David Barr's Sarasota and Venice Real Estate Blog

On today's June 20th edition of Fox and Friends, Michael Corbett again appeared for his regular Friday "report" on affordable homes from Trulia. The problem, as I have documented in the past, is that few if any of the homes Corbett profiles on Fox and Friends are actually available for sale.  Fox News may finally be getting it; the segment seemed noticeably shorter today. Here are the homes Corbett profiled on Fox and Friends: 1) Charlotte, NC: $199,000, 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 2000 sq ft colonial style brick front.  Realtor.com shows zero homes for sale in Charlotte with these exact parameters. 2) Huntsville, AL: $200,000, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2000 sq ft brick front ranch.  Once again, zero homes found for sale in Huntsville on Realtor.com 3) Tyler, TX: $187,500, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1600 sq ft, cottage style home.  Zero homes in Tyler are for sale fitting this description on Realtor.com As I have previously outlined on this blog, a study by Inman fou...

I've been following this "Trulia real estate expert" on Fox and Friends for a few weeks.  Today he showed up again today with his best deals segment. I noticed a couple of changes in his segment since I have started monitoring him on this program.  Today, the prices of the properties he profiled were displayed on screen for milliseconds, presumably to make the listings harder to trace back on Realtor.com.   Despite my previous challenge to him and to Trulia, they display no MLS numbers for potential buyers to find the homes Corbett profiles online. I also noticed he threw in a home in Sarasota (my primary market area) with no price displayed except for the anchor saying it verbally.  Below is what he profiled: 1) Atlanta   $300,000  3/3 red   2 story   2700 sq ft colonial  corner lot pre-wired for electronics: According to Realtor.com, this home is currently for sale. 2) Sarasota FL  3/2  1900 sq ft  stone...

I couldn't update Corbett's track record of his Friday Fox and Friends appearance but here's the gist. He profiled three homes.  When I searched for active listings on Realtor.com based on city, exact price, and bedrooms and baths, two of the three he profiled were not available.  One city, I believe it was Columbia, SC, had "zero" homes for sale matching the Corbett's criteria. This makes 5 out of 6 homes not available for sale that were profiled on Fox and Friends.  Misleading? Fact:  Zillow and Trulia do not have full access to MLS data.   On average they have 78% of the number of listings on Realtor.com.  Even worse, up to 17% of Zillow and Trulia listings are scraped from tax records to boost their listing count, or are old or expired listings they don't take off their site. Study from Inman News: http://www.inman.com/2013/03/06/accuracy-zillow-trulia-listing-data-under-fire-again/#.U2AqIvldWlI Trulia and Zillow will do anything to get vi...

Follow up to my blog post and Tweets about Corbett highlighting homes not for sale on Fox and Friends: I got a call from a Trulia representative around 7am PST.  I guess I hit a nerve. I stand by my assertions. The three homes he highlighted are not for sale on Realtor.com  He provides no MLS numbers and he provides no listing Realtor information. Trulia offered to send me and email with the MLS numbers.  I challenged them to rebut me on Twitter. Crickets.  I'm sure Trulia is now in the process of restricting my access to their website as Zillow has.  The Ministry of Real Estate Propaganda marches on. Stay tuned.  I'm sure Fox News doesn't want real estate misinformation on their air.

I've been writing for a while now about the true mission of Zillow and Trulia:  increase visitors to their websites by using unreliable real estate data.  And every time I see Michael Corbett for Trulia on TV, especially on Fox and Friends on Fox News, the misinformation really gets my blood boiling. Today Corbett, grinning former soap opera actor, featured 3 homes from Trulia: 1) Nashville, TN  3 br, 2.5 bath for $239,900.  The featured home is not available on Realtor.com using that exact search criteria. 2) Raleigh, NC  3 br, 2.5 bath for $285,000.  This featured home is not available on Realtor.com using that exact search criteria. 3) Plano, TX  4 br, 3.5 bath for $275,000.  Realtor.com indicates ZERO homes for sale using that criteria. He then goes on to cite the "Trulia Price Trend" reports.  Unfortunately for Corbett, according to a study, Zillow and Trulia have 78% of the total listings for sale as Realtor.com, the only rea...

This morning I was subjected to the idiotic choreographed grinning of Trulia's "real estate expert", former soap opera star Michael Corbett. There's no doubt Trulia and it's competitor Zillow are expert at marketing themselves as the go-to source for real estate information.  But nothing is further from the truth. Take today's example of Corbett's segment on Fox and Friends.  He picked three examples of some "great real estate deals" in different parts of the country, ostensibly from Trulia's suspect list of homes for sale. Two of the three homes he showcased were not for sale on Trulia's website. Read how Trulia, and to a greater extent, it's competitor Zillow, does business and why:   www.davidbarrhomes.com/debunking_zillow