It is my belief that in the next few years a nationwide multipurpose real estate website will evolve to become a major player in real estate sales. At first augmenting, but eventually displacing local Multiple Listing Service websites. I see this service site enjoying kind of a natural monopoly similar to Facebook, Google, Amazon or Linkedin. Currently I know of two such candidates that exist for this role, Zillow and Trulia, both are publicly traded companies. There are probably other players in this arena I don't know about. I expect one will become the Facebook of Real Estate, and that the others will become the myspaces and etoys of Real Estate. I do not use either site much myself since I use a local Denver Realtor site. My question is for those that have used Zillow and Trulia a good deal, (or brand x I don't know about). Is one site stronger, better, more useful, more reliable, etc.. than the other? My question relates to my desire to make a stock purchase of one of these companies (yes, I know that I am allowed to purchase more than one).

Patrick, Thanks for the information. I didn't know these other sites use a different conduit to get at the information. If there is a movement to stop syndication altogether, as well as like you said, some regulations put in place to stop any data to be used by sites such as zillow. trulia, redfin etc...it would be very interesting to see how this evolve. To me, at the end of the day it is still to provide products and services to your clients to get their home sold, and if getting the maximum exposure is important, then this movement is heading in the opposite direction. Back in the 90s I was involved in a project where all the states highway authorities were heavily invested in a pooled fund bridge analysis program. Each state would put up some money, and they jointly developed this program and made it available to all the design engineering firms and contractors to design and analyze their bridges and elevated structures. They were threatened by commercial systems popping up all over the places. As an act of self preservation they decided to require any engineering companies to do work for them to use their own system because they were "certified safe". They also got the backing of various other agencies such as AASHTO (Amercian Association of State Highway Officials) endorsing it, and finally they made their data proprietary instead of using a published open format. They end up accelerating their death essentially by building an island around themselves. The bottom line was the commercial systems were more cost effective, less maintenance and easier to use. One state broke rank and within 5 years the project was sunset. I see the same pattern over and over again. Everyone is expecting more transparency and better data integration. If the goal is to stop any 3rd party sites, then where does that put realtor.com? Seems to me realtor.com is kinda sorta like zillow. But realtor.com would be given access simply because NAR has a vested interest in it? Sounds to me many in NAR are not too happy with this either. NAR approves ‘historic’ changes to realtor.com operating agreement - See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/07/24/nar-approves-historic-changes-to-realtor-com-operating-agreement/#sthash.tSx6QQiD.dpuf May be what would happen is NAR will just extract a big fee from these other companies to give them the same access as realtor.com, who knows. But if I have to put money on it, and look 5 years into the future, I have a hard time seeing the RE listing data to be boxed in a closed system available only to realtors. On the contrary, I see third party solutions to continue to explode and leverage it, zillow or trulia may go out of business, but only because they got to a certain level of success they became acquisition targets for a company such as Google, and then everyone would just go to Google Map and turn on the real estate layer, and ask to bring up all SFR for sale. From there you can query homes with other information at your finger tips, such as show homes that are within half a mile of bus stops on bus route 12, or show homes near by dog parks, or not further than biking distance from the beach, or homes with great cell receptions for Sprint...and Google Map would pop up properties available for sale, for rent and you go can go for a virtual tour. May be instead of Street View, home owners or realtors can upload "House View". We make an offer online by paying bitcoin EMD.

I like Trulia better. The mobile app is my favorite, whenever I'm out of town I pull it up to see what houses are going for around me. These stocks are trading at multiples that I'm not comfortable with. I remember seeing Trulia at $24-27 after their IPO, and I think that's a range I would be comfortable buying.

At least in Austin, redfin will give you when a property sold, and for how much. That's much closer to getting comps than trulia or zillow. It's not in the client's best interest to provide sold data (since they already sold the property, they should not care). But it's in the agent's best interest NOT to provide the sold data, because then non-realtors will have a hard time doing their own comps.

Who do you think will win: Zillow, Trulia, or ????

Pat L.

Rental Property Investor · Upstate, NY · Member since 2012 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes

12y

@John Rooster

I don't use either for valid REI info but if you want to make money in stocks this is the area my BIL is touting...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-09/pot-shares-rally-21-to-1-700-as-speculators-see-green.html

Nothing like buying (when) HIGH & mellowing out for profits before they go up in 'smoke' like most penny stocks have in the past....& you can say you bought it but didn't inhale...:)

BUT given the low initial investment it could generate surprising results....

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Rob K.

Investor · Southeast, MI · Member since 2012 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes

12y

Facebook seems to becoming the new Myspace as well. Ask anyone under 20, and they will tell you that "Facebook is for old people". Instagram is what all the kids are on now.

I don't think the MLS will be replaced. The real estate lobby is too powerful. People thought the internet would make real estate agents obsolete, but you need someone to negotiate on your behalf.

Who do you think will win: Zillow, Trulia, or ????

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