Don:
On the same note this was in the paper this morning.
Bad data bludgeons brokers
Buyers trust the Web, but homes aren't always as advertised
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
By Bridget McCrea
Inman News Features
The home buyers wanted a 2,000-plus-square-foot home with air-conditioning throughout all the rooms.
The listing agent knew the home was 2,700 square feet and roughly half of it had air-conditioning, but the rest of the home was below-grade basement space sans air-conditioning.
The buyer and seller struck a deal, but a trip to West Virginia, contract negotiations and numerous meetings ultimately were for naught. The deal unraveled when the buyers discovered the information they'd read on a listings data Web site didn't match the home's true specifications.
"The homeowner let the buyers move in furniture before closing and when they went downstairs to flip on the air-conditioning, there wasn't any," said Jim Miller, broker for Coldwell Banker Premier Homes, a five-office, 100-agent firm in Berkely Springs, W.VA.
But one third-party Web site had stated: "2,700-square-foot home with central air" and hadn't made any distinction between the above-grade and below-grade sections of the home.
Instances like this one are the bane of real estate brokers like Miller who are getting an increasing number of sales leads from the Web. Accuracy is crucial.
Miller believes such errors occur because the people who make up the fields and forms for online listings Web sites rarely are well-versed in real estate terminology.
"We put the time into making sure the data is accurate for the MLS, but after that it's displayed in so many places and we don't have the staff to check them all," he said.
Particularly problematic in Miller's experience are Web sites that pull information from print homes-for-sale magazines to populate online listing databases. He said such information oftentimes is not only inaccurate, but also outdated, which raises license law implications for brokers.
Mike Rahmn, director of information services for Windermere Real Estate in Seattle, noted that a real estate licensee isn't allowed to advertise for sale a home that's not on the market.
"So where does that (outdated data) leave the Realtor?" he asked.
Rahmn said the closer the agent is to the listing, the more likely it is that the data will be accurate. When agents manually edit their own listings, there's a good chance the info will be correct and current.
But the further the listing data gets from the agent, the greater the chances are the information will be wrong. And the fallout generally falls on the agent, not the aggregator.
"No one blames (the Web site), they blame the agents. And to even get ahold of anyone close to where the process takes place is impossible. We hear all the time from our agents that they don't feel like they're in control when it comes to the aggregators," Rahmn said.
Rahmn's department sweeps about a dozen MLS systems every day and feeds the listings information into Windermere's own Web site. Even that is a huge task.
"It's hard enough to deal with 12 MLSs," said Rahmn. "I can't imagine 200, unless you really have your act together."
Thaddeus Wong, co-founder of Chicago-based @properties, predicted that online data accuracy will become less of an issue when brokers and developers become more Internet-savvy and turn to pulling information from a single source.
"Whether it's the MLS or an individual Web site, they'll spend more time updating it," he said. "It's getting better already because of broker reciprocity, which helps brokers pull data from the MLS that's 24 hours old at the most."
But meanwhile, home builders and developers also at times are guilt of leaving out-dated data online.
Wong said he's seen the look on buyers' faces when they find out the data isn't accurate and those faces aren't a pretty sight.
"They've looked online at the floor plan and specifications and decided it was the right price and property for them. Then they get to the sales center and find out there have been three price increases since that information was posted," said Wong, whose company has one office and 60 agents.
Buyers usually will insist on getting the stated price, in which case Wong reaches into a drawer and pulls out an official price sheet that states: "We reserve the right to increase prices."
"We just can't do it," said Wong. "It's a big disappointment for them that quickly turns to frustration and a need to post blame. Usually, it's the listing agent who feels the brunt of it."
