When I meet people out in the real world and explain what a consultant does in the real estate industry, conversations naturally lead to the discussion about home values and real estate portals like Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, Homes.com or others. For all of us in the real estate industry, we believe that the reason why consumers like Zillow so much is for the Zestimate. Not necessarily.

Last night, I had a casual encounter with a friend who is a helicopter pilot. He ferries executives back and forth to the oil rigs off of the central coast of California. Aside from that rather exciting day job, he loves to find fixer-up properties to buy and sell. He uses Zillow, but not for the Zestimate.

"I use Zillow to look at the last transaction on the house. I need to understand the perspective of the owner which is centered around what they paid for the house and how long they have lived in it." Like most of you, I thought that he would tell me that the Zestimate was the primary reason that he loved that website. I was wrong.

"The Zestimate is a pretty relative thing. I know that the value of a property is based upon what a seller is willing to accept as an offer from a buyer and little more." He did go on to talk about the role that banks play in offering financing on the home, but he typically puts 40% down when he buys, so that is an incidental consideration for him.

What Brokers Can Learn From This

Brokers need to support consumers with information on their website differently today than they did in the past. If you are in a non-disclosure state, you can stop reading this article now because there is little you can do beyond what you offer today. If you are in an open disclosure state, you should be trying to provide consumers with public record information on every property in the area you serve.

I look at a lot of broker websites. The majority of them are IDX websites. Sold data is sporadically made available for display on IDX sites. I do not know of any broker website in America that is displaying the public record data on every property in their market area. By not providing public record property information on your broker website, you are restricting consumers from information that portals freely display. Firms need to stop thinking about how they feel about portals and thinking more about how to compete with them. Closing the information gap is a key competitive requirement.

Think about AVMs

Too often I find broker websites displaying those old static lead capture forms with calls to action like "What's my home worth?" If you are a broker who seriously thinks that the majority of consumers will fill out that form rather than go to a portal to get that information, you are sorely mistaken. You have some choices. You can display the Zestimate using the Zillow API. Alternatively, brokers can talk to CoreLogic about their AVM tools. I also heard that the National Association of REALTORS® member benefit called Realtor Property Resource or RPR is working on allowing firms to display the RVM™ or Realtor Valuation.

P.S. I looked up a property on Zillow - $1,416,000. Same Home on Trulia - $1,279,000. Same property on CoreLogic - $1,053,000. Same Property on RPR $1,041,000. Clearly, if I am a seller, I love the Zestimate. If I am a buyer, I love RPR and CoreLogic. Where is reality? Reality is in the appraisal, especially if the buyer wants financing. We both know that. I am not sure that the consumer does.

Call your MLS

I wrote an article directed at MLSs addressing this issue. In truth, most MLSs would need to modify their display rules to allow brokers to display public record information and AVMs on active listings. Some may even have rules that allow you to display this level of information on non-active listings.

Rules and regulations can be changed. There is a process, and it may take awhile to go through that process (think six months to one year). There will be board meetings, outreach to NAR legal, legal revisions to rules, notification to subscribers, etc. Although it sounds cumbersome and rigorous, it is a good process. Trust me, your MLS would like to have this conversation with you, but you may need to start it.

Consider Your Portal Advertising Strategy

WAV Group is not a proponent of blind listings syndication where you turn it on everywhere and forget it. Your firm should have a clear strategy and you should regularly review how your listings appear on each website. WAV Group recently released a whitepaper on listing syndication titled 2014 Roadmap to Listing Syndication.

Until you can compete effectively, your portal strategy needs to support your broker website. Portals are designed to deliver consumer leads back into your business (if you want them). Some brokers thrive on these leads and have strategies for developing them and converting them. Other brokers just lob them over the wall at agents and forget about them. It is all a matter of style. Be sure that you have a dialog with your account representative from the portals where you display your listings to learn how to leverage them in the best possible way. Trust me, they want to talk to you.