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 Accuracy matters? – A look at Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com and the MLS.

• Sandicor MLS = 170
• Zillow = 368
• Trulia = 602

If you are a real estate buyer looking for property and accuracy is important to you, be sure you know the differences in the various 3rd party real estate search sites.  If you use an IDX search like on San Diego LIfestyle or many other real estate agents or company sites, the information will be updated and accurate.  The reason for this is the listing feed comes directly out of Sandicor MLS, which is the professional multiple listing service used by real estate agents in San Diego County.  Sandicor MLS does not include For Sale by Owner or some new developments.

Our listing inventory is very low in Downtown San Diego at the moment.  Searching in the Sandicor MLS this morning returned an active count of 170 active homes for sale.  I did not filter the results based on single family or attached nor any other search perimeters.  All listing types were selected and the zip code was 92101.

Many of the 3rd party real estate search sites like Zillow, Trulia, and Yahoo have wildly different results with most of them listing contengent status listings as active.

For those of you that don’t know a “contingent” listing status would be an offer that was accepted pending the sale of another property or the approval of a “short sale” from the lender.  For the most part, serious buyer’s will normally not chase after these listings as the chances of another offer being accepted is much less than writing an offer on an active property.

Anyway in fairness to the search results I have included both active and contingent status in the Sandicor search which returns 251 matches.

Performing the same search on Zillow resulted in 368 for sale properties.  Applying the filter the breakdown included 255 listed by agent, 1 by owner, and 112 foreclosures.

Trulia returned a total of 602 real estate and homes for sale in 92101 on the search this morning.

If you would like to use a National real estate search site the most accurate will be Realtor.com.  While Zillow and Trulia are listing syndication sites and aggregate data from various sources, Realtor.com has direct listing feeds into the some 900 multiple listing systems across the country.  Most of these feeds are updated frequently returning the most accurate data.  Realtor.com returned 244 matches for 92101, very close the actual count in Sandicor MLS at 251.

Please download our white paper on the search results that were performed on March 30, 2012 on Sandicor, Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com.

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Photo courtesy of Michele Pearson via Flickr 

Look on the bright side, or the dark side!

According to article on Foreclosure Truth you can choose how you want to view the current real estate market.

Compare these two headlines:

Case-Shiller Home Price Index Ends 2011 With New Lows (February 28, 2012) *

Home Affordability Index Hits Record High (March 7, 2011) **

Throughout the housing crisis, the headlines have focused on the precipitous fall of prices and the resulting plight of homeowners who are underwater.

There is no doubt that the crisis has taken a huge financial and emotional toll on millions of families as the home price index has continued to decline – but it has also created opportunities for many first-time homebuyers, and for the investors who take the financial risk to restore distressed properties and make them available to buyers as the affordability index has risen.

There is an opportunity in every market shift.

San Diego February 2012 Real Estate Statistics

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YqSB_zv3M4

A local San Diego brokerage, ARG has announced they are the first broker in San Diego to pull out of listing syndication.

I am not going to go into great detail on this site which is consumer orientated.  If you want to know more please visit an excellent article by Lily Leung with the San Diego Union Tribune.  She has also posted some consumer reaction to the announcement here.

Fred Glick makes several important points in the video below about ARG’s announcement which focus on Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com.

First, that the underlying message is to call the listing agent, no one else will know more about the property or represent you better.  Sounds like dual agency to me.

Second, that the seller should be concerned and not allow his or her listing to be syndicated on Zillow Trulia, or Realtor.com, the three largest consumer real estate sites on the Internet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMQm3ZvVRl4

What are your thoughts?

For our regular readers of San Diego Lifestyle my apologies for my long absence.  I’ve been busy with a few major projects and it has kept me from my regular blogging schedule.

We’ve made a few changes to San Diego Lifestyle including a brand new Diverse Solutions Home Search solution.

I’ve reviewed all the major IDX systems and Diverse is by far the fastest, easiest to use, and powerful consumer home search platform out there available to real estate companies.  For those that don’t follow industry news Diverse Solutions was just purchased by Zillow and I’m confident that it will continue to be a market leader in home searches.  Our older WordPress based search will be phased out over the next month or so.

We don’t required you to login to search or use the system, but the advantage of you doing so is the ability to save your favorites for easy retrieval, make notes, and access both of your desktop, laptop, or mobile device.  The mobile experience on a iPad or tablet is the best I have seen.  Rest assured that if you sign up we will not spam you or add you to any mailings without your permission.  You can however request a showing from within the program and one of our Associates will get right back to as soon as possible.

Secondly, San Diego Lifestyle is the now the public face of RealtyV2 with the addition of our Associates.  I will continue to write general real estate and San Diego information but my focus is not on active selling as much as management and projects.  However, I will always continue to represent past Clients to keep up with the latest changes in the marketplace.

I appreciate all your feedback and comments and look forward to another interesting year in Real Estate.  If you have the money and a good job there are some amazing opportunities in the marketplace with unheard of interest rates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDMoiEkyuQ