Nov. 28, 2006 - 20-400 Vision: Short-sightedness and real estate |
Pittsburgh Homes Daily is reporting that the Pittsburgh/Western Pennsylvania MLS has decided to limit IDX feeds only to the websites of principal brokers, meaning the only place to see a the listings is at the company-level site. IDX is one of a couple of methods many Multiple Listing Services use to distribute listings data to member brokers and agents; I rely on a souped-up version of the free local IDX feed on my website and have been successful in generating business off the feed.
 The Pittsburgh/West Penn MLS' decision is short-sighted in the extreme and seems to benefit no one except the brokers. It doesn't help buyers to have reduced access to the listings and it doesn't help the sellers to limit exposure of their properties only to the brokers' sites. And in the long run it doesn't help the listing brokers themselves as they are eliminating a potential source of buyers for their listings. At least in Phoenix, it's rare to see a company website rank higher on the search engines than multiple individual agent sites as we as individuals spend far more time working on the optimization than the brokers themselves.
Where most of us are advertising our listings electronically wherever possible, the brokers in the Steel City seem far more interested in protecting their double-dip potential.
Of course, another party severely hurt by the new policy is the agents. As I mentioned, I rely on my IDX listings feed to help drive business on my site. In Pittsburgh, however, agents will no longer be able to frame even their own companies' listings on their websites. For the time being they still can post their own listings, though it's not overly far-fetched to see a scenario where a broker decides against that practice. Listings, after all, are technically a contract between broker and seller, and should the broker decide they are to be the only Internet source for this information ...
Sigh ...
On a thoroughly unrelated note yet still falling into the category of short-sightedness, there was a debate on Active Rain about the value of advertising listings on your blog. The theory is the realm of the blog is a free leaning zone, where the public comes to be educated and should not be bothered by banal home listings.
Um, sorry. But I respectfully disagree.
As much fun as blogging has been, my primary job remains to buy and sell houses on behalf of my clients. And when I'm trying to sell a listing, I want it advertised everywhere possible. Even on my blogs. If someone doesn't want to see the listings, that's fine. Don't click under the Houses for Sale link and you won't be troubled by them.
This isn't to say I believe the blog should be a sales catalog first and foremost. But to not use the potential of a blog to your clients' ultimate benefit seems to defeat the ultimate purpose.
RELATED ARTICLE: Pittsburgh Real Estate Just Moved Into the Dark Ages or Forward Into Dark Times
(c) Jonathan Dalton, 2006 / Jonathan Dalton's Arizona Homes
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