Wednesday Morning: Best Web Property Search? A Blogger Votes for Zip Realty Over Trulia

We've meant to ask your guidance for a while: which property search sites do you like, and why?

A blogger we rely on -- Manhattan Beach Confidential -- writes that he can't rely on Trulia.com for accurate property searches:

"At this hour, a Trulia search for SFRs in MB 90266 pulls up 36 entries. By contrast, a ZipRealty search pulls up 121... The Trulia results are not just skimpy, but several are simply wrong. For instance, try to find 7 Highland Ave. on a map. Oops, it's in Connecticut! ... In sum, Trulia is a disaster for someone trying to get a handle on the current RE market in Manhattan Beach."

So help us out here? Which sites work for you?
E-mail story tips to lalandblog@yahoo.com

Comments

[Linda Slocum]

ZipRealty includes current MLS listings and also "scrapes" listings off of other sites, thus many of their listings are not current.

I had a client who found a "deal" online recently and after some research found that it was a "scraped" listing that had been sold two years prior. The date stamp on the picture even showed that it was taken long ago!

The danger in scraping listings from non-MLS sites is that these sites are generally not updated regularly. A listing can show as "active" for years because of this.

This also applies to sites that allow manual input of listings, since again these are not automatically updated when a listing is sold. Realtors are generally not in the habit of revisiting these sites to update the status of their listings, and instead rely on their MLS system to do the bulk of this work for them.

[William Welkes]

That sounds like an apocryphal story seeing as how it's coming from an agent at another firm.

I've been signed on with Zip for years now, and the info is always fresh and in fact often is more contemporary than the private firms private websites. I know they did have a data issue a few months back that was related to a larger one with the SRAR accidentally activating two year old information.

ZIP seems to have their act together far beyond other sites. I don't think "scraping" is something they do- they have open relationships with all the MLS operations in the country. I've never seen one of those on ZIP. They do feature FSBOs, and I don't think that you can hold them responsible for what the owner puts in there.

All in all, I've bought my home through ZIP, got a rebate, and dealt with a professional agent with local knowledge.

Any grousing you see about them is probably related to the fear traditional Realtors are feeling about the threat to their turf.

[Cal]

Wow, Realtors will say anything to get people not to use the DISCOUNT realtors and SAVE money (cashback on commission for buying and discounted commission on selling)

Zip does not "scrape" listing from other sites, it is a member of the MLS and that is illegal. I would also point out that your client who signed up for Zip to search entered a broker agreement to use them and not yourself, ethics would demand you let them know of any client using their service and your own as their could be a procurring cause issue among other violations.

Realtor.com suffers from the exact same limitation as Zip Realty, there are some duplicate listings (caused by the way they store the listings) and some old listings. Both are relatively trivial points considering you could save thousands.

IMHO, Zip would be close to a perfect web search if they got smart and figured out how to get rid of duplicates and allowed sorting by last time the listing was updated. Outside of that it is pretty darn good. But I think I would use Buyside or Redfin for the bigger rebate on the buying side and http://www.iggyshouse.com/ for listing on the MLS for free on the selling side.

[Linda Slocum]

Amazing how you people take any comment from a realtor and turn it into a discount vs traditional broker argument.

This blog post is not about who gets paid what, or about what rebates you'll supposedly receive from the various discount brokerage houses. It's about bad data. The whole discount service (or limited service) issue is a separate discussion that does not relate to this particular blog post from Peter, which started with stating that Trulia data was supposedly worse than other sources.

For more information on the evolution of bad data online, watch the presentation by the Museum of Media History at http://epic.makingithappen.co.uk/ols-masterfs1.html. Pay close attention to the section devoted to "Epic" near the end of the presentation.

And Cal, look at the ZipRealty site and you'll see that you are NOT making a commitment to ZipRealty to use their services just by virtue of signing up to view their home searches. There's a short version of their Terms of Service on the sign-up screen that clearly states this.

[Cal]

The terms of service state:

"15. Acknowledgement of Consumer-Broker Relationship. By agreeing to these Terms of Use, Client acknowledges entering into a lawful consumer-broker relationship as may be defined under state law."

Among others:
"3.8 Client agrees to immediately notify ZipRealty in the event that the Client enters into agreement with another broker."

"3.4 Client agrees that he or she will not contact the owner/seller of any property from information gained through the website. The Client will not attempt to enter the property or speak with an owner/seller without an appointment set by ZipRealty."

"3.2 Client represents and warrants that he/she has not signed any agreement with a real estate broker or agent that would prevent the client from using ZipRealty as his or her sole and exclusive agent. Client does not have a contract or agreement with any third party that would interfere with ZipRealty's representation of client."

On the signup screen it also mentions:
" I am NOT committed to using the services of another agent."

The only thing with a little leeway is this:
"By registering with ZipRealty I am not obligated to work with ZipRealty. "

But using their site to find listings for an agent that isnt a Zip agent is clearly against the TOS and ethically "questionable" at best. You could always ask your local association ethics board about it.

[MB Watcher]

It's been a while since I noticed duplicates on Zip, unless it was a case where I was aware that a local listing agent had "re-listed" a property to hide the pricing and DOM history.

In that case, the local MLS quickly shuts down the old listing and treats the new one as a hot new property. Zip is a little slower to cut the old one out, which is frankly fine - it means more information for buyers, enough to prompt the question: Why are there two listings here with different prices and start dates?!?

A great feature on Zip is that they track price reductions with the dates reductions come through. You'll see every one of them listed by date. Sadly this feature is tricked when the listing agents re-list with a new MLS #, but Zip could probably fix that, too. They tell me they're aware of the problem on some MLS systems that either don't have rules or don't enforce like Greater South Bay. More on re-listing:

http://mbcon.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-to-hide-truth-about-your-listing.html