How Open Data For Real Estate Listings Benefit Homebuyers

Back in the days, real estate listings could only be accessed by and through brokers and agents. People looking for a new home or an investment had to go to their preferred or trusted brokerage to speak with an agent who will guide them through the listings.

Today, however, with the Internet’s ubiquity, listings of homes for sale or up for lease can easily be found in websites. It can be as easy as typing in the keywords on Google and clicking on the first few links that come out.

But despite the technology and the many possibilities it affords, some agents tend to shrug off the trend of free-access online listings.

Joshua McClure, in a recent Entrepreneur article, pointed out that shared resources such as real estate listings benefit everyone.

However, “While everyone stands a chance to benefit when availability information is distributed more openly, many commercial real estate pros are afraid that sharing will reduce their earning potential. This couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said.

McClure explained that fast and accurate access to data would help increase the markets efficiency while “reducing the risk and friction that restrict the flow of deals.”

McClure is the CEO and founder of RealMassive, a platform that allows users to access commercial real estate listings. He may be promoting his business but at the same time, it means he know what he is talking about.

The trend today in real estate is to make pertinent information as available as possible. While some agents may think of stealing properties that others are offering, not sharing it online would mean not making it available to the thousands or millions of potential home buyers scouring the Internet for good deals.

In addition to plain old listings the company RealBiz Media Group RBIZ also allows agents with access to their programs and platforms to easily create video and virtual tours based on listing data and pictures alone.

Such services allow easier sale of properties since buyers are able to see the house or building without having to travel to the location. Oftentimes, pictures are not enough so a video or virtual tour would do wonders for a real estate business.

Instead of being afraid of competition, more and more agents and brokers are signing up for the service.

Realbiz’s MVA and Nestbuilder Agent is already being used by 15,350 active agents that have uploaded 24,000 videos on the Nestbuilder site. On the other hand, it has 24,637 agents using its virtual tour programs that has generated 113,092 published listings.