No agreements, no fees, what’s up with listings on HouseCanary’s new portal?

Inman just posted an article “HouseCanary launches portal, raising questions over listing data.” Here’s what HouseCanary is saying…

“The site is still in a beta mode, but company spokesperson Denise Dunckel told Inman the goal “is to create a compelling and differentiated home search experience for consumers focusing on our deep property analytics.”

But something still isn’t right…

How exactly those listings showed up on ComeHome’s map, however, remains is unclear.

[Denise] Dunckel said that all current and past ComeHome listings come “directly from MLS feeds that HouseCanary has agreements with.”

That sounds straightforward enough, except that two different MLS chief executives told Inman they found their own listings on ComeHome, despite not having an agreement in place that would allow the new portal to share that information.

One of those execs, Lauren Hansen of IRES MLS in Colorado, said she found out about ComeHome earlier this week and was still trying to figure out what exactly was going on. As far as she was aware, ComeHome did not have an agreement with her MLS, nor had anyone from the portal reached out and asked to use listing data.

When Inman asked about IRES and CRMLS, Dunckel replied that “our policy is to only include MLS listings where we have agreements in place.””

????

Sounds like Sarah Sanders has some competition in Denise Dunckel.

And I’m not buying there must be a “misunderstanding” about the agreements either (if they can find them). HouseCanary got $64M in funding. They got “data scientists”. They can’t read a data agreement? Riiiiiight.

Looks like HouseCanary got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

What’s a word you would use If you don’t have permission to use something and you haven’t paid for it, but you still use it? It’s on the tip of my tongue, I just can’t think of it now….