Finding a home on syndicated listing sites
Zillow made news earlier this week by adding rental listings and search and charging $9.95 for a 180 day period and followed up by announcing a similar charge if the listing was not submitted via bulk feed (or syndication).
According to Inman News:
"The fees do not apply, though, to listings that come to the site via bulk feeds -- which account for about 97 percent of the 4 million listings at the site, company officials have announced. Those bulk feeds come from several sources, including brokerages, multiple listing services, and syndication services by companies such as Postlets and vFlyer, as those listings update automatically.
The main reason for the change was to improve the quality of listings by giving people an incentive to submit accurate listings and keep them up to date, said Zillow Chief Operating Officer Spencer Rascoff.
In some cases, people who entered listings manually have not routinely updated those free listings to reflect price changes or status changes, for example, Rascoff said." (emphasis added)
So why do people bother to search for homes for sale on some of these sites anyway.
We had a guest at our office sales meeting who brought the obligatory donuts to get 15 minutes in order to sell our agents on the idea of advertising with them. And one of the online benefits was that your listings would be syndicated to dozens of real estate sites including such important sites like BobVila.com. Now I liked Bob Vila and the original This Old House but if you were serious about finding a home for sale, would you really think that would be the best place to find a home.
If you are interested in searching for a home for sale in Charleston, go to a good Charleston real estate agent's website and search the Charleston MLS with an IDX (Internet Data Exchange) feed directly from the Charleston MLS.
On my website, there is no registration required and no annoying ads cluttering up your search. Search now.