The Morning Report
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Zillow.com, the popular home value estimating site that encourages neighborly nosiness, launched a feature today that allows homeowners and real estate agents to post a ‘for sale’ tag on home listings.
Analysts interviewed by the LA Times in this story conjectured that the feature, along with other innovative sites, will drastically change the way home buying and selling transactions are completed. They won’t necessarily eradicate real estate agents, most said, but they might be forced to lower their fees or work harder to justify charging certain commission rates. The drawback, though, is that Zillow’s site is set up so that sellers have to post the information voluntarily.
At least one local Realtor is excited about the Zillow launch.
North County Realtor Jim Klinge blogged that he was fined $150 earlier this week by managers of the Multiple Listing Service. The MLS- the Realtors-only place to post homes for sale – has rules against including links in notes about homes for sale, and Klinge had noted that his website contained YouTube video clips of the homes.
You’d think they would be in support of agents finding better ways to do their job, but nooooooo.
Will somebody please create a public MLS before I go crazy!
Later today Klinge posted that he’d successfully uploaded a Zillow listing, and hoped it would catch on.
Check out the buzz in the blogosphere at the Piggington forum and Klinge’s blog.