August 6, 2013 - Vendor Alley

In case you haven’t heard President Barack Obama and Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff this Wednesday, Aug. 7 at 10:00 a.m. PT (1:00 p.m. ET) are going to have a conversation about the current housing market. The virtual event will be streamed on zillow.com/whitehouse and Whitehouse.gov.

So you might ask yourself, why did the President of the United States choose Zillow instead, hmmmmm, let me think a minute, is there an organization that represents national real estate? Their name is right on the tip of my tongue….let me think a minute! Bingo! I got it! NAR, the National Association of REALTORS! So again, I ask, why did the President of the United States choose Zillow instead of the National Associaiton of REALTORS to get his message about housing? Well I dunno, but it looks like a lot of NAR members are asking the same question since NAR had to issue a “Special Report” email to respond.

The email is, putting it mildly, embarrassing. I started to write this post by highlighting sections of it and picking it apart. But I think there is a larger issue:

HouseLogic.com

Here’s the mission statement of HouseLogic from their website:

“Our Mission. You care about your home. The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® cares about homeownership. To help you become the best, most responsible homeowner you aspire to be, we want to provide you with free information and tools you can use to make smart and timely decisions about your home.
From time to time, we may reach out to you to help us support legislation and/or policies that may have an impact on you, the homeowner. You can choose to join our cause. Or you can choose not to…

Houselogic is supposed to be the site where NAR engages with consumers about legislation issues. Can you imagine the coup it would have been if The President of The United States hosted a live streaming event on HouseLogic.com? NAR would be beating its chest until they gave themselves a heart attack. But no, POTUS choose Zillow instead.

I would say that HouseLogic also competes with Realtor.com, but that’s giving Houselogic too much credit. What HouseLogic.com does do is cost a lot of money. Millions to operate each year.

It’s time for NAR to face reality. HouseLogic is a turd. And it’s time for NAR to flush that turd.

And to Spencer and his crew at Zillow. Well played sir, well played.

I was surprised to see a lot of MLS related content in the August issue of the REAL Trends Newsletter this month. In the commentary titled, “The Value of MLSs”, the editor actually comes up with a number of based on some nifty analysis of what the total value of MLS providers in the country is worth. And it’s a pretty damn big number.

27 billion. With a “b”. Let’s all demand raises.

Also in the issue is another commentary about “The Chatter About the Potential of a Broker-Owned National Portal.” I liked this tidbit:

“First, do the leading national and regional firms really want to have yet another portal brand name competing with their existing brands?”

Great question.

Here a link the the issue. It’s one of those virtual magazine formats, which I hate. Sorry about that, if anyone knows where you can find the content on a simple webpage please let me know in the comments.

Real Trend August 2013 Newsletter

Zillow, the White House, NAR and what this means for HouseLogic.com.

Latest REAL Trends Newsletter is chock-full of MLS commentary.