Local Area And Real Estate News

Hitwise (a web metrics company) reported that in March, 2008 the top 4 real estate websites in terms of market share were Realtor.com, Re/max, Yahoo.com and Zillow.com.  If you watch the month to month statistics that lead to these rankings, nothing seems wrong.  These are big companies with large marketing budgets and many people working to make sure the sites show up when people use various search engines to find real estate.  As many of the various MLS's (multiple listing services) become more transparent and the use of the internet increasingly becomes where consumers start their housing searches, web traffic to these sites seems normal.  There is one glaring problem with some of these searches; stale and/or incorrect data, as well as inconsistencies. Recently while I was working with a Buyer, I was sent a list of MLS numbers that the client wished to see.  There were nine numbers emailed to me which corresponded to the 2 different MLS systems available to the greater Park City, Utah area (Park City MLS and Wasatch Front MLS).  Being a member of both the Park City and Salt Lake Boards City of Realtors, the numbers didn't present a problem.  After searching the numbers, I found not one "active listing" in the homes my client had liked.  All of the listings had sold or expired, some had new listing numbers.  The sales had happened a year ago or more.  All of the data that my client had searched was stale and effectively worthless.  What a waste of time!  I asked what search was used and the response was "Yahoo".     I redirected the Buyer to my website http://www.youinparkcity.com/ which features an IDX feed from the Park City MLS and my client found current active listings and information. While the You In Park City group will never have the budget of a Yahoo or Zillow, it is somewhat comforting to know that we will always have a better ability to stay current and offer better information and service than the big dot com's.