The Internet Has Changed Consumers
The Internet, and its effect on the home selling and buying process, has influenced the need for this sold content to become more readily available.
The Internet has dramatically changed all facets of consumer life - everyone to some degree communicates with e-mail, shops on-line, reads news
on-line and much more. Today's consumers are much more Internet-savvy and heavily utilize the Internet as the place to start a search for information on traveling, or purchasing cars or real estate.
The NAR 2006 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers quantified this change. It found that in 1997, two percent of home buyers found their home on the Internet. That number steadily and sometimes dramatically increased until 2006, when 24 percent of home buyers found their home on the Internet. The report goes on to state, "The percentage has increased sharply ... clearly signaling the increasing importance of on-line information in the search process for most buyers."
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Other Internet Sites Have the Information
The Internet has spawned the emergence of new alternatives to attract consumers looking for real estate information. Several popular consumer websites are providing consumers with information they want: real estate data - including sold content, and offering tools to help consumers determine the value of homes. This information, once solely a commodity of real estate professionals, is becoming more and more available to all consumers on-line.
However, tools from these sites can be inaccurate because their sold content typically relies solely on public record information. This information usually lacks important details about a property, such as physical characteristic data. Additionally, it often does not reflect the most recent sales information available in a market because public records data often lags behind MLS data in reporting recent sales. Nevertheless, websites that have this information are attracting and retaining consumers through data and tools that are not readily available to the brokerage community.
Keeping Up with the Need for Information
TREND feels it's important to provide the tools brokers need to meet the increasing consumer demand for this information and to effectively attract and keep Internet-savvy consumers on their websites. Through IDX Plus, memebers can create searches and valuations tools using MLS sold content, which is feature-rich and more current than public record information. This will allow broker websites to become the premier source for accurate information on home sales and valuation in the local real estate market, helping to add to the value they provide to consumers.
TREND is currently evaluating products that would accomplish these objectives as well as preparing license agreements that would authorize
this use of the content. We will announce more information when it becomes available.
1 NAR 2006 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, page 38, Exhibit 3-12, "Buyers who found their home on the Internet,
1997-2006"
For more information read
"Misconceptions About the Release of Sold Content"