From MSNBC.com comes the announcement that Eric Elegado faced criminal charges in downtown San Diego on Monday.

High profile real estate agent Eric Elegado, his wife Charmagne and seven associates are charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and other charges involving an alleged mortgage loan fraud.

Eric Elegado shows up on the Department of Real Estate site working for Prudential California where his website still shows him active at the time of this publication.

This is only the start in my opinion of some high profile real estate agents and lenders that will be in court.

The article goes on to say the following:

Prosecutor Joseph Orabona says the Elegados “targeted low income immigrants” in San Diego by coaching them on how to fill out loan applications for home purchases.

Orabona said Elegado’s wife “defrauded her own parents” adding “she’s the most culpable person in this criminal enterprise.”

The defendants allegedly used false income numbers and other false information to help clients get mortgages for which they didn’t qualify.

The judge set bond at $75,000 for Charmagne Elegado and at $100,000 for Eric Elegado.

Another wrinkle today in the MLS syndication debate by “Hoby Hanna” of Howard Hanna.  As previously said, every brokerage has the right to make their own marketing choices, and what follows is my personal opinion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec2kJj-z2_I

First a quote from “Hoby”

All leads have to come back to our listing agents, a core premise of how our company has been built, when my grandparents founded it back in 1957.

I am certain than in 1957 there was nothing but seller agency, the buyer had no option of representation.

Now I applaud them in striking the agreement with Zillow where Howard Hannah will not have competing companies or leads going only to the listing agent.

My issue, is the ongoing promotion of dual agency and how that is always best for the Client.  Unless you are the listing agent, apparently you are not able to find reliable information about the home in your respective MLS, and the only one that can truly service the seller, is the listing agent.  Please give me a break.

How about having this message go out to the consumers?

Buying a home is one of the largest expenses in your lifetime. You should seek out an independent real estate agent that can represent you when you find your perfect home.  Check around with friends and family for some recommendations and talk to a few of them, you’ll want it to be a good fit since you’ll be spending some time with them.

While some have told you that you may get a better deal with the listing agent by saving commission you give an independent perspective on the pricing, condition, and advocacy.  The listing agent is working for the Seller to get the maximum price for the Client.

A buyer’s or selling agent has the fiduciary agency obligation only to you.

You have the right to pick who you wish to represent you, but building a relationship over time with a single REALTOR® will almost always trump trying to deal with multiple listing (Sellers) agents.

Liken it to having your attorney represent both your interests, and the party that is suing you.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine”

- REM

Okay, I’m sorry, but my last post was not my last post on listing syndication. It’s too important a conversation.

Today I read a spot on post by Brian Boreo over at 1000Watt.

Brian makes the point that Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia and other 3rd party sites are out of control in the positioning of the listing(s) to the highest bidder.  Entire zip codes are for sale where the agent/broker purchaser looks like the listing agent/office.  He has a valid point!

Why are we here today?

The 3rd party sites are here to stay, if we like it, or not.

I believe listing agents have rejected upgrading listings on these sites not wanting to incur additional marketing expense.  The 3rd party sites, needing to make a profit have found an alternate source of income.  Someway has to pay for mobile and technology that the consumer wants and demands, and it sure as heck hasn’t been the some 900 MLS’s sprinkled across the country.  There are exceptions, but the large majority offer clunky systems that are not browsers neutral, don’t run on the mobile web, and have horrible SEO.

The exception is Realtor.com.

They unfortunately have attracted the wrath of small-minded real estate agents with the argument that they are selling our data back to us.  Bunk!

What they are actually selling you is a national site to expose your listings where the real estate consumer is. That costs money!

An example of this attitude is found in a comment left today over at Notorious Rob.

Realtor.com still charges us to put our own info and photo next to our own listings. They take our data (our hard earned listings) and sell it back to us???Where is this right? It isn’t. Stop feeding the machine people. All these big national sites are sucking you dry and you cannot see it.

Instead of supporting an industry friendly national website, they have lumped them into the same group as Zillow and Trulia hoping they will all go away and leave our collective “intellectual data” alone.  I have little to say to those people who cannot see beyond their noses, the stupidity is astounding.

We are often to close to the trees to see the forest, including myself.

That is why an outsider’s view is so critical in looking hard and long at this problem, before going off with what appears to be the easy solution.

If syndication is pulled apart like a piece of string cheese, and if IDX unwinds next, Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com may go away and big brokers will have achieved something that won’t feel like victory for long. Because what replaces them may be even more odious.

 Compelling consumer behavior (in this case, “you will come to my website or app to view listings”) is difficult unless your brand, your product and your user experience are all superior. Apple and Southwest Airlines make such demands of consumers, and we tolerate them, because, well, they are Apple and Southwest Airlines.

 Most brokers aren’t in a position to pull this off right now. So what will arise, once the beasts of today are slain and consumers cry foul, are marketing and distribution partners that will likely charge much more for access to consumers whose expectations fly beyond the average broker’s reach.

Let’s pretend to flash forward 5 years to 2017.  The National Association and State Associations have lost the majority of REALTOR® members.  No longer do they have any political influence to defend the hundreds of anti-homeownership bills that come before the lawmakers.  No longer is there an MLS structure that allows all members to coöperate and be paid freely with the consumer having the choice of real estate agency and advocacy.

2017

A Client calls you to take a listing.

With your smart phone or tablet you gather the information needed to get in into the nationwide system.  But instead of using a local MLS, you are loading it into a publicly held companies database.  You are pretty happy about it because instead of paying legacy MLS dues the system offers the latest in technology that the consumer demands.  Minutes later the listing is available across the country.

Of course you will have to negotiate your commission with each individual seller and get them to agree, before presenting your offer if you want to get paid, but that is a whole other story.

It’s only going to cost you only $5.00 to upload the listing information instantly.  Since it’s a public held company they offer the same service to the homeowner, attorneys, and licensed real estate brokers.   Of course they will have many options to upgrade your listings, that will be where the profit is for those that want to stand out.

Meanwhile, your local MLS has almost financially collapsed from lack of membership and the cost to load a listing is $2500.00 a year for membership to the MLS.

Keep this small-minded discussion up and this is what you may buy yourself, the end of real estate as we know it.

Oh Jeff, this will never happen!  I know it’s an extreme vision, but I am sure the travel agents felt secure in there “value proposition.”

And my personal belief, it serves no ones best interest!  Except maybe the company that owns the database, that is.  One ring to rule them all.

Photo courtesy of Tim Green via Flickr 

I’m a proud REALTOR® who has dedicated 20+ years of my life to something I passionately believe in, homeownership.

There are some fine people and companies out there doing the day-to-day heavy lifting involved in selling and buying real estate, with a public perception of the industry as a bunch of greedy, lazy, money hungry parasites that feed off poor home sellers taking away their hard-earned equity.  Nothing could be further from the truth for the majority of the hard working REALTORS®.

Home sellers and buyers can choose to represent themselves in California.  Discount models have come and gone, only to find out it’s a bunch of hard work to sell/buy real estate.

If it were that easy, the profession would have been long gone with the travel agents.  Experience, market knowledge, negotiation abilities, and plain hard work are why honest real estate agents are successful.  What other profession works day and night, weekends, and holidays at the whim of our Clients?

No one needs a real estate agent to find a property for sale, get over it! If that is your value proposition you had better take heed.

Very few people seem to take the side of the consumer and their choice where they want to search for homes.  The desire of so many to put the genie back in the bottle is but a pipe dream with significant consequences for the industry, and yet most cannot see beyond the superficial arguments of listing syndication.  We would rather force the consumer to our antiquated systems than embrace a costly solution ourselves, ie Realtor.com, listing syndication, and IDX.

I am saddened by the overwhelming response of my peers in the syndication argument.

Today I was trying to explain to a good non-real estate friend the discussion and realized I lost her at about the 3rd sentence.  The answers to these questions run deeper than the average real estate consumer cares to know, they just want options in searching for home and other data that does not seem  so spun to industry zealots that wish to once again return to role as the gatekeeper.

Shame on us for being so unhappy with the Zillow’s, Trulias, and Zillows of the world while we sat back as an industry, running 1980′s technology stymied with committee politics.  They have built the better mouse trap.

I have said it before, and I will say it again, too many of our members would love to return to a paper published MLS book and have you come to them only for data and information.  The Zillows, Trulias, and Yahoo’s of the world built something that the real estate consumer embraced and wanted. They know the flaws and limitations of those sites, and most once serious will focus on more reliable sources of information.

I’m done with the conversation.

Time will tell if the elimination of syndication to the 3rd party sites will solve the problem.  My guess is it will not, as the consumers are choosing where to be.  They are hungry for what they hope will be a more neutral, spin free, version of the real estate market.

Years ago when managing a large real estate brokerage in a luxury market I headed an agent session with the recurring theme as to why we were not able to control the media.  God help us that an alternative voice does not exist, as any industry is going to spin for its own survival.

Syndication came about to try to cleanup the data MLS wide.  We’re now headed back to a time of broker load and claiming of listings on these sites that denied syndication.  How can that serve the consumer or the industry?

It seems to be a last ditch effort of the old school  real estate agents that have been waiting for it’s return.

Enough said on the subject as I feel it is as futile as the dual agency discussion.  Change will come from outside the industry, not from within in my humble opinion.

Consumers and better options may tumble the empire.

I am off to fight a more disturbing matter regarding our own MLS systems deciding who we will use as an IDX provider and the decision for many to become the public facing portals offered to replace the Zillow’s and Trulias of the world.

If you’ve followed the listing syndication issue it seems that it is getting legs.

Several months ago Edina Realty announced they were pulling out of syndication and recently ARG, a local real estate brokerage, made the same announcement.  While most of the world is moving towards transparency and the age of API’s, this industry seems  headed back to the dark ages trying to regain control of information using public facing consumer search portals.  How does that serve the consumer by eliminating competition and inovation?

Seems some of the 900 factionalized mini kingdoms have woke up and realized that they have lost control.  Not surprising after years of 3rd rate technology that only run on a 2002 Dell and small minded politics.

The multiple listing system is a members only database that allows competing real estate agents and brokers to co-operate with each other.  San Diego has a regional MLS known as Sandicor which Associations have an interest in, but it’s a separate corporation.

I don’t believe Sandicor is member friendly and are fighting for their own survival.  Just look at the branding in the screen shot of a listing above.

The problem is to this point the Sandicor’s consumer is the the site is crap.  It is like parking a clunky old Volvo next to Ferrari. The interface looks like it was designed by a color blind 3rd grader.  I love that the membership is paying to give front page exposure for our own associations.  Does anyone else think this is strange?

As professionals we have had to put up with a MLS system that is outdone by the Zillows and Trulia, and Realtor.com’s for consumers.  Heck, I will often use Realtor.com to check on an active listing, that would take me 10 minutes to login to Sandicor and find the same information.

Had we as an industry provided what the public wanted years ago, it may not have opened the door for the 3rd party sites selling our information back to us.  In recent years Realtor.com has become a serious competitor for Zillow and Trulia, but the fact of the matter consumers search where they want to search.  Also real estate agents are very fickle and will choose a marketing venue that will give them something unique over the other.

Often run by out of date old school real estate agents, serial Association committee big brokers, and committee members with hidden agenda’s  has kept many MLS’s from inovation.  Politics and the gate keeper mentality continue to prosper and I half expect the return of the multiple listing book.  Can’t get more control over your data than that.

Our MLS system does not even run on Mac computers without a half baked solution called Fusion.  Instead of providing a quick to use, professional data base it is an mess of a system that only runs on Internet Explorer with bells and whistles that are only used by the software engineers that designed the nightmarish system.

What I would like to know is how Sandicor came to the decision to start a public facing website?  I didn’t vote on it nor did the membership. I spoke to Sandicor Advisory committee members that seem surprised at the decision that seemed to come out of nowhere.

Now brokerages and agents that have spent years of time putting together useful IDX sites are faced with a new competitor that they are paying for  How long will it be before they try to eliminate IDX feeds and force the consumer to a MLS owned website.

Something stinks in Denmark, or should I say San Diego?

Our regional multiple listing system, know as Sandicor MLS, has announced the following.  Bold  text for emphasis by me.

Sandicor is excited to announce there is a new field, titled Advertising Remarks, where an agent can enter advertising information such as their name, brokerage, email addresses, telephone numbers, website URLs, CA DRE number, open house schedules, along with the property’s description, for dissemination to specific advertising channels such as ListHub and Point 2 which provide listing syndication services to brokers as part of their Sandicor membership! The Advertising Remarks is an optional field and will replace the Agent Remarks field only for those listings that are sent to listing syndicators. The Advertising Remarks field will be accessed via the Add/Edit function of either the TEMPO™ or FUSION™ MLS system!

We are sending this email to all Listing Agents to inform you that beginning on Wednesday, February 8, the Advertising Remarks field will be available for you to update your listing(s) with the data specified in MLS Rule 12.5.1, Advertising Remarks.

Please note, the Advertising Remarks field will NOT appear in any TEMPO or FUSION™ system reports, email reports or Client Gateway. For those consumer sites (e.g., Trulia and Zillow) that display MLS remarks, the Advertising Remarks field will provide the consumer with agent contact information that is prominently displayed, making it clear on how to contact the listing agent directly.

I’m sure this is welcome news for listing agents often frustrated to have listings appear on 3rd party sites appear to be owned by other agents.  From a buyer’s agent (selling agent) perspective the news is not as good.  The 3rd party sites will likely spend more time getting listing agents to upgrade the listing.

There is an agenda being pushed here to move away from the IDX systems and back to promoting the listing agent.  Brokerages that are struggling for profit certainly like dual agency (double-ended transactions) versus paying half the commission to a selling (buyer’s) agent.  Combined with Sandicor’s entry into the public facing listing portal, again listing agent friendly.

On other news large MLS in Denver has cancelled their IDX agreement with Diverse Solutions which is owned by Zillow.  This leaves members flat footed that have spend countless hours building websites with customized searches.  Not too member friendly.

And Zillow announced this today:

“We are discontinuing the Postings API from all sites. This includes manually-posted listings for homes for sale by owner, homes for sale by agent, homes for rent and Make Me Move homes. Zillow continues to offer many other useful APIs such as Zestimate home values, demographics and mortgage rates.”

You can read the full post over at AGBEAT.

Dear Seller,

We’re  getting your home ready for market and I can’t tell you how excited I am.

One important question I have for you is do you want your listing exposed on the Internet?  Of course once you are out there, we cannot control everything, but we never know where your buyer may be looking.  I think it is worth the risk. When we get your buyer we will make sure they get accurate information during the buyer’s inspection time.

Here are many of the 3rd party syndication sites that we can have your home listed for sale.  Our Sandicor MLS actually lists to around 40 of them free of charge, or I can upgrade and get you on even more sites, giving you even more exposure.

It is your choice.

Best wishes,

Your real estate agent.

So your real estate brokerage has made the decision not to syndicate listings, which means you did too.

The conversation with your Client, the Seller is that you are protecting their interests by not advertising on some of the most visited real estate sites in the United States.  You’re going to protect them by keeping the data secure, much like a secret listing?

Today in my e-mail I got an e-mail from the North San Diego Association of REALTORS®.

You can click on the image for a larger view.  The e-mail says that since August 2, 2011 there were 4217 listings from North San Diego Association of REALTORS® that were syndicated through Point2Agent.  Those listings had received 78,284 detailed views, including 3827 clicks from consumers.

Seems like a shame for a Seller to miss out on that free exposure, never mind the opportunities of the listing agent to enhance the listing on strategic 3rd party sites.  Sites with listing syndication feeds are updated and include only public information, no private or confidential information.

Perhaps those brokerages not in favor of listing syndication should also eliminate for sale signs, IDX feeds, and use exclusive agency listing agreements.  Certainly they will protect the seller from any errant cooperating agent that has a buyer for the property!

Might as well eliminate the ability of the buyer to have their own agent too, just like the good old days.

Reprinted from www,jeffreydouglass.com.

I’ve been saddened and surprised by the latest debate and recent actions of Edina Realty regarding 3rd party websites displaying real estate listings.

For years most of us in real estate have felt that our data has been taken from us, and then sold back to us with the likes of Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com.  With that said, many realized the benefit for Sellers of having listing information widely available.  Kinda a two edge sword.  Not unlike the old print advertising, you could choose to advertise or not, and pick the venue with the biggest circulation (eyeballs). These 3rd party websites are not unlike advertising magazines of a bygone era.

I ‘ve always been an advocate of the Multiple Listing system with the ability for all real estate brokerages to share in a common location listings.  Much more that just a database, the MLS allows compensation be paid regardless of agency  and an almost complete and collective inventory of homes for sale.  Yes, some idiots have opted out of having listings released to the Internet and IDX feeds.

Good for the consumer for two reasons, one they don’t have to wade through a dozen brokerage websites, and secondly they are free to choose who will represent them rather than have the listing agent thrust down their throat.

From the consumers standpoint my belief is a collective data base is far more desirable than visiting dozens of brokerages sites to get a complete picture of what is available for sale in the marketplace.  Any company that would consider pulling out of major 3rd party or IDX sites, are doing so for one simple reason – to keep sales in-house with the listing agent or an agent in-house, thereby making double the commissions.  It is just another method of defending the status quo.

The cancer that is growing in the real estate industry is lack of cooperation and competition between brokerages for the benefit of the consumer, and the building of walled gardens to protect and promote the brokerages listings.

Enter Home Services that owns dozens of brokerages across the county and owned by Warren Buffett.

For years they have been an advocate of a one stop shop, owning escrow and title companies, mortgage companies, home warranty, and other related services.  The goal is to direct as much business to these affiliated companies to bring up profits.  While no brokerage is foolish enough to insist on it’s sale associates to use a particular service the quite conversation with the Client is they will be taken better care of by staying “in the family.”  Very similar to why go elsewhere than the car dealership for a good financing option.  Most realize that would not be a wise choice without shopping the offered loan to make sure it was competitive.

Here is what Edina Realty had to say regarding the pullout from a blog by a sales associate.

Edina Realty is responding to the changing business models of third party aggregators. Third party aggregators are not brokers and they are not required to abide by the same rules and regulations as a broker. They get listings for free from brokers around the country and then display them online, collecting and distributing leads for a profit. [Ed. Note: an earlier version incorrectly reported that NAR was not affiliated with Realtor.com; it is, through an operating agreement with Move, Inc.]

We’ve since discovered that much of the data and information showcased on aggregator sites is inaccurate if it comes from non-MLS sources. According to a recent data   conducted by Trulia.com and published on Inman.com, 69 percent of errors in online real estate listings information were directly related to third-party syndication of information by non-MLS sources. This points to the need for more diligence regarding ownership of our clients’ data and where we send it – be it directly to an aggregator site or through syndication.

“The company reviewed about 1.2 million listings from about 250 data sources during  the third quarter and found about 120,000 inaccuracies in listings information. More than half(51 percent) of those inaccurate listings had errors in price, 41 percent had status errors, and 8 percent had errors in both price and status.”*

*Source: Trulia.com and Realtor.com respectively

Edina Realty will no longer provide a broker feed of our listing inventory to Trulia.comstarting Nov. 30, 2011.

We also intend to discontinue sending our listings toRealtor.com by the end of the year. Third party aggregators are not brokers. They get listings for free from brokers around the country and then display them online, collecting and distributing leads for profit. We believe it makes the best business sense for our agents and Edina Realty to control our own listings in order to ensure that:

• Our agents don’t lose future business opportunities because a non-listing competitor pays to present themselves as the contact for your listing.
• Our agents don’t have to pay – directly or indirectly – for leads on their own listings.
• Our sellers can be assured that leads on their listing are being handled by an expert –
• The quality and accuracy of your listing data is assured.
• Potential buyers are provided with fast, knowledgeable responses via the listing agent or our seven-day-a-week customer service department.

Here is my personal opinion:

We don’t want to cooperate with other companies or buyer’s agents.  Exactly the opposite of what the MLS encourages.

Any halfway bright Edina agent will realize being off major 3rd parties sites is a terrible disservice to their Clients.  Secondly I’m sure that the Company will have clever strategies to capture associates income to promote their listings as “premier or featured” on the closed website.

I’m sorry, but having the Seller assured that the listings leads are being handled by an expert is just code for “dual agent” and why rock the boat, can’t we all just get along and not worry about the details, of many listing agents.

The quality and accuracy of listing data is historically poor, regardless of being in-house or syndicated.

The last one really says what the motivation is – we want the buyer and we don’t want the buyer to bring their own agent.

I think Craig and others might want to step back from the Kool Aid stand a bit and sober up.

One of the brilliant minds from outside our industry is Brian Boero over at 1000 Watt.  Here is what Brian had to say:

If I am a big broker, I have:

Gotten my splits chewed down to the nub by agents.

Had to contend with license-warehousing chop shops that gave those agents bargaining leverage.

Seen small, web-driven buyer brokerages build businesses on a database of listings I create.

Watched my MLS try to keep its piece of the Realtor dollar by peddling products, creating consumer destination sites, seeking to build its “brand” and otherwise stepping into a channel I’d like to call my own.

Seethed as the NAR launched a sprawling web application and data licensing business (RPR) that thumbs its nose at my desire for remuneration.

Oh, yes, and a cratering housing market.

Now Brian brings up some really good points as to why big brokerages are feed up with the lack of control.

They are also desperate to offer some tangible ”value proposition” for the lumbering, inefficient, and top heavy dinosaurs they are.  What better way than to step back in time.  Never mind the consumer will suffer from lack of choice.

Companies that grow to large become only profit motivated.

First published on www.jeffreydouglass.com on November 19, 2011.

Yesterday I posted my opinion on ARG, Edina Realty, and other brokerages pulling out of listing syndication.  The discussion is divided with some smart, articulate people joining in for a solution.

One thing that some miss is that listing syndication is was an attempt to clean up the listing data.  Rather than rely on broker or agent manual load, syndication pulls  data from local multiple listing systems and feeds it to third party sites.

Our local multiple listing service Sandicor adopted syndication through Listhub some time ago.  Not all MLS organizations are as forward thinking which results in some pretty bad 3rd party data.

ListHub is the broadest, most widely adopted network for listing distribution, and works in concert with MLSs, franchises, and core real estate technologies to bring real estate brokerage firms a single dashboard for controlling their online marketing strategy. ListHub brings realty firms a comprehensive system for maximizing listing exposure.

For real estate brokerages and brokers, or for that matter, any industry to be so arrogant in believing they have power to control and clean up the Internet is fighting a hopeless battle.

Doing away with syndication will not solve the problem, it will just return us to the early times of Zillow  and Trulia relying on manual real estate agent load, sometimes by the listing agent, and many times not.

Consumers are not stupid and realize that data from the Internet has to be taken for what it is, certainly I don’t believe that any home buyer is going to rely on Trulia, Zillow, or Realtor.com as there single source of real estate knowledge.  Choice, however is always a good thing.

There are those in our industry that would love to turn back the clock and go back to the 2 per month paper MLS books, once again reclaiming the position of the gatekeeper of the information.  That is not going to happen.

We live in a world of data overload and it’s everywhere.  Locating a home is a small part of what a REALTOR® can do for you.  Local real estate market knowledge, contract and disclosures, ability to recommend reliable services, and guidance is what the real estate industry offers.

Rather than be angry and trying to boycott the Zillows and Trulia’s of the world, we as in industry should do a better job of offering better technology for the consumer.  The only one that has done that in my mind is Realtor.com which rivals the technology offered by Zillow and Trulia.

Consumers are going to search where they want to search.  By locking down the data, they are not going to return to us, in fact we open the door for an outside company to offer a nationwide solution far less expensive and much better than the majority of the multiple listing systems.

IDX and VOW’s were an excellent way to level the playing field, but politics, committees, and resistance to change has made them secondary compared to other providers.  Only a few IDX providers offer a level of service comparable to the 3rd party site.

What are your thoughts?

Photo courtesy of Peter Vanderheyden via Flickr