relating to the service’s t.o.u. Sorry – for now, you’ve just got my word – and the fact that Rich would have pulled my plug by now! (ht jd!)
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Dustin
Totally understand… Although now you have me curious what’s controversial about their t.o.u.?
Dustin
Added video posts and comments to RCG yesterday, and…
… I’m really enjoying the results so far. If you’ve got a webcam, feel free to join us in playing with video conversations.
Dustin
Is Zillow worth $225M?
It’s a great question…
I thought I’d dive into this question a bit so I started writing a killer-post! My thought was to put together a fascinating post that described likely revenue opportunities at both Zillow and Trulia and I was even going to go so far as to estimate the value of Trulia…
However, after multiple iterations and rewrites, I’m simply not happy with where the post was going so I deleted most of the text and thought I’d let you create your own story out of my notes:
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Trace
That is a great question regarding Zillow. They’ve raised $87 million to date…. but the big questions are: What is their burn rate? What are revenues? When do they expect to achieve profitability….. I’m not convinced they have a clear path to profitability with their current model…. They have around 157 employees, mostly tech / engineering oriented and what they do with that many employees has always been anybody’s guess.
I’m inclined to think an IPO is in the works and will occur sooner rather then later…. I think finding the right buyer would be a challenge right now….. and their existing investors are certainly going to be weary of raising another round, but it could happen….
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David G from Zillow.com
Hi Dustin,
In case it helps with the math; Zillow had 5,2 million unique visitors visit the site last month.
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jimmythegent
Zillow is definitely worth $225 million. Is it worth half as much as Realtor.com? That’s comparing apples to oranges. It has 10% market share in a highly fragmented market, massive name recognition, almost all of the listings, $150 million+ in cash, and revenues of $300 million. One reason for the low market cap of MOVE is the change of control provisions in the operating agreement between NAR and MOVE: It allows NAR to get Realtor.com back from MOVE if the company is ever acquired or if there is change in the majority ownership of the company or board composition.
So there will never be any real change at MOVE…
However, speaking of burn rate, MOVE has an accumulated deficit of over $2 billion. They have burned through $2 billion to get to where they are today. Zillow seems to be a bit more efficient with capital. And smarter. On a smaller scale, people check Zillow on prospective homes like they check the weather. Zillow will ultimately figure out a way to benefit in a big way from this.
Trulia might be worth even more. However, one risk factor is this: Once a major brokerage decides to open up its listings, it’s open to everyone through Google Base. The decision for brokerages is a binary one: Is listing data proprietary or open. Once they decide on open, everyone is going to get it even though Trulia did all of the heavy-lifting on the business development front. Low-cost start-ups will be free riders on Trulia’s efforts. This is one reason that Zillow could actually win on both the listings front and with creative offerings elsewhere. On a pure-listings basis, it’s going to open.
Trace
Quantcast shows around 2.9 million and compete.com is at 2.2 million….
Dustin
They also show that Zillow does a great job reaching an older audience!
And for sites (like WordPress.com,) , that get quantified, they give some great info around demographics, popularity, and similar sites.
Dustin
If Yahoo got their social media act together, this…
I’ve always enjoyed the niche social networks bought by Yahoo (Flickr, Upcoming, del.icio.us, etc.)… and if they can keep them niche, while making Yahoo more social, there’s potential for some interesting synergies.
(I found this particularly interesting in the context of Yahoo’s desire to keep prodding along…)
4:30 am on May 1, 2008 Permalink |
Hi D!
Congrats on the mention….Funny, Stephanie emailed me at 6:34pm a couple nights ago for thoughts on the story too asking to talk for 5 minutes that evening and when I emailed shortly thereafter, she never responded. Weird.
Yup, Jonathan is awesome.
Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia.com
Eric Fredericks 7:32 am on May 1, 2008 Permalink |
Dustin Luther, Superstar
Brian Requarth 1:25 pm on May 1, 2008 Permalink |
Dustin, congrats on the mention in NYT. That is big stuff. I am moving back to California this summer. What is your seminar schedule like? I would like to attend. I see you have one in Pasadena. Anything planned for later in the summer?
Dustin 1:48 pm on May 1, 2008 Permalink |
Awesome Brian! It’ll be great to have you back in CA!
We’re definitely going to do some more seminars this summer. We’ve been holding off getting too far ahead of ourselves as we wanted to get a better idea of what it takes to put one of these events on successfully. With that said, with two under our belt, we’re feeling MUCH better about our set-up and will almost definitely have an event in Orange County in mid-July! Hopefully we can get you in town then!