Google Rooms with Realty Firm

[pcdoc]

Reminds me of a recent discussion.....

Real estate market downturn creates strange bedfellows as brokerage sleeps with the enemy. The U.S. real estate market may be running out of steam, but the downturn may be helping to clear the air of mistrust between traditional realtors and the Internet community as two realty firms announced groundbreaking deals with Google and Microsoft. Late Thursday, Prudential California/Nevada/Texas Realty, one of the largest real estate brokerages in the United States, said it will make its property listings available for search on Google, a watershed move for a major player in an industry that jealously guards its listing data.

http://www.redherring.com/Article.as...h+Realty+Firm+

[sdhomes]

This isnt a surprise, nor a bad move for a broker to do. I suggested this to Pru 6 months ago.

What it does is allow the broker to now be the lead generator by leveraging the entire company inventory. The contact info will funnel to the broker who will dole out the leads. They need to do this to generate additional revenue in a rapidlt slowing market.

Google's problem will be how to manage the dupe content. With agents having multiple sites and most providers now offering auto uploads of listings to Base, the same listing could be uploaded by REW, AA, Homes.com, P2A, #1E, the agent themselves and the company. Plus if they advertise in homesandland, it goes up again.

I talked to one of the G Base engineers about this earlier and it came as a surprise. They had not anticipated that the same listing would be submitted so many times.

The real problem here is if the big brokers cut the deals so that their upload has priority, given that the broker is the true owner of the listing. It is one reason why I left Pru last week.

[KarenR0823]

Terrible decision.

[Lewi]

a very short sighted and unfortunate decision.

[sdhomes]

Why is it so terrible? Are you not going to display your listings on Google?

[KarenR0823]

Take a look at this thread http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread10612.html

[sdhomes]

That thread doesnt answer the question. Are you going to tell your sellers that you wont submit their listing to Google Base? What about craigslist?

You can stick your head in the sand and bleat about giving away the mls, or you can recognize the obvious - the web has forever changed the dynamics of advertising. The irony is that in a way its come full circle - the lead still goes to whoever controls the listing, just like it did before the web was exploited for buyers by agents with no listings.

This actually gives some semblence of control back to the broker and defeats the efforts of lead aggregators.

Instead of just poo-pooing the idea, tell my why its bad for a listing agent and their sellers.

[webmaster]

I don't like it for selfish reasons - the really smart brokers and listing agents hire people like me to take advantage of the most recent technology and give themselves an edge - the reality of it is, this is going to happen with or without you (widespread distribution of listings on the web) - so instead of fighting against the tide - grab "a board" that allows you to surf this wave to web success.

[sdhomes]

the really smart brokers and listing agents hire people like me to take advantage of the most recent technology and give themselves an edge

If Pru had hired you and you uploaded all the company listings to GBase, the end result would be the same. All they did was save a step.

The only ones who lose here are those with no listings.

[kensmith]

It is one reason why I left Pru last week.

Interesting that you ended up at KW.