14 Jan Large Real Estate Brokerages Move Away From National Portals
Some large real estate brokerages are moving away from national real estate portals who use advertisements to help pay the bills. With so much going on for the consumer on these sites, brokerages are getting fed up and want to give their customers a better experience. Some believe their listings are getting lost in a sea of advertisements, and as a result, brokerages have pulled listings from portals like Trulia and Realtor.com.
According to Realtor.com, Edina Realty and ARG Abbot Realty Group out of San Diego are the only two brokerages currently withholding data from their site. But now, real estate agents are in the same predicament. The decision to pull listings from these large real estate portals is a big one, but some are finding it’s giving them a chance to break off and focus on their own websites.
Edina Realty, the first large real estate brokerage to break free of listing on national portals, says their decision has been a good one. They cut off their flow of listings to Trulia in November 2011 and Realtor.com in May of the same year. According to Edina Realty’s website, visits increased 21.7% between July 2011 and July 2012, and unique visitors were up 17% at the same time.
But to some critics, pulling back from popular sites like Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com could handicap home shoppers. By not posting to these sites, consumers will no longer be able to see a snapshot of the market with listings missing. Adds Realtor.com President Errol Samuelson, “I believe that consumers are using a variety of mediums to learn about real estate and that restricting information to a single channel will not modify consumer behavior.”