Know What Big Tech's New Real Estate Idea Is? Hint: Nothing New

I just uploaded a new Listing on MLS and within minutes that listing was online with another agent's picture and contact information next to it. Sure at the very bottom of the page in print so small you would not notice it if you weren't looking really hard it said "Listed by Volley Goodman and my TREC License number". There was nothing about me or my firm. In fact it said "For more information you could contact the agent displayed. That worked for Redfin.

Realty.com wasn't even that generous. In the tiniest type conceivable it said courtesy of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services - as if Berkshire Hathaway Home Services needs other agents from other firms to market its listings.

Though Zillow includes my contact information with the listing it does so along with 4 other featurecd Zillow agents. I am not a Zillow agent so my profile is not up-to-date on their website, and I don't have the time to update every real estate website platform offering my listing for sale to the public.

I have received recruiting calls from the more "enlightened" Real Estate Firms like Redfin which I must agree is doing a great job marketing its agents and innovating in the business of Real Estate. I confess I kind of love Redfin.

In my call from Redfin I was asked by the recruiter what programs I used to get prospects. Embarrassed I said I had tried using Lead Capture Programs, but did not like the way they worked. I said that most of the leads I received were from the Lead Capture Programs fell into a couple categories: Curious not really ready to buy, Curious but unqualified, Curious but already had an agent in the family or a friend or (the worst) an agent who was offering a discount because they weren't even going to show the listing to them.

What surprised me was there was no follow up question. The recruiter merely thanked me and said good-bye. And I am sure the reason she said good-bye was Redfin is itself in the business of being a Lead Capture Program for its agents see the above.

I am sure most Realtors? are familiar with the ubiquitious Lead Capture Programs which charge a fee for leads. Zillow though still losing money hand over fist makes billions from Realtors? paid advertising, and it is just one of many.

Business is business and everyone has to advertise for new business. I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is having other Realtors? tricking the public into believing my listings are theirs. It's plagirism.

Wikipedia defines plagirism as "the wrongful appropriation and publication of another's 'language, thoughts, ideas or epressions' and representing them as one's own work. Other definitions include: any attempt to deceive for financial gain, a piece of trickery, an act or course of deception, an intentional conceilment, omission or perversion of truth to gain (unlawful) or unfair advantage.

The last definition is interesting because even though the Lead Capture Programs are indeed intentionally deceiving or at least tricking the public to believe that their paid advertisers are infact the experts on the listings they are featured with, it probably isn't illegal.

And the reason it isn't illegal is because Real Estate firms are not going to hold their listings back from the public who are searching for new listings on Zillow because Zillow has a superior home search experience which people prefer to use over MLS which is way behind the curve when it comes to technology.

And agents must abide by MLS rules which do not allow them to put personal business information in the public comments of their listings.

Granted if MLS allowed an agent to publish her personal, business information in the public comments area of the listing a free-for-all aimed at competing for business would ensue and the MLS would quickly be degraded, but there may be other ways to give an agent credit for their hard work than just the public comments area.

I think most business people would agree that if you go to the trouble producing something that it would be wrong for a third party to take your work and sell it to a competitor who put his headshot and contact information next to it with the caption "Need more information contact me." But that is exactly what is happening in Real Estate Advertising.

I believe that since advertising is big money in the now ONLINE Real Estate Business some attempt needs to be made to make sure that the creator of the information displayed is given well-deserved easly understood credit for their work by the Big Data Platforms whose "innovation" is selling plagirism legally. It needs to change.

In a recent article it said: "Wall Street and Silicon Valley are infaturated with the idea that there isn't an industry in the world they can't blow to shreads with money and technology" (Steve Murray, president of real estate analysis firm Real Trends.) The article continues: "There are signs that real estate's time has come. 'We're going to see an infinite variety of changes to the way people buy and sell homes'".

Maybe people don't care as much for getting the personal care of a Realtor? or even in getting the maximum out of their home's value any more. Maybe as Jeremy Wacksman of Zillow said recently: "What they care about is pushing the button and making magic happen." The magic of selling your house in a matter of days even if it is at a small discount."

Yet if the product is based on plagirising my work, I feel ripped off and I am not ready to surrender. MLS if you are listening, it's time for you to act.