8 ms·

The biggest users of the open data movement are, in fact, real estate professionals. It's companies like Trulia and Estately and Zillow and what not that are ac

by cjoh 12y ago

The biggest users of the open data movement are, in fact, real estate professionals. It's companies like Trulia and Estately and Zillow and what not that are actually taking open data from government and putting it to good use. It'd be interesting to see some kind of startup come out of this. Though it's fairly hands-on, real estate is still a fairly hands on market, and with real estate lobbying being what it is, it's likely that agents aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Building them tools that allow them to make better recommendations to their clients or to find better buyers might be something really interesting.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
Don't forget http://www.redfin.com http://www.redfin.com ; their presentation of properties with the associated public data is beautiful. No association, just a huge fan.
- atourgates 12y ago
  Redfin really is a great real-estate app. A few years ago, I shopped for a home in an area that Redfin serviced. The data they had and the way the presented it made it easy to find the house we wanted, and figure out what we would be comfortable paying for it. A few weeks ago we closed on a house in a non-Redfin serviced area. The shopping experience was night and day. Here, none of the local MLS databases, or Zillow or Truila, list things like past purchase prices, and even generally hide past listing prices. I'm not sure if that has to do with local regulations here (ID) vs. the last place we tried to buy a house (CA), or if it's something specific to Redfin. Either way, buying a house in a non-Redfin service area involved quite a few extra trips to the local courthouse, and made me really appreciate the data it offers.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    > The shopping experience was night and day. Here, none of the local MLS databases, or Zillow or Truila, list things like past purchase prices, and even generally hide past listing prices. I'm not sure if that has to do with local regulations here (ID) vs. the last place we tried to buy a house (CA), or if it's something specific to Redfin. Yes, this is typically because of realtor and MLS database regulations.
  - mrfusion 12y ago
    Was this comment corporate sponsored?
- opendais 12y ago
  Ya, I used them to buy a condo and find my realtor. It was a good experience. :D
Hovertruck 12y ago
I know it's anecdotal, but most realtors I have met actively dislike Trulia/Zillow/etc
- smacktoward 12y ago
  That's right, because they generally have their own proprietary source of data (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service), which is a big part of the appeal of working with a realtor -- they learn of new listings faster than you can by relying on public, "open source" data. And realtors aren't stupid; they noticed what happened when other professions that were built on closed data opened their databases up to the public. Travel agents, for instance, used to be the only ones who could search the SABRE database (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_%28computer_system%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_%28computer_system%29), which made it valuable to work with an agent when making your travel plans. Then in the '80s the company behind SABRE started opening it up to the public, first via services like CompuServe and AOL, and then later via the Web. Suddenly travelers didn't need a travel agent anymore; they could get the same booking data right from their computer. And travel agencies as a business sector promptly collapsed (http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/03/travel/travel-agent-survival/ http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/03/travel/travel-agent-survival/). For this reason, the real estate agents have little desire to see MLS data show up in publicly-accessible services like Zillow. The current state of affairs appears to be that it does eventually flow out to them, but with a significant (1 week+) delay -- which lets the agents preserve their status as the people you have to talk to if you want the freshest data.
  - Domenic_S 12y ago
    > The current state of affairs appears to be that it does eventually flow out to them, but with a significant (1 week+) delay I don't think that's true, at least not for Redfin. According to them: "Homes on the MLS show up on Redfin in 30 minutes or less." - http://forums.redfin.com/t5/Inland-Empire/How-quickly-does-MLS-info-get-posted-on-redfin/td-p/433041 http://forums.redfin.com/t5/Inland-Empire/How-quickly-does-M... "Local brokerage sites like Redfin show homes for sale immediately, as opposed to the seven to nine day delay typical for the national portals." - http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2013/03/you-deserve-to-see-it-all.html#.U5Yj9S-yPjU http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2013/03/you-deserve-to-see-it-al... "Updates every 15-30 minutes" - http://www.redfin.com/about/data-quality-on-redfin http://www.redfin.com/about/data-quality-on-redfin The biggest advantage of a local (real human) broker is they know what's about to go up for sale, have detailed neighborhood info, can help grease the wheels of your deal, etc. If they're good.
kaylarose 12y ago
I don't know if Redfin uses the same feeds, but their update times seem vastly superior to Trulia, Zillow & Estately. After spending 1 1/2 years trying to find a house in a turnkey-scarce market, and using RedFin (after it launched in our market a few months ago), Estately, Zillow, and Trulia in parallel - this was the killer feature of Redfin for me. For instance, I knew an offer we had made on a house was going to fall through when I got an alert from Redfin half hour after sending the offer, that the house was pending. Similarly - I found, toured, offered, and signed on a house (and was alerted to the "new listing", "pending", and "sold" status by redfin) before Zillow even had is registered as "For Sale". So I am genuinely curious how their feeds differ from the rest. I originally assumed they all just scraped the MLS, but maybe this isn't the case...?
- zippergz 12y ago
  Redfin is an actual real estate brokerage, and are therefore real members of the MLS, with access to the data that provides. The others are simply scraping via publicly available data. This is a major difference.
  - gdudeman 12y ago
    Close, except Estately gets access to MLS data too. (Founder & CEO here)
    - mrfusion 12y ago
      Do you guys have an API? I have a couple cool ideas for apps bit don't know where to get data?
      - gdudeman 12y ago
        Hi mrfusion, we unfortunately have strict licensing restrictions on our data. Sorry!
  - smackfu 12y ago
    Is it a major difference, or just a matter of timeliness? The actual data that Zillow etc. has seems identical to any other service, and the same as the printouts that realtors give out that they are printing from MLS.

by cjoh 12y ago

toomuchtodo 12y ago

Don't forget http://www.redfin.com http://www.redfin.com ; their presentation of properties with the associated public data is beautiful. No association, just a huge fan.

atourgates 12y ago
Redfin really is a great real-estate app. A few years ago, I shopped for a home in an area that Redfin serviced. The data they had and the way the presented it made it easy to find the house we wanted, and figure out what we would be comfortable paying for it. A few weeks ago we closed on a house in a non-Redfin serviced area. The shopping experience was night and day. Here, none of the local MLS databases, or Zillow or Truila, list things like past purchase prices, and even generally hide past listing prices. I'm not sure if that has to do with local regulations here (ID) vs. the last place we tried to buy a house (CA), or if it's something specific to Redfin. Either way, buying a house in a non-Redfin service area involved quite a few extra trips to the local courthouse, and made me really appreciate the data it offers.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  > The shopping experience was night and day. Here, none of the local MLS databases, or Zillow or Truila, list things like past purchase prices, and even generally hide past listing prices. I'm not sure if that has to do with local regulations here (ID) vs. the last place we tried to buy a house (CA), or if it's something specific to Redfin. Yes, this is typically because of realtor and MLS database regulations.
- mrfusion 12y ago
  Was this comment corporate sponsored?
opendais 12y ago
Ya, I used them to buy a condo and find my realtor. It was a good experience. :D

Hovertruck 12y ago

I know it's anecdotal, but most realtors I have met actively dislike Trulia/Zillow/etc

smacktoward 12y ago
That's right, because they generally have their own proprietary source of data (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service), which is a big part of the appeal of working with a realtor -- they learn of new listings faster than you can by relying on public, "open source" data. And realtors aren't stupid; they noticed what happened when other professions that were built on closed data opened their databases up to the public. Travel agents, for instance, used to be the only ones who could search the SABRE database (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_%28computer_system%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_%28computer_system%29), which made it valuable to work with an agent when making your travel plans. Then in the '80s the company behind SABRE started opening it up to the public, first via services like CompuServe and AOL, and then later via the Web. Suddenly travelers didn't need a travel agent anymore; they could get the same booking data right from their computer. And travel agencies as a business sector promptly collapsed (http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/03/travel/travel-agent-survival/ http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/03/travel/travel-agent-survival/). For this reason, the real estate agents have little desire to see MLS data show up in publicly-accessible services like Zillow. The current state of affairs appears to be that it does eventually flow out to them, but with a significant (1 week+) delay -- which lets the agents preserve their status as the people you have to talk to if you want the freshest data.
- Domenic_S 12y ago
  > The current state of affairs appears to be that it does eventually flow out to them, but with a significant (1 week+) delay I don't think that's true, at least not for Redfin. According to them: "Homes on the MLS show up on Redfin in 30 minutes or less." - http://forums.redfin.com/t5/Inland-Empire/How-quickly-does-MLS-info-get-posted-on-redfin/td-p/433041 http://forums.redfin.com/t5/Inland-Empire/How-quickly-does-M... "Local brokerage sites like Redfin show homes for sale immediately, as opposed to the seven to nine day delay typical for the national portals." - http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2013/03/you-deserve-to-see-it-all.html#.U5Yj9S-yPjU http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2013/03/you-deserve-to-see-it-al... "Updates every 15-30 minutes" - http://www.redfin.com/about/data-quality-on-redfin http://www.redfin.com/about/data-quality-on-redfin The biggest advantage of a local (real human) broker is they know what's about to go up for sale, have detailed neighborhood info, can help grease the wheels of your deal, etc. If they're good.

kaylarose 12y ago

I don't know if Redfin uses the same feeds, but their update times seem vastly superior to Trulia, Zillow & Estately. After spending 1 1/2 years trying to find a house in a turnkey-scarce market, and using RedFin (after it launched in our market a few months ago), Estately, Zillow, and Trulia in parallel - this was the killer feature of Redfin for me. For instance, I knew an offer we had made on a house was going to fall through when I got an alert from Redfin half hour after sending the offer, that the house was pending. Similarly - I found, toured, offered, and signed on a house (and was alerted to the "new listing", "pending", and "sold" status by redfin) before Zillow even had is registered as "For Sale". So I am genuinely curious how their feeds differ from the rest. I originally assumed they all just scraped the MLS, but maybe this isn't the case...?

zippergz 12y ago
Redfin is an actual real estate brokerage, and are therefore real members of the MLS, with access to the data that provides. The others are simply scraping via publicly available data. This is a major difference.
- gdudeman 12y ago
  Close, except Estately gets access to MLS data too. (Founder & CEO here)
  - mrfusion 12y ago
    Do you guys have an API? I have a couple cool ideas for apps bit don't know where to get data?
    - gdudeman 12y ago
      Hi mrfusion, we unfortunately have strict licensing restrictions on our data. Sorry!
- smackfu 12y ago
  Is it a major difference, or just a matter of timeliness? The actual data that Zillow etc. has seems identical to any other service, and the same as the printouts that realtors give out that they are printing from MLS.