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We Try to confuse you
Home buyers are never confused, I was just making that up. I got a note this morning from a buyer asking why the home that they would like to make an offer on is listed on several different web sites at different prices. Great question!
First of all the local Realtor and Real Estate company web sites are the best and most accurate source of listings, and fresh data. The listings are fed to these sites from the MLS and the information is updated a couple of times an hour. The home search button on this blog goes to such a site.
The national web sites are often designed to get home buyers to sign up so that some third party can charge a Realtor a fee to get the buyers name. The buyer becomes a lead, we call these lead aggregation sites. They use our listings to sell buyers back to us. Other national sites are designed to sell ads to Realtors, or the real estate industry, or to related industries. These sites are able to get some of the listings but not all of them. I personally do not have control over which national web sites pick up my listings, and it is in my seller best interests to have them on as many sites as possible.
Some of the national web sites require agents to feed data to them manually. Some agents use these sites others do not. Some of us occasionally forget to update information on the site. When I change the price on one of my listings there are 8 places that I have to change the price. A messy cumbersome, almost unwieldy system. I use a check list for every price change and the process of getting the information out there takes at least an hour. Could I make a mistake and miss a site? Yes, I can and I have. Why are my listings on so many sites? That is what my sellers want, and is in their best interests.
As far as I know there isn't any rule that says home search web sites have to have accurate data on them. This statement is going to come as a shock to some but just because information can be found on the Internet doesn't mean that it is true.
Also see Web Sites Confuse Buyers
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Sometimes it seems that I am working against myself trying to improve my presence on the web. I like you need to visit several places when I make a change on one of my listings and if I forget one sure enough that is the one the public seems to find the quickest. I am going back to the way I started and try that again it has to be a whole lot less work and it seems to be the secret to keeping things current. Another great post Teresa
Yes that is so true, so many people just assume something is correct because they saw it on the internet. This is also why so many people just think anything is "easy" because they think its just look something up online and all the answers are there for you. Not to mention that on other sites anyone can post a house for sale at anytime regardless and put their own price on it, in Tucson Arizona we have seen other agents place listings that arn't thiers on zillow etc and then try to get leads off it.......I know none of them are updating prices etc and it leads to a lot of deception, which is why people need to realize that they should have an agent verifying info.
Once again, a great post. The internet is a great tool for buyers, but your post just goes to show why it is absolutely necessary to hire a realtor. There is too much mis-information out there to weed through.
It can be confusing having your listings on multiple sites. We tend to keep ours on only two sites so that we don't have to constantly keep updating prices and etc.
Oh the good ole internet and the MLS and all sorts of various websites...yes I agee with this post 100%. It shows the importance of finding a great agent here in Minnesota to work with. Just because you see some information on the internet does not mean that it is 100% accurate.
Thanks again for your blog. I do enjoy reading it!