Craigslist Users Nix Professionally Produced Real Estate Listings

Point2Agent agent's listings getting bumped from Craigslist, according to St. Paul / Minneapolis REALTOR, Bonnie Erickson, who wrote about here recent experiences on her Real Estate Snippers blog:

Real Estate Snippets: Real Estate Advertising

Craig's List and I duked it out this last week and I lost! My website has a wonderful system of sending the listing information I input to lots of different aggregators including Oodle, Trulia, Edgeio, Yahoo classifieds, and others. The very last step taken on my website listing input is to "manually" add my listing to Craig's List and Backpage.com. Unbeknownst to me the consumes who use Craig's List have the right to zap your listing if they don't like it.

What's interesting about this to me is that listings are basically getting bumped for being too professionally produced. Point2Agent, along with classifieds syndication companies like Vflyer, have taken the approach of producing higher production value listings using colorful templates, photos, and links to more information. Apparently, there are some in the Craigslist community who don't see the benefit.

Are Craigslist users interested in searching ALL of the homes for sale in their city, or only homes listed with amateurish looking postings? If it's the latter, I imagine Point2Agent will simply start providing more amateurish looking templates for agents to choose from.

Here's a link to a Point2agent published to Craigslist, Minneapolis. I have no idea how long it will last. In case it goes down, it looks like this, and has links to Yahoo and Google Maps of the property below the fold:

Is that really what's getting the Craigslist crowd worked up? It seems pretty benign to me.

It makes me wonder if this could actually be a case of agents flagging each other's listings.

I would say the only problem is...are these ads misrepresenting themselves? Are the agents declaring themselves or are they hiding the fact that they are agents? It could just be a case of ethics?

I see the value of the type of professional listings you are producing. They have good quality images and contact information, but the Craig's List community do not want commercial interests to take over the site, so they nix posts like yours quite often.

Several theories have been purported for my ad being deleted from Craig's List. One is that an "agent" did the listing for me. That is not the case since I had to log in to MY account and fill in the blanks myself. However, Point2 has an excellent interface that allowed me to automatically fill in the content with the screen shot you show above. It included a virtual tour, my branding (legally I must identify myself as an agent with my company), etc. Obviously a 3rd party agent was not doing the work for me as I did it all myself.

When the content is consumer policed, it could be that someone was just having a bad day and didn't like the color green (my logo color)!

I, too, don't think it's fair to either the buyers who read Craig's List or to my seller to not have this exposure. But, I'm back to the drawing board as I've been told I can link virtual tours and other media, so I'll try that when I get a moment to breathe!

It's not just point2 and companies like that. We have had some difficulties in some markets posting on craigslist on behalf of our client in which we market their condominiums for them on the Internet. Believe it or not their is a small cult out there that are not on Craigslist payroll and they scout out and commercialization or spamming of Craigslist. They are brutal people and we have duked it out with them before. They don't get paid by Craigslist however they really put time and energy in protecting it. I guess it is all a good thing...but for stand up companies trying to use this great resource for teh right purposes, its not fair for these cult like members to decide what can or can not go up.

After all, a woman who sits on our board, helped Craig launch craigslist in the #2 city -Boston...which then the company took of. Craig, give us some help will ya :)

Jerin, please DO boycott Craigslist. The more of you that do, the better for the rest of us users.

Bonnie - learn a little more about Craigslist before you pontificate about what is fair or not.

Anthony - there are far more of us that you assume - those who do not wish to see Craigslist turn into yet another commercial wasteland.

Commercial real estate postings are killing Craigslist. You pushy jerks are taking unfair advantage of a site that was not even created with you in mind. I flag any overposted commercial listings - ESPECIALLY those that mention Point2Agent. You folks have an ad budget - please go somewhere else and use it instead of gradually choking off the FSBO listings that actually belong there.

The site with the buyers wins. Buyers of "x" is the key....real estate, collectibles, etc. If craigslist continues to kill listings, real estate or otherwise...buyers won't come....then sellers won't come. ..it's the Internet's version of the Nash Equilibrium.

Threatening to boycott a site that doesn't want your ads doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense, now does it? (Or was that meant as a joke? I hope so!)

It is "community moderated". That means that the end users can and do decide what stays up and what comes down. (Come on... don't you wish you could do that with TV commercials?) They (we, you) do not have to justify these decisions to anyone. Call it "grass-roots democracy", "direct user feedback", or "mob rule", but that's how the site works. Don't like it? Don't use it.

It takes multiple user flags to bring down an ad. A few competitors aren't going to do it, and you can't fool the system by using multiple CL accounts from the same PC.

A lot of CL users get very annoyed at commercial postings, especially when the commercial users post in the wrong categories, don't identify themselves as businesses, violate rules about posting limits, put hidden keywords in the HTML, etc, and respond to being flagged by posting even more instead of correcting their behavior.

Flagging isn't something that's done by a small cabal of cranks (in fact, the software prevents that), it's done by all the users. It's a central part of how CL operates. When you post an ad on CL, one of the things you agree to do is flag inappropriate ads that you find. If you use the system and don't do that, you aren't being nice, you're refusing to keep up your end of the bargain and refusing to help maintain the site. There are millions of ads posted each month, and fewer than 20 staff members. Do the math: the staff cannot possibly control the content, which is why that job is left to the users.

CL was and is intended to be a community bulletin board for use by individuals to buy and sell things locally, for their personal use. This may be hard to comprehend, but maximizing the number of ads (or even maximizing sales) is not one of CL's goals!

I hope this makes things clearer. The bottom line is that CL isn't for everybody, and if you need to post a lot of ads, it probably isn't for you.

When we first came out with this solution one problem that we found is that our members were throwing up all of their listings at once and that can appear spammy. In fact, one of CL's policies is a 1 max posting per category every 48 hours.

The flagged posting issue seems to have calmed down. Reviewing ads one week ago (the 11th), we found that of 163 ads that were posted on the 6th and 7th, only 3 were flagged and removed.

Yesterday we found that of 325 listing posted in a 2 day period, 310 were still receiving hits after 48 hours. Of the 15 that did not get viewed, only 4 were flagged and removed.

The numbers do not suggest that this is a problem. What is imperfect is community based moderation, but imho, it's very scalable and probably the best long term solution to data management.

I just found a new website that does not limit the number of commercial real estate listings. I have listed several homes on the website. It's free and easy to use. USListed.com

Speaking of craigslist, does anyone know where I can get a messageboard with the type of flagging ability craigslist have? I love what craigslist did to fight against spam, I would like to have the same perspective on my message board. Let the users decide whats spam, because I can't do it. Thats a 24/7 job. Contact me at Content@hot-trakz.com

If people would learn how to work with Craigslist, your posts would stay up and not be flagged. I volunteer in the Flag Help Forum for Craigslist. Most people don't realize that they have broken the TOU when their ad gets flagged.

One of the biggest examples is your ad has a link in it but it is in an area where commercial links are not allowed. It's best to put up your real estate ads for individual properties in REAL ESTATE FOR SALE and then put an one ad in SERVICES - REAL ESTATE with links where links are allowed.

The whole idea behind Craigslist is community and dealing locally. It was developed for the John Doe's of the world who have stuff sitting around his home he doesn't want anymore. To help out his community, he puts up an ad with a nice low price. He helps someone who needs what he has and he makes a bit of money off the sale.

Then the businesses started moving in. They were not welcome but Craig being ever thinking forward gave them a place to post and named it SERVICES. All business needs to post there. You post in with the private individuals and you WILL be flagged off. Business can post in REAL ESTATE FOR SALE as long as they hit the radio button that says you are a dealer. That way Craigslist users who don't want to see your ads can weed them out in their search.

Someone else explained community moderation so I won't bore you with that again. Just realize that Craigslist loves being for the private person who just wants to get rid of his junk. It does not want to go commercial.

Last is that many realors overpost and try to put up every piece of property they have in their list for sale. Let's look at it from John Doe's perspective. He puts an ad up for his home and smiles as he sees it appear on the list. Then a realtor places 50 ads and POOF John Doe's ad is now pushed to the second page in a matter of minutes. We have a saying on Craigslist - Hogs get slaughtered (flagged), pigs get fat (make money). Don't be a hog! Don't spam with too many ads.

I invite you to come to the flag help forum (forum #3) at anytime and ask your questions. The peanuts (as in the peanut gallery) are knowledgeable about the TOU, the FAQ and staff quotes about certain problems that are not in either. But if you come on thinking because you are a business, you are correct, you will be in for a rude awakening.

The same goes for all the a******* who post their business affairs in the "community" section, or the ads soliciting prostitution in the personals category. Read the g****** rules before you take it upon yourself to do whatever you damn well please. And remember, there ARE several organizations out there that collaborate in flagging your CRAP, so if it keeps being posted it WILL keep being flagged.

I use Craig's List and it really ticks me off that realtors are taking over the Real Estate sections on the website. If I wanted to buy from a realtor or other professional I would go to a website that posted those type of listings. I use Craig's List to buy from individuals...that was the purpose of the website in the first place. Professional realtors are ruining Craig's List for everyone!

Comments

1. Posted by: Jef Rice on April 13, 2007 12:26 PM:

Hi,

Here is a quick tidbit about Craig's List... If you read the Terms of Use for the site, it says that it will restrict any content from commercial sources. Furthermore, it puts your 'commercial' listing at the end of the page... And anyone who has ever used CL knows that the end of the page = death to listing.

I suggest using gumiyo.com. It is a brand new site dedicated to free classified ads - with a twist. It is targeted for mobile users.

Here is the story: As a listing agent, you can post your properties to gumiyo using a traditional web browser - or text messaging from your phone. Everyone knows how to login to a site and post an item there - so I will focus on the phone part.

1. take pictures or video of your property with your camera in your phone.
2. Send post@gumiyo.com a message with your pics/video attached. Include a title and description of the post.
3. We post your listing for free.

Then you can obviously login to gumiyo.com and add more detail to you listing - or use our newest feature called Gumiyo Blast. It will allow you to announce your listing to all of your friends by pulling in your contacts from gmail or yahoo mail systems.

When prospective buyers come to gumiyo.com - they don't browse or search like in the olden days... they create Gumiyo Alerts. These are like automated shopping bots that seek out items on behalf of buyers. When a watched item becomes available, we send a text message to the buyer on their mobile phone. Yep, I said it -- not their computer... We send it to the device they carry everywhere they go.

They can then respond directly to you via text -- so you get an immediate qualified lead to your phone -- OR -- they can use our 'Pass it On' feature. 'Pass it On' allows them to tell their friends about your listings too... I mean, the alerted person might not like the house - but they might know someone who does. So they send their friend a text message -- and the process continues.

No matter how it happens, the results are the same: You get well-qualified leads sent directly from your phone. And you keep from having to spend your entire day in front of a computer. Pretty nice.

Check gumiyo.com out - and if you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly. I would love to hear feedback on our offering.

P.S. We have more surprises concerning social advertising we plan on unveiling in the next couple of weeks - so keep yourself informed at blog.gumiyo.com

Thanks,

Jef Rice
Customer Experience
Gumiyo, Inc.

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember personal info?

Comments:

HTML Tags you can use in your posts:
<b>Bold</b> = Bold
<i>Italicized</i> = Italicized
<a href="http://www.othersite.com">Link to Other Site</a> = Link to Other Site

Please keep comments on-topic. Contact authors or other commenters
directly for off-topic conversations.

Notify me of future comments via e-mail

Technology Evangelist Digest - Free Newsletter

Sign up for the free Technology Evangelist Digest to receive daily updates, editorials, and practical advice on emerging technology trends in hardware, software, webware, marketing and beyond.

Technology Evangelist Digest will keep you up to date on the technology trends that will help make you more productive and efficient both in business and your personal life.

Let's face it: If you made it to this line, you must have found something valuable on this page, right? Think about how cool it would be to have something free and interesting to read every day from Technology Evangelist by signing up today.

1. Fill in your email below,
2. Then click on the confirmation email you receive.
3. That's it. Your first Technology Evangelist Digest will arrive within 24 hours.