Trulia Real Estate Search – Good Or Bad?
Is your real estate search site returning quality or garbage?
I’m been a fan of Trulia since I first took it for a test drive. I love the fact there is such a wealth of knowledge about real estate available to home buyers and sellers (and wish half of it had existed when I was buying my first house) and I think that it can be a benefit to both consumers and real estate agents. The more information the consumer has before entering the buying or selling the process, the better the end results as far as I’m concerned. But what happens when the information they’re receiving is not quality, solid information? Certain things have been happening that concern me and I’d like to take a few minutes to discuss them here.
This post actually started as an idea in my head after answering several questions on Trulia Voices. The problems have revolved around a few different issues and each one of them is a disservice to the consumers combing though Trulia’s pages. When the consumer is receiving bad, incorrect, innacurate, misleading, or flat out false information, a few things happen – a) the consumer has to deal with these “facts” and later find out they were not true, b) Trulia gets a bad reputation for supplying this information, c) agents spend time trying to correct the false information floating around out there, and d) overall distrust in the industry sows its seeds. In some cases, the data is not Trulia’s fault, but without some sort of checks and balances, I’m afraid the data will become more unreliable and eventually, consumers will walk away and head somewhere else.
The problems with Trulia’s data.
Agent error – This is one of the most common errors and unfortunately, this burden rests solely on the real estate industry and the agents that supply their listings to Trulia. Because we are able to input the data ourselves, errors do and will occur. Of course, the data should be checked thoroughly before being submitted to Trulia by the listing agent. All to often I see this simple idea fall apart though and it really concerns me. If the agent doesn’t care enough to enter the data correctly, what other mistakes could they be making?
Purposely misleading information – Recently here in San Antonio, we have had a rash of instances where agents were advertising HUD Homes with incorrect information and occasionally they were advertising homes that had been off the market for months. This (in my eyes) is a blatant case of “bait and switch” – one of the more disgusting practices in any business. The idea is simple, draw people in with flashy, catchy promises of great deals and then sell them something else (as the original product didn’t exist or was already sold). This kind of behavior makes consumers lose all faith in real estate agents and the industry as a whole. I have reported many of these HUD Home posts to both Trulia and our local HUD Home listing broker.
“Description provided by Trulia” – Just this week I’ve seen three separate homes listed with incorrect photos compared to what is being listed. The problem is that some of the homes in the photos were similar to the home above (Moody Mansion in Galveston, Texas), but the descriptions and addresses reflected homes priced in the low $100,000s. Even those with no real estate pricing experience can see that the photo and price could not match. Yet there they were, advertised on Trulia with consumers looking over the homes and dreaming of owning them for those prices (even this link shows a slightly more realistic view of the potential home, but the photo is incorrect).
Out of date information – Common to all national listing sites (other than realtor.com, which usually is up-to-date, but lacks in other areas), out of date information is one of the worst and most prevalent problems. Because of the sheer size of the data and the lack of any sort of centralized system (on a national level) to track expired listings, sales, price changes, homes that drop off the market, etc., this will remain a problem for a long time to come. It’s nearly impossible to police this much data and follow up with each property to be sure the listing is still current and active.
Foreclosures and RealtyTrac – I’ve already written on this topic and it’s one that frustrates me to no end. If you’d like to follow this part of my story – please read “Trulia and RealtyTrac – Can’t We Improve This?” over at my blog on ActiveRain.
So how do we solve these problems?
The first step is at the agent level. If we are going to use these tools, we should make ourselves more responsible for accurate data. All too often we are the guilty ones – making mistakes, leaving typos unchecked (and yes, I’ve been guilty of them myself), and entering data that can be wrong, misunderstood, or misleading (whether intentional or not). We as agents have to step our game if we want to stay viable to the consumer. We need to advance real estate by raising our own standards. The better our standards, the more the consumer will learn to expect from us. The more they expect from us, the more they will demand from us. If they’re demanding it and not getting it, the agents that don’t want to push this industry forward will be forced to leave it behind.
The next step is for Trulia to step up its monitoring of the data. I realize they have so much it’s hard for them to know when it’s inaccurate, but some of it should be glaringly obvious (a mansion for $115,000 – really?) and perhaps as they grow they will need to employ local based fact checkers to ensure there data is the most accurate. Other wise, they might as well close up shop now, because someone else is going to come along offering that sort of dead on accurate info and win the battle.
Dump RealtyTrac. That’s all I have to say on that issue.
Fine or ban agents that are found to be performing devious tricks. If someone is misrepresenting the data, stealing other’s data, or generally up to no good – remove them. Sheer agent and listing numbers won’t impress the consumer, pure quality will. Don’t let people abuse your system and the system is already half way there. While cases of agents abusing the system might be less than other “problems,” it is the most damaging – to Trulia and real estate as a whole.
So what’s a consumer to use?
You best bet is to use a local site to search for local homes. Although I think sites like Trulia are a great way to begin the early steps of the process of finding a new home, when it comes time to get serious a local agent’s IDX site that gives you data direct from the local MLS (Multiple Listing Service). Although brokers can opt out of IDX, these sites give you the most accurate and up to date information you can find outside of searching for a home directly with a Realtor® that has access to the MLS. Need a great IDX site in San Antonio? You can also contact me directly and I will set up a search for you within the San Antonio MLS system that will notify you of properties as they become available.
Do you use Trulia to search for homes?
I’d love to hear your opinions on Trulia, the general state of non-agent search sites (Zillow, Homes.com, realtor.com, etc.), and what we as an industry can do to improve your experience.
photo courtesy of mhowry
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Comments
The best thing for consumers to do in my opinion is contact a local real estate professional if they are serious about buying or selling. Sites like Trulia and Zillow are so automated that false information will always be an issue. Talk to someone local who personally knows the market you are interested in.
Jared – I agree. I’ve also caught some agents using it to try and “set up” other agents. I find that truly distasteful. The good thing is that Trulia is rather responsive and you can literally send a tweet to Rudy @trulia and get pretty quick responses.
By the way, I like the simplicity of your iPhone app. Nice work.
Hi Matt!
Thanks again for bringing up some very important issues.
Many of our sites listings come from our partners via a feed. Sometimes there are data errors upon initial agent/broker input, sometimes there’s a technical glitch. People and technology are not perfect – so it’s understandable when errors occur with images, price or descriptions. They key is to diagnose & remedy them expeditiously.
BTW – We temporarily removed both listings in question as we work on diagnosing and correcting the errors. Thanks so much for flagging the properties.
I agree that purposely misleading the public by using” bait and switch” type tactics is not cool.
Data is updated daily and is presented based on the info we receive. So when a price change or property description is changed or property is sold on the agent/brokers site, it will be updated on Trulia as well. Manually entered listings if not updated frequently will be removed after 30 days.
Consumers are looking for foreclosures on Trulia. We’ve received feedback from all sides regarding the Realty Trac data and and made great strides into making the property status clearer for all.
As I mentioned to you privately in the past, we’re working on something that I think you will embrace….stay tuned….
Best,
Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia
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