There has been a lot of talk lately amongst agents and clients about Trulia. They were just purchased by Zillow and they will some day take over the real estate industry because the consumer demands information and an efficient system, bla, bla bla bla bla. Maybe not after today's Trulia mishap.
Random Quick Statement: The only way information will be accurate is at the local level.
Back to my Point on Trulia:
Trulia launched a new "agent profile" where clients can rate agents. Agents like myself click on the link to see all of our recommendations. I even took a look at my own today. I had ten recommendations and only two had attempted to give a "star rating" for some reason. Then I reviewed them.
The review said "John Long did a awesome job in selling our home. Thanks John for all your hard work and efforts, it was appreciated." Beside that same rating it only had one star. How could that be? Well, I called Trulia and they admitted that it was an error, but couldn't fix it without my client logging back into her profile and changing it. How annoying would that be for your agent to have to call you to fix something that was correct before prior to some third party nerds messing it up with a new system.
Why would just one rating set me off....Because there were only two to create an average off of. As an agent we don't want a low average rating, especially when the customer meant to rate an agent highly.
The experience of the phone call: It took several phone calls, I was put on hold, transferred a couple times, and the representatives that I chatted with were snippy, and they really just don't get the agent prospective. Keep in mind this is a company that I currently pay hundreds of dollars per month to advertise certain zip codes. They should treat me a little better than that.
My question is this, if Trulia can make errors that are damaging to agents reputations & businesses and can't correct it to be accurate, then why would I as an agent pay them each month to provide me with a service that is disruptive and inconvenient to my business?
My suggestion to agents who share these concerns is this......These companies look great on paper, but here is why I choose not to invest in them. Realtors are the ones that keep them in business. If they damage our real estate business and reputation, then we will penalize them for it. With system changes like this that damage our business we will eventually pull our advertising from these websites. When that happens they will sink.
I'm proposing the following to sink the ships like Trulia and Zillow. This is a very simple solution that hasn't been discussed much in the news lately....It should be quick and simple too......are you ready.....
1. Have your board of Realtors cut off the IDX agreements with them. That is where most of the info comes from and guess who works hard for all the pics, descriptions, room sizes, etc???? You are right...It's the agents.
People in our industry say, "Realtors will never stick together and Zillow and Trulia are just too big with too much money." I say, they might have a lot of money, but we are the gatekeepers of the information and real estate will and has always been best at a local level.
Even if you do not want to rock the boat, the boat needs to be rocked because these websites are damaging to our customers and to our personal business. As an agent, our reputation is our biggest asset. We work hard day and night to protect that reputation. I will not let some nerd that can't figure out the problem with his website to interfere with my hard earned business.
If anyone actually read my horribly written blog, just remember that when it comes to these big websites, we the agents and board of realtors need to step up and enforce accuracy or cut it off and separate it from our profession. Customers should be given accurate and dependable info and it simply cannot happen on a macro level.
I vote to cut them off and legitimize accurate real estate once again. Real Estate has and always will be best at a LOCAL LEVEL.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
House Hunters Indianapolis Update
As many of you may already know that the HGTV Show "House Hunters" was filmed in Indianapolis in February/March of 2014. My clients and I were featured in that episode and travel both downtown Indianapolis and the Indy suburbs to find them a new home.
We do not yet have an air date but please feel free to check the programming guide on the HGVT.com website. Let me know if you see it scheduled anywhere as I will also check. We are also looking for some ideas as to where we might host a viewing party on the north side of Indy.
Please share any ideas for a viewing party location. We are guesstimating a fall air date but nothing solid yet. Thanks again, JL
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