Trulia

Sellers hire real estate agents to sell their homes. Sellers want the information disemeninated far and wide, and don’t care how it’s done. Most agents want the same thing, and pay dearly for print ads, flyers and web leads, and the good ones know the free websites to use for online promotion.

But what does an agent do when their company prevents, discourages or illegalizes these free forms of web promotion?

Many companies have provisions that state that all listings are the property of the company and are subject to copyright laws. In Seattle, the large firms all have “Terms of Service” or other such rules and regulations that state that all listings are the property of the company. Even the NWMLS’s listing forms indicate that the listings belong to the broker, not the individual agent. I suspect it’s the same in most states.

Many firms don’t want independant 3rd-parties publicizing and advertising their listings. The local MLS has rules regarding interior photos, that those are property of each individual broker and cannot be used without permission. Even blogs, such as Redfin’s are breaking copyright laws by publishing information & photos of other agent’s individual listings, without their permission, when they include interior photos, though, in their defense they haven’t done that in awhile. Maybe they got called for it, I don’t know. (Personally I love when they advertise my listings… Hint: I have a new million dollar townhome on Queen Anne that would look lovely on your blog!) The right wasy to do it is as Asset Realty Group blog does, is by asking permission to feature, as they did with my groovy Mid-century Modern listing in Kirkland. (Again, I want to make it clear, no one needs to my permission to feature any of my listings, at any time, on any blog or website. Advertise my listings to your hearts content!)

But this practice of advertising other agents listings does bother some people, not to mention violates some MLS boards rules, the National Association of Realtors, and some companies copyright rules.

Which brings me to Trulia.

What’s there not to love? They market themselves as a independent, unbiased media company offering both free and paid opportunities to market property listings online, with the basic links from Trulia to the property detail pages, free. They disclose agents contact info, and don’t try to sell me the leads. That sounds darn near perfect.

So, why does the NAR not want to allow wholesale scraping of all listings this way?

Well, for one thing, the business model of Trulia could change. If the NAR and separate brokerages don’t have the option to opt out, refuse or forbid this scraping and if they don’t take a hardline to it, then Trulia or the next company, could scrape the listings, put them on their portal, and then, instead of filtering the leads to the individual agents, direct them to their own agents instead. Or worse, sell their own leads back to the original listing agent.

No large or well-known company is illegally doing this yet, as far as I know, but it could happen.

But if the NAR and our local MLS and the local brokerages don’t at least give the appearance of caring, then they could lose their rights over this issue. If this information is NOT copyrighted, then everyone would have access to it. As it stands, a portal, such as Yahoo Real Estate, needs to contract with a member of the NWMLS (in this state, it’s PrudentialNW) to access and show all the MLS listings.

So, back to Trulia. They say they have no plans to join the MLS in the different states. Instead, they’ll allow an individual agent to submit a feed, or they have whole companies that do so. Individual companies such as “Help-U-Sell” and “Realty Executives” and “Prudential” do so, and also website developers such as Z57 and Advanced Access and Number 1 Expert.

But what does the agent do who has signed a TOS Agreement with their broker indicating that the Broker owns the listings and the broker does not want their listings advertised on Trulia? Z57, Advanced Access, Number 1 Agent and many more website developers have submitted their feed to Trulia, to allow them to display their listings, in violation of many of these individual agents TOS agreements. Winderemere, J.L. Scott, Coldwell Banker Bain, and many other local and national companies have NOT authorized their listings to appear on Trulia, but they do, under the auspices and with the consent of these website developers, but not the agent’s brokers.

Trulia dilemna for everyone involved.

It’s a plus for individual agents as all leads are sent directly to them. But it’s an unauthorized use of listings. Most of these website designers provide an opt-out box if the individual agents want to do so, but how many even know it’s there?

As more individual brokerages realize that their listings are being shown on this (and other similar portal sites) without their permission, I wonder if they will be more persistent in enforcing their copyright.

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