At the mid-year meetings in May of this year, Google was invited to have a panelist at the RISMedia Power Broker meeting. The Google rep stated that the Real Estate industry should take a cue from them and give away as much information as possible because the viewer will remember where they got it from and come back. There is one problem with this line of thinking...Google gets their money from ad revenues so as soon as someone hits their page, they've made their money! That is not true in the Real Estate industry - we need to actually capture a "lead" and get face-to-face in order to get paid. The Google rep was uninformed in this area and it was irresponsible for the organizers to allow this person to speak on the Panel for this reason.

I've met with Google. When they wanted to start their thumbnail "widget" in Las Vegas, they flew me up to their headquarters and we discussed their plan and looked at their contract. I was representing a large independent broker that they wanted to get the listings from. I went back to the broker and advised them that there were benefits, but also to beware of what they were "signing". I warned them that if they gave their listings to Google, that they should limit the scope of the use to a specific time period and also hold Google to the standards that Brokers are legally bound to. In other words, if Google was doing something with the information that was in contradiction to licensing laws or codes of ethics, that the broker would have the control to stop them from using the information.

Trulia is another company that insists that the demographic of the newest adult generation is of the nature that they expect to get what they want online and if they don't, they are smart enough to surf the web until they find someone that will give it to them. Again, an irresponsible perspective given by people that have never been "in" our industry.

These are companies that aren't licensed! Anyone unlicensed that works in our industry (such as your average receptionist in a real estate office) is only allowed to give address and availability in most licensing jurisdictions and they are under close supervision of a Broker. Now we are handing all of the property data over to these companies that aren't licensed and in some cases, have people that work for them that aren't even citizens of this country!!

Trulia and Google insist that people today expect more information. They are correct!! But it doesn't have to be the address. In fact, by giving away the address, the broker/agent has lost control of their prospect as well as potentially exposing their sellers (which they have a fiduciary duty to represent) to danger and/or a weakened negotiating position. Providing the addresses online is just a quick cop-out by the techies to say they are giving what the public needs. ONLINE, the people only need to assure themselves that the property they see is worth seeing in person. That means providing answers to questions like "what are the schools?" and "how will my commute be?" and "how is the neighborhood?" Mapping can be handled with an area map - loaded with information about the amenities of the area without getting so specific that they can figure out exactly where the specific home is. If they have enough "worthwhile" information and want to know more - they WILL inquire - and become a valuable lead...

This can be done with technology, but the technology providers are only going to invest in developing solutions they think the industry will support.. We are creating our own problems. Many of the industry leaders have a problem even doing email and these are the people that influence many of the decision regarding technology. The leaders, and the industry need to step up and learn for themselves - because it IS here to stay.

One large independent company we worked with for 3 years saw their online leads soar from 20/month to a peak of almost 1000! This was done almost exclusively with good content and site design. Once the local board for this company voted to allow addresses to be shown on public broker sites, their leads started to drop.

The key here is BALANCE. We need to develop online solutions that balance the consumers need for information with the industry's need for lead generation and responsible representation of their sellers. The ideal would be that NAR develops standards for companies receiving this data and how it is displayed. Otherwise, the threat is that companies like Google and Trulia will continue to water down our online effectiveness until we are pushed out of the search process completely and are reduced to role of showing one or two homes each and filling out some paperwork. Even that can be replaced by a seller and a lawyer, respectively. Where would Realtors® be then?