Zillow Data Error - as reported by Jack Stapleton Jr.

Hello All,

I am sure all you know Zillow very well. Some Agents love it and some dont. I really have no opinion other than they are a tool. ;)

Anyway, I got a call on my cell phone this afternoon from a buyer who wanted to know about a property that I had listed. I of course thanked her for the call and asked her the address. She told me the address was 2424 Falcon in Round Rock. I paused for a few seconds. 2424 Falcon? I never had anything listed on Falcon. In fact the street does not ring a bell. Lucky I was sitting in front of my computer with the MLS open when she called so I did a quick search and found that it was a listing at the office that I used to work at and listed by one of my favorite agents around. Now I was really confused. I asked her what website she has been looking at and she said Zillow. I quickly went to Zillow and sure enough, it shows ME as the listing agent. As I was looking at the pictures of the home I realised I had done an open house there the previous year. Where did Zillow get that I am the listing agent. Just then I noticed the source of the Zillow Agent Information said Postlets. There was the AH HA moment. I always create a Postlets page for each home that I do an open house and use the HTML to dump into Craigs List. This means that Zillow grabs the listing agent informatoin from Postlets rather than a credible source like the MLS or Realtor.com.

The lesson here is that you should check your listings past and present to make sure you show as the listing agent. Many buyers use that site and the moment someone else creates a postlets ad for Open House, or any other reason, you are demoted as the listing agent.

Very Sincerely,

Jack Stapleton Jr.
Broker® CRS, GRI, ABR, ePRO, EcoBroker.
Texas Real Estate License Number; 576129
California Real Estate License Number; 1731941

Austin Suburban Properties
7719 Wood Hollow Drive Suite 105
Austin, TX 78731

512.264.5115 - Cell
208.460.6353 - Fax
Jack@JackStapleton.com - email

www.JackStapleton.com - blog
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