Google Helps Buyers Find Homes
Posted by Ron Ogden at Dwell Utah on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 9:18am.One the of the greatest features of the internet is its ability to allow people all over the world find local and specific information easily and efficiently. For Real Estate, this means that homebuyers can easily find homes for sale that meet specific buyer criteria. A typical home search might be: Find homes in Salt Lake City's Sugarhouse neighborhood with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a remodeled kitchen. With just these few keystrokes, Google will find and display the 30 or so homes that meet your specific home search criteria. What could be better!
Google Banned From Real Estate Listings?
Some people think that "better" would be to ban Google from being able to display this information all together! Google (and other search engines) provide the enabling indexing function that identifies where information resides on the internet and makes it readily available to searchers in response to their queries. Without indexing, today's internet would not exist.
Recently, the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors (MIBOR) ruled that agents who display real estate listings on their websites must ensure that Google does not index the listings on those sites. MIBOR believes that indexing is equivalent web site "scraping", defined as the unauthorized acquisition and republishing of proprietary information on the internet. As both MIBOR and the National Association of Realtors (NAR) both prohibit scraping of real estate listings, this ruling could effectively remove the ability for anyone in the US to search for Real Estate on the internet!
Is this really what we want? Is this what buyers want? Is this what sellers want? No--not at all. Everyone wants easy access to real estate listings and fewer barriers to being able to find the best homes that meet your needs, for the best price, as efficiently as possible. The internet allows this to happen--and Google indexing is the key enabler for Real Estate on the internet. And what's more, Google indexing IS NOT scraping! For a full picture of the issues involved, read more on Agent Genius.
Cooler Real Estate Heads Will Prevail
This has primarily been a local skirmish in Indiana with NAR providing support for the local decision-making authority of MIBOR. However, a "big-picture" view of this policy quickly reveals that the consequences of this local decision will have a far-reaching negative effect on the effective and efficient dissemination of real estate information throughout the United States and I don't believe that is a path most real estate boards or the NAR wants to go down.
Thanks to the internet, a grass-roots effort to rationally discuss this issue and rally the appropriate parties to address the problem is starting to show some success. NAR appears ready to take a more national stance on this new policy interpretation and I believe a compromise solution will soon be reached. When all is said and done, making real estate information easily available on the internet is in everyone's best interest. After all, your next new home could be just a few clicks away!
The Premier Source For Buying & Selling Homes in Utah: www.dwellutah.com
Search for Homes in Salt Lake City.
Selling a Home in Salt Lake? Contact Dwell Utah.
Blog Tags
Print
Share4 Responses to "Google Helps Buyers Find Homes"
The big picture is what it is all about. Google should be able to index our information and not be subject to decisions that reduce our value as real estate agents. This pushed our company to go ahead and do what we have wanted to do far a long time here is the right link to our site http://www.skyrealtyaustin.com/blog/why-we-no-longer-syndicate-our-listings.html
Posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 1:54 PM.
I believe without the support of many hundreds of Realtors this issue would have been swept under the rug and we would have been stuck in some last century technology. Realtors need all the power they can muster from the Internet to sell a clients home, to find a client a home. Google does not make money from indexing our listings. They are not in business to prey off of Realtors and homeowners and hungry for information consumers. Hopefully this will settle peacefully and quickly with NAR acknowledging a Search Engine crawling websites and displaying information to a consumer is GOOD for business.
Posted on Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 at 7:13 PM.
I agree completely, Gail. This ruling by a local board of realtors is headed in such the wrong direction that, despite NAR's wish that they could avoid a controversy, NAR has no choice now but to address the problem head-on. How can anyone say that preventing Google from displaying relevant search results to people searching for homes on the internet is a good thing? It's just not--not from a buyer's perspective, not from a seller's perspective, and not from at least 99.999% of all Realtors' perspective. The right decision will be made here--though it may take just a little more pressure from all of us to make it happen. Thanks!
Posted on Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 at 7:51 PM.
Leave a Comment
My Account
Log in, to view your saved searches and add to your favorite listings.
... So You Can:
- View detailed property information
- Print detailed property flyers
- Save your searches & favorite homes
- Inquire about a private showing
- Map individual property locations
- Share your favorite homes with friends
The big picture is what it is all about. Google should be able to index our information and not be subject to decisions that reduce our value as real estate agents. This pushed our company to go ahead and do what we have wanted to do far a long time http://www.dwellutah.com/blog/google-helps-buyers-find-homes.html
Posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 1:20 PM.