How come some of the listings I see on public search sites do not reflect current status or correct pricing?

Hi Jason,

Good question and one that has, depending on who you ask, fingers pointing in every direction! The advent of such sites as Zillow and Trulia (the 2 best known but not the only 2 search sites for real estate) has been the development of local MLS (Multiple Listing services).

These services act as the bulletin board for realtors to post (list) their listings and leases in a given market area. These listing are pretty complete and comes with a set of rules the users need to follow in order to use the service. Like reporting all price changes, changes of status and sold information once a transaction if closed. There are usually fines associated with violations of these things and the separate entities do best to police themselves and their members. Accuracy is probably 95%

At some point in town these 3^rd party sites , Such as Zillow/Trulia, came into being and the MLS's communities saw this as an opportunity to broadcast their members information onto a wider national platform. I most cases costs of sharing the information was minimal because there platforms do not typically charge to list the properties.

How can they do that? Because they do charge advertisers that are attracted by volume of visitors to their site. So for these companies the more listings they have the larger number of audience they attract. They also can tap the Realtor® market by selling placement services on each property landing page. Ever see the “Neighborhood expert” spot? Well I can tell you from experience they are not experts in the neighborhood they appear next to. They have just paid to be placed there as the expert..Never mind going down that path but it is a little misleading to say the least..

So now you have all of this information posted on sites not under the same guidelines as the original host site. Some of these sites data fields don’t match up the same, sometimes the data is corrupted, sometimes the changes to status and price to not make it to the 3^rd party site, some times the changes make it but the site reads it as a duplicate and does not publish the changes. I ave hear a lot of excuses from various 3^rd party sites over the years.

These sites have different ways of advising the public on what estimates are for home values although usually those values have noting to do with market activity in a given market place more to do with public tax evaluations and other public information. In Texas sale information is not made public, the 3^rd parties respond well if you want more accurate information to be given by us release the sold information to us. By law it just does not work that way so they go ahead and publish information that is inaccurate and helps create this market confusion over prices.

It is a nasty spiral and one that is about to change. A lot of MLS's around the country are not sending the information to these 3^rd party companies anymore. This will leave them looking for other ways to generate traffic to their sites. In that past they have down played the accuracy of the information saying it is not our data we just show what is given to us. Being a realtor and have data misrepresented on these sites and trying to get the information changed is not an easy task.

I actually had one client call and started crying on the phone that she had just gone on and done an estimate on one of the 2 biggest sites and they told her she had lost value in her home over a 4 year period and lost all of her equity. I of course panicked because I knew that was not even remotely possible because of the property she purchased. The comps showed her not only was her equity protected but she had actually realized a a nice appreciation. We sold her home and she now does not visit those sites anymore.

So there are many reasons the data may be different. The feed with the updates not working, service agreement that bought original data to the 3^rd party site is out of contract and they just not updating stale info. Duplicate listings from different sources some being updated some not being updated. Agent has not updated the info on the original MLS site.

The best solution would be to contact the listing agent (If you can find their name since even that information is blocked by 3^rd parties sometimes so they direct you to a paying advertising agent) and ask what the status is. Anytime you are looking at real estate it is a good idea to verify all information before you act.

Hope this helps.

Please feel free to visit: http://www.austinhomelistings.com/agents/robert-kenney/

For real estate information in the Austin and surrounding areas.

Regards

Bob Kenney, Realtor®

Mobile/Text: 512-922-4922

MLS what is it and how does it matter to me?

Hi Ashley, great question.

From Wikipedia:  A multiple listing service (MLS, also multiple listing system or multiple listings service) is a suite of services that enables real estate brokers to establish contractual offers of compensation (among brokers), facilitates cooperation with other broker participants, accumulates and disseminates information to enable appraisals, and is a facility for the orderly correlation and dissemination of listing information to better serve broker's clients, customers and the public. A multiple listing service's database and software is used by real estate brokers in real estate representing sellers under a listing contract to widely share information about properties with other brokers who may represent potential buyers or wish to cooperate with a seller's broker in finding a buyer for the property or asset. The listing data stored in a multiple listing service's database is the proprietary information of the broker who has obtained a listing agreement with a property's seller.

 

In the city you live in there may be an organized MLS. These MLS’s are typically run by a Realtor organization. For instance in Austin Texas, ABOR Austin Board of Realtors is the organization and administers, enforces and maintains the MLS for the greater Austin Real Estate area.

All Realtors and Brokers must maintain a membership separate from any State required licensing boards to participate in the MLS. This gives Realtors access to the listings maintained by the MLS and allows them to compile comparable sales information and trends in the market place so you are the best advised in the negotiation process.

Not all cities have their own MLS’s.  Some areas are combined with larger metropolitan systems simply because of economy of scale. These systems are complicated and expensive to develop and maintain and funded by the membership they service. Some larger cities have been slow in developing MLS’s simply because of fragmentation of a service area or the area Brokers desire to maintain and protect it’s clients listing information.

The consumer greatly benefits from these investments by their locale Realtor associations. Having the relevant sales information and all of the attending property information helps the consumer have better and more accurate data when making a buying decision.  

I hope this information is helpful.

Kind Regards

Bob Kenney, Realtor

Mobile: 512-922-4922