Realtor.com not showing Huntsville/Madison listings

[harry chickpea]

Zillow pricing is odd. It'll be a joke and then it seems like someone comes in and cleans it up.

To the OP - Eight years ago when we were looking, ValleyMLS was really the only place to look in the area that had most listings. I suspect that anyone serious is going to find it pretty quickly.

[lhall85917]

Thank you for all of the information. I must be in the minority because I like and use realtor.com 90% of the time or more. Right now I use it to browse listings for where we are moving and to save them. In fact, I don't even know the main search for where we are moving - I've only used realtor pages, or the big 3 home search engines mentioned so far. It is good to know that Valley MLS is the most widely used search for our area. I'm sure lookers are smart enough to figure out that there is a problem when they search realtor.com and don't get any results.

[weaverra]

Originally Posted by harry chickpea

Zillow pricing is odd. It'll be a joke and then it seems like someone comes in and cleans it up.

To the OP - Eight years ago when we were looking, ValleyMLS was really the only place to look in the area that had most listings. I suspect that anyone serious is going to find it pretty quickly.

I don't think anyone is coming in a cleaning up the numbers. There is no way one person or a group of people could keep track of the information to make a decision as to whether the numbers are correct or not. There are algorithms and formulas that are used to calculate these numbers. It's purely pulling data from databases that it is tied too along with the information that is provided by user input. If bad information gets thrown into the mix it can skew the numbers. Zillow is starting to use the crowd sourcing method to help adjust their numbers.

[harry chickpea]

Sounds reasonable. Database update is probably correct. My experience is that the pricing could be good, could be bad, and there doesn't seem to be tremendous consistency. Haven't used it in a while though.

[nealrm]

Third party site are the way to go for advertising real estate. For almost all market, real estate is local. You have a far greater change of someone within 30 miles buying your house than someone from out of state. Out of area buyer can find third party site just as easy as realtor.com. All they need to do is type in something like "decatur al real estate" The third party sites will pop up.

The only thing that really changes is that the smaller site tend to be more concerned with keeping their data clean and correct.

[weaverra]

Originally Posted by harry chickpea

Sounds reasonable. Database update is probably correct. My experience is that the pricing could be good, could be bad, and there doesn't seem to be tremendous consistency. Haven't used it in a while though.

There isn't much consistency when sales in the area are down. I just checked a home a while ago for sale in my same neighborhood. Now keep in mind that in September of last year a similar home in the neighborhood sold for $225K 5 Bd 3Bath 2500 SQ FT. This current home (4Bd 3Ba 2500 sq ft) has a Zestimate of $163K but is listed for $249K. I would say it will probably sell for around $210K to $220K. The Zestimate of the other home is about 3K under what it sold for. I am really leaning towards the Zestimate relies heavily on recent sales data.

[FayettevilletoHuntsville]

Originally Posted by weaverra

I don't think anyone is coming in a cleaning up the numbers. There is no way one person or a group of people could keep track of the information to make a decision as to whether the numbers are correct or not. There are algorithms and formulas that are used to calculate these numbers. It's purely pulling data from databases that it is tied too along with the information that is provided by user input. If bad information gets thrown into the mix it can skew the numbers. Zillow is starting to use the crowd sourcing method to help adjust their numbers.

It has already been stated that there is in fact someone employed full time that is constantly checking third party sites.

Edit: actually that may have been on another thread?

[LCTMadison]

Update.....as of a couple of weeks ago, we have finally come to an agreement with Realtor.com and they have signed our direct syndication agreement.....thanks largely in part to our relentless and awesome AE and our leadership team. NALMLS listings are now being published again on that site.

And to the above, no....we do not employ someone to check the third party sites as an association. That is the responsibility of the individual brokerages and agents.

Also, Realtor.com is considered a "third party site". It is no longer owned by NAR, yet NAR has allowed them to keep our copyrighted name. Homes.com owns Realtor.com.

[lhall85917]

Originally Posted by LCTMadison

Update.....as of a couple of weeks ago, we have finally come to an agreement with Realtor.com and they have signed our direct syndication agreement.....thanks largely in part to our relentless and awesome AE and our leadership team. NALMLS listings are now being published again on that site.

And to the above, no....we do not employ someone to check the third party sites as an association. That is the responsibility of the individual brokerages and agents.

Also, Realtor.com is considered a "third party site". It is no longer owned by NAR, yet NAR has allowed them to keep our copyrighted name. Homes.com owns Realtor.com.

That is great news, thanks for letting us know!