The Top Real Estate Website Tech Report
A recent report from a real estate technology consulting firm revealed that Zillow and Trulia have topped online real estate multiple listings sites again, edging out major competitor Realtor.com and other similar web sites.
The report, Beyond Syndication 2014, which was published by Arizona-based firm Clareity Consulting, stated that Zillow and Trulia's combined traffic of 84.6 million accounted for twice as much as the combined traffic of other three leading multiple listings sites in May. The other online listing site, including Move Inc.'s Realtor.com accounted for 40.2 million of unique visits.
Despite the two web sites being able to win consumers' hearts, real estate agents were found wanting, according to a report on Kansas.com.
Real estate agents argue that on the side of home buyers and sellers, Zillow and Trulia may have indeed lived up to expectations, but not on their side. The report revealed that some brokers complained of inaccuracy of real estate information on the said web sites. Some of the content on the site are outdated and incomplete, the brokers noted.
"I think what's happening is the free market is at work," CEO of Coldwell Banker Plaza Real Estate John McKensie told the website. "The question comes down to the reliability of the property search data."
A Mashable report also said that while big multiple listing sites like Zillow and Trulia are changing the world of real estate data analytics, they tend to deliver "higher valuations" than actual market valuations.
"As a tool to help start your property search, or ownership public records big data sites may be useful," said Jim Esposito, of Fort Lauderdale Real Estate, in the Mashable report. "However, when you seriously start to focus in on an area or a neighborhood, you really need a local agent who is plugged into the local Multiple Listing Services to give you reliable information."
Property listings giant were also prone to data scraping or extracting using tools like WebHarvy and Mozenda, according to an Examiner report looking into real estate data piracy.
One web site that has the potential to directly compete with Zillow and Trulia is RealBiz Media Group, Inc.'s (OTCQB: RBIZ) Nestbuilder.com. Nestbuilder.com is an agent-facing property listings website centered on videos and virtual tours. The web site has over 1.6 million video listings to date and over 350,000 account sign-ups.
Nestbuilder.com's return visitors account for 51 percent of its traffic, with users spending 6:53 minutes on average on the site. Within a month, the website's page views have increased by 196 percent and it's Alexa ranking have risen by 100,000 positions to its current 128,061 ranking.
But Nestbuilder.com is not the only thing up in RealBiz Media's sleeve. "The company enjoys access to the nation's largest real estate information companies with numerous approved vendors and national contracts, both key to its future development programs. When completed, the company is targeting distribution of its digital video network to more than 70 million households and an agent-drivenMicroVideo App program," the company stated on its website.
"While there is clearly a lot to be done, early indications for adoption of our marketing platforms are very encouraging. We are also optimistic about the prospects of accelerating our products through our recently announced acquisition of ReachFactor and the letter of intent for partnership with zipLogix. These companies are trusted resources for more than 600,000 real estate agents and brokers," RealBiz CRO Steve Marques said in a disclosure statement. There are also many real estate websites looking into property owner searches, public ownership records and general realty data info.
Today's news article in presented courtesy of Carlos Siderman, President of Property ID Corporation the California real estate information company.