To those outside the real estate industry the issue is one of semantics, to some Realtors, it is one of integrity. To others, it is a matter of control. Should ads or hyperlinks to lenders, title companies, competing real estate firms, et al, be placed next to individual home listings? And what difference does it make if they are?

Plenty if you are the California Association of Realtors (CAR). This week, CAR took the unusual step of removing its homes for sale from the largest Internet classified advertising site in the world, Yahoo! Classifieds, over this very question.

The reason? Yahoo! Classifieds has a co-branded loan center with ELoan which puts a hyperlink on every listing blaring an invitation to "Finance It!." CAR maintains that consumers will assume that the hyperlink is an endorsement of ELoan and not an advertisement, and that Realtor's integrity is therefore compromised.

Removing the listings was a radical move, considering that the listing content and the subsequent traffic generated by Yahoo!. In a recent editorial on Inman News, Joel Singer, executive vice president of CAR, explained his reasoning for the abrupt decision.

"The issue is not availability of listing data. Thanks to the California Living Network (CLN) (CAR's official home search site) and Realtor.com, listing data is already fully available to the public. The real debate involves commercial entities that want to directly attach the specific listing information with lending offers designed to capture market share. This use of listing data for this purpose may not be in the consumers' interest...."

Realtors may already have tested lending relationships in place, according to Singer, which means that Realtors want the opportunity to steer their customers to lenders they know and trust.

"...We do not know whether E-Loan or others are offering consumers the best rates or even if they are in compliance with RESPA and state licensing requirements. The direct attachment to the listing could be viewed by consumers as an "implied endorsement," a position CAR wants to avoid in the best interest of both the consumer and our membership," he continues.

Search engines such as Lycos, Infoseek, and Metacrawler feature banner ads on their real estate sections, but none on individual listings. Singer believes banner ad presentation is vastly different from having a hyperlink on individual listings.

"This issue is not about consumer information or choice, it is far more about the appropriate use of a valuable emerging resource," concludes Singer.

But consumer choice is exactly the issue, asserts Yahoo! Classifieds senior producer Jim McCarthy. He not only doesn't buy CAR's explanation, but suggests there may be a hidden agenda on the part of CAR and Realtor.com, and that is maintaining control of the data. After being repeatedly pursued by Realtor.com, Yahoo! Classifieds refused to reach an agreement once it was disclosed that Realtor.com wanted to control the listing information. He raises the question - is listing information truly available to the public if it is limited only to Realtor.com controlled sites?

"The significant thing is that the Realtor has a responsibility to expose the listing to as many potential buyers as possible. That is why monopolizing listing information will never work," says McCarthy. "Our core philosophy of what the Internet is all about is open information. That is what works and that is why we will never give our real estate section over to a single content provider."

"We are sticking to our guns on what is right for the user. You can go to Yahoo, put in any information about the home you are marketing, include all the amenities, and put a link to your own web site or a photo of the home. And its all free, whether you are a Realtor or a FSBO and for that we make no apologies. Real Select is all about controlling the content for the Realtor and that isn't necessarily in the best interest of the consumer."

So the lines are drawn. In essence, the battle seems to be boiling down to which site protects the Realtors' interests and which protects the consumers.' And is any one site capable of doing both?

By way of comparison, a home buyer can use a buyer's agent, but it is still the seller who writes the check. Although the industry has heard loud and clear from buyers who support all kinds of listing sites with traffic and the purchase of products and services, the response from sellers has yet to take place. What do they want and will they care about the integrity of the listings once they learn that their homes are getting less, not more exposure?

Whether or not Yahoo!, CAR, Microsoft, Realtor.com and others embroiled in the battle for listing content can come to terms remains to be seen. How they balance the Realtor's fiduciary responsibility to the client/homeseller while offering the most extensive services and information to the buyer will be the test of their true motivations.

Related Article: Yahoo! Take Its Case to the People

Published: May 22, 1998

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