David Barr's Sarasota and Venice Real Estate Blog

I've made it a personal mission to put out the word about Zillow's misleading "Zestimates" and how they do a disservice to the buying public.  After all, is it just a coincidence that Zillow came into prominence in 2006, at the same time the real estate bubble began to burst?  Anyway, I digress. Now another confused potential Sarasota area home buyer has apparently registered on Trulia for a user account, and gets updates on "new listings" from Trulia and their syndication partners like RealtyTrac.  View this buyer's confused plea for help on Trulia here:  http://bit.ly/JYxxT8 No wonder the public is confused. Does anyone think it's a good business practice to entice mass numbers of prospective buyers and sellers with misleading "listings" that aren't actually available?  Is it good business practice to then sell those so-called "hot leads"to local Realtors, whose job it will be to explain how Trulia and Zillow don'...

Today I had a visitor to my website ask me about a Canadian-based company called Florida Home Finders.  I had not heard of them, but took the opportunity to visit their website and investigate. What they are doing may not be illegal, but it is highly misleading for their prospective clients. As a Canadian national, there are NO legal or contractual differences between a Canadian citizen and a US citizen buying property in Florida, with the exception of course, of currency exhange.  You can read more about this on my page for Canadian buyers on my website.    You absolutely do not need to go to a seminar in Canada to buy real estate in Florida!   You should not sign any kind of representation agreement in these seminars, nor should you pay a dime to attend.  You may lose your legal ability to purchase FL real estate without their involvement. My research shows that Florida Home Finders are licensed real estate brokers in Canada only, not in Florida...