Real Estate Study Exposes Zillow and Trulia As MLS Lacking: A Call for Local Coverage Disclosure

Real estate is local. And consumers want to see all the local listings, especially the MLS listings the real estate agents get to see. So why don’t national real estate sites publish their local MLS coverage percentage on the website? Ahh…. maybe because their MLS coverage is pitiful. If you have crummy coverage, tell Joe Homebuyer. He may decide not to waste his time there. If you have great coverage, give him the assurance he’s come to the right place to search. Just tell him the local coverage stats and stop hiding behind your gross number of listings!

Let’s start with Trulia and Zillow. Tell local home searching buyers whether they are seeing the whole MLS listings pie or only a sliver. You got the tech heads to do it, if you don’t already know– so let’s see what you really have LOCALLY. It’s about time you guys stopped hiding behind your “3 million listings” perception marketing pitch. It’s time you told the public the true extent of your local listings coverage. We all know you don’t have 100% of the listings in EVERY market and probably not in most– so let’s get transparent, shall we, and give the consumer the local truth—publish the local listings coverage percentage when John Q. Public does a search in a city so he doesn’t waste his time putzing around your heat maps and zestimate stock graphs.

This little rant was brought on by an interesting post at TechCrunch comparing the comprehensiveness of national real estate websites Zillow and Trulia vs. regional/city MLS-based sites like Roost and Redfin. Turns out the big marquee names don’t cover listings as well in all markets (pros know it, but certainly most consumers don’t).

As Techcrunch writer Eric Schonfeld points out, “If the MLS in any given city is the benchmark, both [Zillow and Trulia] have a lot of work to do.”

While TruZillia will boast, “We got 3 million+ listings”, the fact of the matter is a guy in Kalamazoo could give 2 hoots and a holla: “What ‘ya got in Kalamazoo?” And if the answer is less than ALL THE LISTINGS– or at least all the MLS listings the broker you may hire will see, I’d say the site is of limited value to him. At least if consumers knew the truth, they could decide.

In knocking the study stats, Trulia’s VP of Marketing, Heather Fernandez, seemed to take some pride in having 70% coverage in most metro areas …. whatever that means. But isn’t the buying public entitled to know if you’re missing a third of the listings in their city (not metro “area”)? Will you tell them? (I didn’t think so)

Interestingly, Roost jumped into the fray by saying “Hey, look at us, we got the golden MLS goose giving us 100% coverage while those big saps can’t even muster 65% ” The Rooster cited a WAV Group study which examined MLS listing coverage in Miami, Dallas & San Diego and showed that Roost had better MLS coverage than TruZillia. Duh.
While this is most probably true, Roost seemed to have laid a goose egg with the skewed comparison numbers and WAV Group’s limited methodology (3 bed, 2 baths homes within a $50,000 range) — you gotta watch those slippery statisticians. And some commenter was quick to point out the fact that good ‘ol WAV Group’s customers include, you guessed it, MLS. When you spin it, make sure you’ve got a good spinner.

But while TruZillia has been de-pantsed, let’s not forget that while the MLS may be (is) the most comprehensive database of listings (guestimate 80%), the remainder are FSBOs and foreclosures. Real estate search nirvana is still a dream.

Additional rant: Let’s stop calling real estate listing sites (read Trulia) search engines. It’s misleading. They have a search engine to search their stuff but they are not search engines in the consumer understood Google sense that they search everyone’s stuff. During the Blog Tour we asked an open house visitor how they found the home. They said they used a Chicago search engine we never heard of. We looked it up and it was a broker site calling itself a “search engine.” There should be a depantsing when your pants are on fire.

Read the Techcrunch post and don’t neglect the comments. In one, Trulia claims to have the best NYC coverage. Sebastian of New York’s own Streeteasy, calls them on it. (personal bias here: I’d say Streeteasy kicks Tru butt in NYC. Sorry Heather.) Kevin Boer displays his usual panache. Oh yeah, this gem from David G of Zillow on Roost: “The first sentence on Roost’s website says “Every home for sale …” Clearly that is a lie and this study is an ill-conceived and biased attempt at creating BUZZ around Roost’s false claims.” followed by this friendly sales pitch: “Please get hold of me regarding publishing Zillow’s FSBO inventory on ROOST.” Real estate makes for some strange bedfellows.