Zillow and Trulia both announced today that they have made significant progress when it comes to acquiring direct feeds of listings from brokers and Multiple Listing Services.
Zillow said in a press release that it now has nearly 2,000 partners on its free Zillow Pro for Brokers product, which gives brokers a listing with their agent’s name, photo, website link and contact information in exchange for an accurate feed of listing data from the brokerage.
That’s nearly double the number of partners the company reported at the end of April, though it’s unclear how many brokers the company actually has signed up for its service. (One partnership agreement could encompass multiple brokers.)
Meanwhile, Trulia said that it now has 12,000 brokerages providing it with information through its Data Connect program. More than 3,000 of those brokerages provide the San Francisco-based company with a direct feed of their listings, while the remainder get their listings provided to Trulia through agreements with MLSes.
Unfortunately, it’s not really possible to draw a direct comparison between the two companies’ numbers. Many of Trulia’s connections come through deals with MLSes, while Zillow’s numbers aren’t connected to the number of brokerages it’s working with.
But the movements do seem to be a sign that brokers and MLSes are slowly warming to both Zillow and Trulia, in an industry that has traditionally been hostile to the two companies.
That’s good news, since both Zillow and Trulia are seeking the ability to provide accurate, up-to-date listings to their users. Realtor.com has been running an advertising campaign this year based entirely on it being the “most accurate” place to find homes.
All of this news comes after executives from both companies spoke at the Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco this week. Trulia CEO Pete Flint spoke about what he sees as a great potential for innovation in the realm of agent-facing apps and services, while Zillow Chief Revenue officer Greg Schwartz tired to assuage concerns among real estate professionals about the company’s new “Coming Soon” feature.
