Streeteasy Premier Agent Feature Rolls Out

I'm sure we will hear some interesting comments...3...2..1

As someone who just monitors a small segment of the market because I am a patient potential buyer (i.e., I'm not a pro or otherwise interested party), I don't see any issue with the feature. It strikes me as focused advertising, which is similar to that which you see in many industries. I agree that there are a lot of odd dynamics in the real estate brokerage industry which conflict with the interests of the clients, but this doesn't trouble me.

I'm not entirely sure that it serves the seller to have advertising placements of buyer's agents unrelated to the property so close to the property listing; whether it serves the buyer is a different story, and I guess over time we'll see. Not sure how this links to greed of real estate brokers, though ... this creates another advertising opportunity, sure, but that's a cost for brokers, not a profit center.

Speaking of greed, Zillow stock, of which I am an owner, up more than 3% today. I don't know if we can read anything into that, because the stock market as a whole seems pleased with the President's speech last night.

Streeteasy should be able to earn from advertising as long as the reader understands that it is an ad.

Life is an ad.

The big problem is transparency. A buyer who wants to talk to the listing broker, and thinks they are reaching out to one, will now be routed to an agent that is simply buying the lead. It is virtually impossible to figure this out as a buyer - the contact box simply says "Contact Agent". Even if a buyer figures out how to contact the listing agent, it is at least a 2 click process, and even then the inquiry will not include the property address, and not be routed to the whole team. I am all for Streeteasy making money from advertising - but they need to properly disclose who the buyer is contacting - and make it very clear when a user is contacting a buyer's agent and not the listing agent.

"Contact Agent" is misleading. It should say "Contact Potential Buying Agent".

Do listing brokers pay to get their ads on Streeteasy, or does it just mine the listings from the brokers' websites? If it is a former then I can imagine that the listing brokers may be less apt to pay to have the add listed. From the standpoint of a buyer, I just don't care. If a buyer contacted a potential buyer's broker inadvertently then it would just be a wasted phone call.

There are so many ways for Streeteasy to earn revenue from their site. It's sad that they choose a deceptive way to generate revenue. Such a great way to thank agents for supplying listings to their site by having the default contact button to ask a question go to some agent who may know nothing about the apartment. To add insult to injury, if the consumer is smart enough to click the tab "Seller's Agent Info" they are immediately hit with a link at the bottom with a warning about dual agency. Why doesn't Streeteasy put a link to a warning on the "Learn More" default tab that states the person you are contacting is not the listing agent but someone who may or may not be knowledgeable about the property in question and has paid to receive leads from this site. Consumers will eventually be annoyed contacting someone who can't answer their questions and agents who pay for the leads will be annoyed about people calling them thinking they are the listing agent and then hanging up. I have heard of a potential boycott, curious if it catches legs

Bcushman, You have a good point. It is about a dishonesty. Streeteasy has every right to ads but they need to call them as such. Currently, 'contact agent' does not suggest that it is a paid ad.

I am guessing their long term strategy is to force the listing broker to pay to appear as 'contact agent'. Not bad every if I think it is dishonest to the consumer.

Another thing SE is doing is scrubbing all watermarks and logos from the pics. How important is SE vs the brokers own sites in terms of where buyers do their research? Is it feasible to stop suppkling lisings or is SE too important for buyers?what would be the best way for the firm's to respond collectively? I understand the firm's are not providing reimbursements to brokers who use PA.

if it isn't on Streeteasy, it doesn't exist. Ask some of the former posters who aren't here no more.

I'm surprised there haven't been more complaints from the broker community here!

Personally, I think it'd be a little more palatable for buyers and listing agents if they did the same thing as they have on Zillow. There's 4 agents, 1 is the listing agent. The way it's set up now it's actually making it very difficult for the buyer to speak to anyone but a random advertising agent....thus slowing down transactions "bigly" for everyone!

The brokers are complaining! Check this out from the Real Deal yesterday: https://therealdeal.com/2017/03/06/ryan-serhant-top-brokers-denounce-streeteasy-agent-program/. Also, if you read the string in Serhant's Facebook feed you'll see where Streeteasy is spreading misinformation about how it appears to consumers. Noah Kaplan did a great graphic showing the problem in the string and Streeteasy has remained silent.

As someone not in the industry, I would appreciate if someone could explain to me how it works. Do brokers pay SE to have their listings from their brokerage websites onto SE? I had always assumed that SE did that for free and that the other advertising was how it made money. Would be very interesting for me to know as a consumer b/c I had always assumed that SE was a complete compilations of all listings in the applicable search field.

Believe brokers pay nothing as SE takes the listings directly from the their websites. So SE owes brokers nothing. Advertisements (featured listings etc) are extra. FSBO listing pay Streeteasy for listing.

300 - thank you. That was always my assumption, but I'm glad to see it confirmed.

One of the arguments the brokers are making is about . . . . . . transparency ? ! ? ! ? . . . . . really ???

ha

As an indie broker I don't pay Streeteasy anything to scrape my listings from the RLS -- however, I do pay (a lot) for my data service to push my listings out into the RLS. If there's a technical problem, and I write StreetEasy, they are usually pretty quick to fix it -- but tech assistance is not available on weekends unless you pay for it. So one can be in a position where something you paid to give StreetEasy gets messed up, and then you have to pay StreetEasy to fix it.

Also in the "law of unintended consequences" category, StreetEasy lists an agent's "deals"-- right now, if you look at that scorecard for me, it shows that I listed 18 properties and sold 1, whereas I've actually sold all 18. So there's a layer of doing the work, making sure the RLS understands that you did the work, then making sure your website states that you did the work, and then explaining to StreetEasy that you did the work.

And, we have a shot across the bow here -- I see a new listing where the name of the broker, the brokerage firm, and the word "exclusive" are in the listing copy. That formerly was not REBNY standard, but I wonder if, in this brave new world, that standard is going to be relaxed/changed.

I use the redfin app a lot for property I'm looking at for myself (outside NYC). It is very annoying that the exclusive agent is burried. But I know better and know where to find the info. I think many consumers outside NYC may not care, they just want to view the property. You have agents that love this as it's driving precious leads to them, others, well you know. Re streeteasy I'm still seeing the exclusive agent contact right on the front page. Is it different on some listings if an agent"buys' the space?

Even in Serhant's video you can see there's a separate tab "Seller's Agent Info", click on that and you can contact the seller's agent. Maybe it's not the default option as before, but it doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

Not all listings have the new format--In my opinion the way the page is laid out makes the buyer think the "inquiry " for more info goes to the LA when in fact its just being sold. So I know Corcoran CH and a few others have told agents they are on their own if they want to buy space. Is there any major firms that have embraced this or are putting forth co-op $$ towards this? I tested one location--and heard back from a person at a one man shop (apologies to that broker in advance)--are any of the big guys buying space?

I asked one specific question about a listing, and the "Premier" Agent who did not actually have knowledge about the property now calls and emails me multiple times a day, harassing me and trying to act as a broker. This is terrible.

So this service is a broker's broker?

I think the selling brokers may end up paying to Streeteasy if they want only their contact to appear.

Halstead also is taking a stand against the Premier Agent Program by not reimbursing agents for the cost of the program. REBNY, working thru its attorneys, submitted a letter of complaint to the Department of State objecting to this type of misleading advertising. It will be interesting to see what the fallout to Streeteasy will be. Hopefully REBNY will finally create a functional MLS system.

It is indeed misleading advertising as they do not identify the "contact agent" as an ad.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-real-estate-search-tool-sparks-backlash-1489006998?tesla=y

This has created such a headache! I went to an open house this weekend where the agent didn't show up. I couldn't call the listing agent through the Streeeteasy app on my phone - before Premier rolled out you could just click through and call without having to write down the agent's number first. Quite an inconvenience when you're standing outside in the cold without a pen and paper.

https://therealdeal.com/2017/03/20/rebny-returns-fire-in-streeteasy-battle-cites-maelstrom-of-consumer-confusion/