The provider of home listings in the Chicago area says a pact it signed with Zillow Group may improve the accuracy of for-sale home information that appears on Zillow and Trulia, as well as put a brighter spotlight on agents selling those homes.
On Monday, Midwest Real Estate Data, one of the nation’s largest multiple listing services, and Zillow announced a deal to keep local listings flowing to Zillow and its recently acquired Trulia site.
The agreement comes as the spring housing market heats up and listing sites fight for consumers’ attention.
On Tuesday, about 20,000 local home listings, representing one-quarter of the properties on the Chicago-area MLS, were scheduled to disappear from Zillow. That’s because Zillow received its Chicago-area listings through a third company, ListHub, which is owned by Move Inc. Move, acquired last year by News Corp., operates realtor.com and said it would end its ListHub agreement with its rival April 7.
The deal with Midwest Real Estate Data is one of 14 agreements reached with listing services around the country just in the past few days as Zillow works to continue the flow of listings to its site.
It will remain up to brokerages whether they want their listings sent to Zillow and Trulia , and some larger real estate brokerages have their own direct-feed agreements with Zillow. Other brokerages don’t want their listings sent to the company’s sites because of concerns about accuracy or helping other agents build their business, said Rebecca Jensen, Midwest Real Estate Data’s CEO.
Under the agreement, though, listings sent to Zillow and Trulia will come directly from Midwest Real Estate Data, not ListHub, and that should improve their accuracy, Jensen said. It will still be up to Zillow and Trulia to keep the listings updated.
In addition, brokerage logos and a link back to the brokerage’s website will be included and contact information for the listing agents will be more prominently displayed.
“The listing agent and brokerage attribution is better for the buyers because they can differentiate who will have the information and can answer their questions,” Jensen said.
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