May 26 from the Cromford Report - Over the last 2 years there has been an
increasing trend for the true meaning of
UCB status to change from
"under contract accepting backups" to "
pending but I like my listings
marketed on Zillow®". These listings can often be difficult to show
because many are
not really available to accept offers. This is not
something any individual agent is likely to admit when it is ARMLS
asking, because it is a violation of ARMLS rules to have a listing in
UCB status if it is not available for showings and actively accepting
backup offers. However it is very clear to us that a
large number of
normal listings are being kept in UCB status purely because of the
existence of Zillow (and to a lesser extent Trulia). In earlier times
they would have been marked Pending, but pending listings don't appear
on Zillow. Now they are used for a kind of
bait and switch marketing
program fishing for leads. The more listings on Zillow the more leads
are generated, goes the theory. However Zillow does not create buyers,
it just redirects a small number of them to different agents than they
would have chosen to represent them if Zillow did not exist. NAR
recently showed us that most leads still come from referrals from
existing clients or repeat business from former clients. Zillow's impact
on leads is nowhere near as big as they like to think.
From our perspective, it is unfortunate that
the accuracy
of ARMLS is being degraded in this way. Zillow is inaccurate enough
itself without it having a viral effect on the accuracy of the ARMLS
database. However we at the Cromford® Report have to measure the real
world not the ideal world.
From Tim: What this practice does is prevents the true number of Pending transactions to be counted accurately, and messes up the market statistics. For any given area, it gives an inaccurate reading of absorption rates (how many homes are being sold in a period of time), Average Days on Market, and the general activity in the marketplace. Then, when the listing is finally marked "sold", it shows an unnatural disparity between the number of pending and sold properties. Taken to its extreme, if no listings were ever marked "pending", then homes would magically go straight to being sold, without any indication of how many homes in an area are currently in escrow - a very important number if you want to sell your home!
#RealEstate #Avondale , #Goodyear , #Buckeye , #Glendale, #Phoenix, #Surprise, #Peoria, #Tolleson, #Laveen, #Waddell , #Wittman
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