Thousands of Brevard Real Estate Listings Could Disappear

ZILLOW AND TRULIA LISTINGS AFFECTED

BELOW VIDEO: Thousands of Brevard County Real Estate listings could disappear from Zillow.com and Trulia.com starting today. The Space Coast Association of Realtors announced Monday that their Board of Directors has been unable to negotiate an acceptable agreement for the Association/MLS to provide Zillow and Trulia.com with a direct data feed of MLS property information.

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Thousands of Brevard County Real Estate listings could disappear from Zillow.com and Trulia.com starting today.

The Space Coast Association of Realtors announced Monday that their Board of Directors has been unable to negotiate an acceptable agreement for the Association/MLS to provide Zillow and Trulia.com with a direct data feed of MLS property information.

SCD-REAL-ESTATE-180-e1374686279606Locally individual Brokers / Owners will be allowed to enter into a separate agreement directly with Zillow and Trulia.com. Some franchised Brokers, such as RE/MAX, has had an agreement for years. Meaning Zillow always pulled my listings directly from Remax.com and not from the local MLS.

In 2014 RE/MAX sold over $818 million in Brevard County.

The Association did not stop the Zillow/Trulia feed, Listhub did. ListHub, a listing syndicator owned by Move Inc., which operates Realtor.com®, said in January that its long-standing syndication relationship with Zillow will expire today.

Zillow recently acquired Trulia. “The acquisition means an end to the ListHub agreement with Trulia, and, consequently, listings no longer will be provided to Trulia directly through the ListHub platform,” ListHub said in a letter to its customers.

Zillow recently acquired Trulia. “The acquisition means an end to the ListHub agreement with Trulia, and, consequently, listings no longer will be provided to Trulia directly through the ListHub platform,” ListHub said in a letter to its customers.

Zillow has chosen not to renew its contract with ListHub, which means Zillow will stop receiving feeds of hundreds of thousands of listings from ListHub.

Zillow recently acquired Trulia.

“The acquisition means an end to the ListHub agreement with Trulia, and, consequently, listings no longer will be provided to Trulia directly through the ListHub platform,” ListHub said in a letter to its customers.

The Space Coast Association of Realtors sent the following message to over 3,000 Brevard County Realtors and members on Monday:

Space_Coast_Associ_REALTORS“We would strongly recommend, that before you enter into any contract with third party syndication sites that you consult with an Attorney that specializes in intellectual property rights.”

Above all, your listing data is your inventory, it’s your future. Syndicated portals, are a lot different than the advertisements of properties through the “older traditional models” like print advertising.

That the data can be sold and/or repurposed in a way inconsistent with the supervision afforded by controlled and managed systems.

Therefore, unless you have entered into an Individual Brokerage agreement with Zillow on April 8, 2015 your listings will disappear from the Zillow Real Estate database as a result of Listhub stopping the feed to Zillow. Your Association did not stop the feed, Listhub did.

The Association has never had a contract with Zillow to provide MLS data to their website.

It’s been a difficult negotiation with almost daily meetings and/or conference calls. After focused contemplation there remained several issues that the Board of Directors could not approve or justify while supplying an extremely valuable resource, your data, without reasonable expectations and protections.

SOME OF THE ISSUES WERE:

  • Perpetual Use of Data – Zillow wanted your listing data for perpetual use, that is, to use it forever, even if a broker later decided to opt out.
  • Placing the MLS data on other “networked sites” – We could not come to terms that would “limit” or “require permission from the Association” before Zillow “powered other websites” (with our listing information) by providing a real estate searchable link(s) on “other businesses” websites, i.e. banks, newspapers, etc.
  • Usage of off Market listings – When a listing goes from “active” to off market (sold, withdrawn, expired, etc.) instead of Zillow removing the listing form their database they wanted to change the “status” which would mean that they would still maintain the use of the data, for purposes unclear and undefined.
  • Living Database – Zillow wants the ability to use our data to create derivative works. We attempted to limit Zillow’s use of the data.
  • Listing Office Contact Information – Zillow wanted to reserve the right to “alter the data” by eliminating any content provided that does not assist a potential buyer in the evaluation of a property (e.g. photos that display only contact information or a logo rather than the property itself).
  • Space Coast Association logo – Zillow denied our request that anytime they used our SCAR Logo it had to include an HTML hyperlink back to BrevardMLS.com.
  • Fees and Consideration – The Association and Zillow came to terms on a “minimal” annual payment to the Association to assist in covering some of the costs associated with providing the MLS data.

“We consistently hear about Inaccurate “Zestimates.” We finally came to terms on the fact that for Zillow, having Zestimates removed from our listings, was a deal breaker, and we conceded on this part of the contract,” said the Space Coast Association of Realtors.

“As an Association operating an MLS we had hoped we could come to an acceptable agreement with Zillow, unfortunately we were unable to do so.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bobby Freeman

Bobby Freeman

Bobby Freeman, a life-time resident of Brevard County, has been a top Realtor in the area for two decades. In his first year as an agent, Freeman received a Rising Star award from his Brokers. Since then he has achieved numerous sales awards and has recently been presented with the prestigious RE/MAX Hall of Fame Award.

Freeman, Jennifer McCoy and Nikki McCoy Freeman are family partners for RE/MAX Elite’s McCoy-Freeman Group. Together they have more than 30 years of extensive experience in all aspects of the real estate industry and have sold over $200 million.

Among McCoy-Freeman Group’s achievement are RE/MAX Hall of Fame, RE/MAX 100% Club, Certified Distressed Property Experts (CDPE), Accredited Buyer’s Representative (ABR) and voted Best Realtor in Brevard County.

The group has been featured in many news publications including CNN Money Magazine, CNNMoney.com, WFTV 9 ABC News, Coastal Condo Living, & Hot Retirement Towns Magazine and SpaceCoastDaily.com.

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