Tammy Craig
Managing Broker/Owner

Zillow? The issue with Syndication

When I bought my first home, my realtor was the key to available properties. Her book and I mean an actual book, was issued every month and it held “the information”. No acceptations. The Realtor picked several homes and you went to see what the Realtor picked. You got copies once you have narrowed it down to a couple. No Realtor gave you the book, ever.

Today, even in the little town of Palisade Colorado, you can get apps that support apps that supply information about homes for sale, homes that might be for sale, homes that are foreclosed, homes that may foreclose, you will see every listing from every office, and you will see listings that are not even for sale! The Real Estate community works hard to keep the most recent information supplied to our local MLS. This information is then funneled out to millions of third-party sites, which is how home purchasing is done today. Understand there are thousands of local Realtors feeding these sites the information, for free. These sites then sell the local agents their listing back if the agent wants to let the buyer know who to call. Without local agents, the syndicated companies would not exist.

While these third-party sites are standard practice now, and the best way to get a property in front of the most qualified buyers, understand there are some drawbacks.

The information may be inaccurate. The third party site pulls information from everywhere, and they may miss important changes like the property sold last year.
At the end of the day, the local Realtor is the one that knows the area. Third party sites have no idea about local home pricing. So much that goes into pricing has to do with touring the home in person, seeing the neighborhood up close, talking with the locals.
The marketing engine that promotes these sites makes it appear they are a large Real Estate office with every agent working for them. Not so.

There is no replacement for the peace of mind, the local knowledge, and the expertise of a local Real Estate Agent.