Beware of Internet Housing Availability Information

Westcoe Realtors, Riverside California…We get calls everyday from possible buyers or sellers wanting to know some information on a listing we have for sale in our office.  That’s a good thing.  That is why we are here.  Call away.  However, at least once every day, someone who calls for the above information becomes highly frustrated/agitated when we tell them that the house they are calling on is no longer available for sale…in fact it actually sold weeks or months ago.  “I just saw it on the internet today,” they say.  “How can that be?”

Well, here’s how…Don’t believe everything you see on the Internet.  Let us explain.

With regards to the housing information available on many Internet web sites, there are basically two ways these sites get their information.  The site is either directly connected to the local MLS, and thereby has immediate access to the latest information, price changes, status changes, etc…or the site aggregates it’s information from a third party, in which case the data is not automatically updated for accuracy.  In fact, in the case of the latter third party situation, data can sit on a web site for months with no updates at all.  Hence, someone gets on that site, reads the data, and then calls us…only to be told that they are way late on this particular property.

How can you tell whether you are on a good, up-to-date site or a third party site?  You can’t…unless you call on the info and discover for yourself.  One sure way is to get on line with a particular company website, because they have control over what goes on their site.  Therefore, whatever content is there should be up to date.  For example, if you go to the Westcoe website, our data is updated hourly so whatever you see should be about as fresh as it gets.  I suspect other company websites operate the same way, since to do it any other way would make the company look foolish.

This is not to say that any other site not directly associated with a particular company is bad.  Some third party sites have paid the fees to join the local MLS, in which case their data is available in real time.  It’s just that some websites do not stay on top of their data as well as they should.  Also understand that the information on these third party websites is not anything any real estate company can control.  In other words, if we are notified by a caller that the website they are viewing has really old data on one of our listings, there is nothing we can do about it.  We do not control our data once it has left the MLS to be aggregated on some other web site.  Oh sure, we can get on line and complain, but we are no more successful with that than you are.  The bottom line on these sites is that if they cared enough to deal with our complaint, they would care enough to get real time data on their site.

In the end, all you can do is try.  Hopefully, the site you like the most has accurate data, but you will only find out when you call…and if you get some agent on the other end of the line telling you that the home you are inquiring about sold months ago, cross that site off your list….and don’t get mad at the agent!

Good luck, and as always, let us know if there is any real estate issues you would like to see addressed on our blog.