Technique to obtain more listings right from the cause has already established only 'limited success' previously
Real estate blog
Zillow lured former realtor.com executive Errol Samuelson from Move Inc. to do virtually the same it had hired former Arizona Regional MLS CEO Bob Bemis to do: By forging more direct partnerships with multiple listing services, improve industry beef and relations up the quality of listings data on the website.
That’s according to Barclays analyst Christopher Merwin, who says that while that strategy has had only “limited success” in the past, Samuelson has “an impressive background of industry credentials that should make it far easier to build bridges with the real estate agent community,” StreetInsider.com reports.
Real estate Marketing
Zillow announced Wednesday which it had hired Samuelson, who became president of realtor.com in 2007 and Move’s chief strategy officer in April 2013, to fill the newly created position, “chief industry development officer.”
“We believe the positioning was made by Zillow to improve relations using the industry and improve the data quality on its site through more direct MLS partnerships,” Merwin said within a note to clients. “By improving the accuracy of its data, we believe Zillow will ultimately be able to further consolidate audience market share - and ultimately real estate professional marketing budgets - as the requirement for consumers to get the highest-quality data on competing MLS sites diminishes soon enough.”
Zillow hired Bemis, who had previously been an outspoken and influential leader of one of many nation’s largest MLSs, as president of partner relations in February 2012, saying his “deep industry knowledge” is needed the organization engage with brokerages and MLSs.
That summer, Bemis sent emails to 50 MLSs which were providing listings data to Zillow through Move’s listing distribution platform, ListHub, asking those to consider providing direct feeds to Zillow instead, with the objective of improving the timeliness and accuracy of listings in the portal.
