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

What is a CMA? Who do I ask for more information about pricing my home?

Hi Frank,

If you were in Austin Texas,  I would tell you to give me a call!

CMA stands for Comparative Market Analysis. There are a couple of avenues you can go to obtain a CMA based on available data in your area.

The most obvious is your trusted Realtor. Realtors as professionals belong to locale organizations that compile market data in your area. From this data a Realtor can pull together a comparative analysis of current properties on the market, Number of days on the market, number of homes pending waiting to be closed and number of home closed or sold.

Some people are surprised when they receive their CMA and a home 5 door’s away is not on the analysis’. I try to include close proximity homes in the comments section of the report but do not always use them for comparison. Why? When doing these analysis it is important to have as many features between your home (target home) and the comps (comparative) homes.

The CMA helps give the consumer a clear picture of what the value of his/her home is at a given time in the market. I try to stay as close to what an appraiser is going to be looking at the time the home is sold so there are not any surprises when the finale appraisal comes in for the new buyer. Appraisers try to keep sold comps to w/in 90 days of the appraisal but sometimes may have to go back further depending on activity in your area. It is not un-common to have some areas that do not have close by comps.

So SQFT, Location, age of home, construction, lot size and schools are the main things to begin an analysis’. From there you want to try to keep sold comps to w/in 3 months or 90 days. So I usually start with a SQFT range of 200 SQFT on either side of target property, Range in home age and I plug in elementary, middle and high school campuses and see what activity there is. I might add 30-60 days onto the sold’s if there are not enough comps.  Once I get a selection of listings I then start to analyze each listing and see how they compare to target. # of stories will have an effect, lot size, amenities etc.

Once the listings are narrowed down for active I repeat same for any Pending listings and sold listings. Most Realtors have a presentation method that is unique to them. I like to show the client the average, minimum and max values for the final selection. This will help guide the client as to how to price their home and help manage expectations on expected final sale price range.

If an area does not have a lot of comparables then the Realtor must expand the search area until they are able to come up with more listings to use in the analysis. This becomes a little more complicated because you then take into consideration what another community might have to offer then start making adjustments in comparison to the target property criteria (either up or down).

A second alternative to the Realtor is to hire a locale licensed appraiser to come in and do an appraisal in their format using their set criteria. Their analysis is sometime more subjective depending on the market data they have access to. In a lot of cases it may be the same source as the Realtor but they may also use other resources outside the locale real estate data base.

Whatever route you go you can see that this report entails quite a bit of work to make sure you get an accurate picture. Once you receive the CMA and go over it with your Realtor it is perfectly acceptable to ask questions, point out areas where you think the Realtor may have missed a property ( It is not uncommon for a client to have more direct knowledge about a neighbors recent sale) and let the realtor make adjustments accordingly. The whole purpose of the CMA is to assist you the client in determining the best list price and help determine expectations of selling price.

I would be privileged to help refer you to an experienced Realtor/Broker in your area. Please feel free to contact me by Text/Phone @ 512-922-4922 or Email rkenney@gmail.com

A happy safe and healthy new year to you all!

Regards

Bob Kenney, Realtor

Vice President, Turnquist Partners Realtors