Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

Take the CCP Survey

WAV Group Clear Cooperation Survey

“The National Association of REALTORS® Clear Cooperation Policy was one of the most carefully curated policies that I recall over the past two decades. It involved countless hours by staff, legal, broker meetings, MLS meetings, Association meetings, agent feedback, and a ton of research. Regardless of effort or intention, this policy has drawn the ire of the United States Department of Justice. “

WAV Group

Very timely. While I was in Chicago I heard that meetings were going on this week about the future of CCP. Click here to give your opinion => 2 minute survey 

Bada Bing

Microsoft Bing Real Estate Portal in Violation of Copyright Infringement – MLSs Must Act Immediately

“It seems like Zillow and Redfin started a relationship with Microsoft to leverage innovative OpenAI technology to deliver some interesting consumer benefits to people searching for homes on Zillow and Redfin. It is hard to ascertain how this relationship started with Bing Chat and evolved into Bing.com/realestate providing a full listing display breaking so many MLS rules, that links out to advertisers, and points to Zillow and Redfin as the sources of the data rather than the brokerage or MLS. It’s not Zillow or Redfin’s data to give!”

Victor Lund, WAV Group

Great write up from Victor regarding the Bing controversy, go read the whole thing. Sam DeBord was the first to start posting about this and Marian at Inman News did a story as well. Good reporting.

Okay so let’s first let’s get something straight right from the top, Bing.com/realestate is a mother fucking real estate portal, not a search results page.

  • I can like properties
  • I can save a property
  • I can setup a saved search
  • I can see multiple photos (sans watermark) – WTF?
  • I can “claim ownership”
  • I can see an “estimated value”
  • I can even get a mortgage!

And it appears that Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com may be complicit in powering Bing. From Victor’s post,

“Here is how easily Zillow and Redfin can stop bing from accessing and republishing content – code courtesy of OpenAI “<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”>.” Inventory is turning in 30-90 days in most markets, rendering search on Bing irrelevant in a short period of time. If current listings are not displayed to active home buyers in today’s tight market, consumers will abandon them. Of course, this would be a poison pill for Zillow and Redfin who rely on search engines for a significant amount of their consumer traffic.”

Victor Lund, WAV Group

Shout out to Homes.com for not being a part of this scheme, as Victor also points out.

But MLS organizations need to step up, more from Victor.

“MLS must protect the assets contributed by each broker, or firms will simply contribute their content to OpenAI for free, and access the listing content of other brokerage firms using OpenAI. CMA vendors like Inside Real Estate, Delta Media and dozens of others can stop paying $5 Million a year in Data License fees and access the data from OpenAI. An OpenAi driven CMA would work like Cloud CMAs revolutionary 1 Minute CMA, only it would be almost instant. Moreover, consumers could simply run their own CMA without a professional.”

Victor Lund, WAV Group

“AI” is the new “lion over the hill”. If MLS orgs want to protect their data licensing revenue you need to nip this in the bud now.

More info on FCC’s new robocalls rules

Victor talks about some of the details to the FCC new rules as it apples to real estate lead aggregators.

“Real estate leads are among the most expensive leads generated across all American business, often leading to real estate professionals paying as high as 40% of their commission for a sale generated from a lead. Many leads generated at online shopping websites are sold over and over again, causing consumers to be inundated with spam-y text messages and robo-calls that seem to have no end. Now, there must be a clear opt-in by consumers to this form of communication. The FCC wants the consumer to opt in on a 1-to-1 basis to each company that will receive their contact information. “

Victor Lund, WAV Group

As Rob and I discussed on a recent Industry Relations podcast we think this is going to have a bigger impact than any one realizes.

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