Inman

Zillow, others eye more listings partnerships

Zillow and other online real estate sites are eyeing larger deals for property listings partnerships.

A Zillow spokeswoman said today that the company has been in discussions with the Houston Association of Realtors to receive property listings information supplied by its members.

“We are in discussion with a number of brokerages and organizations about listing feeds,” Zillow spokeswoman Amy Bohutinsky told Inman News.

HoustonRealNews reported this week that “The Houston Association of Realtors (HAR) may be a whisker away from providing listings data to real estate valuation site Zillow.com,” and quotes HAR Chairman Rob Cook: “Zillow receives 4 million visitors per month so we would certainly like to have our listings on the site.”

The Houston association also maintains its own public-facing property-search site at HAR.com that is one of the most popular real estate Web sites for its market area. The group has been active in disseminating property listings information to other sites too, including Realtor.com and Google Base, a free online classified site operated by Google.

The trade group has about 25,000 members and is one of the largest local real estate associations in the country.

Zillow is not the only company looking to expand its horizons in securing for-sale property information.

Point2 Technologies, a company that offers online real estate search and marketing tools, today announced that it is targeting multiple listing services, real estate boards and associations, franchises and brokerage companies to join its Point2 National Listing Service platform. That platform had previously focused on real estate agents.

“There has been increasing interest among associations, MLSs, large franchise operators and brokerages in the Point2 NLS listing syndication network,” said Brendan King, Point2 Technologies chief operating officer, in a statement. “While the undertaking was substantial, Point2 is now better positioned to serve the needs and demands of organized real estate partners.”

The new Point2 NLS Enterprise platform allows large organizations to offer mass-syndication tools to members, “put at their fingertips highly sophisticated predictive marketing and lead management tools, and at the same time ensure listing owners have compete control of their data assets,” King said in a statement.

The Point2 NLS has about 154,000 members.

And Cyberhomes.com, a home-valuation and marketing site operated by Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions, announced earlier this year that it is seeking to forge agreements with brokerages and MLSs to receive for-sale property information.