Yesterday Domain sent out a press release in relation to their new “Sold Section”. From their press release: We’re excited to announce the release of a new SOLD section on Domain.com.au.
Our new SOLD section will allow you to search sold properties in your suburb of interest. You can now search and view what price properties sold for, when they were sold and whether they sold by auction or private treaty.
Not only can you view sold properties for a particular suburb but you can also see brief sales statistics along with demographic information (provided by the ABS) for each suburb. What is nifty, is that you can view sold properties via map and recent sold listings are now displayed alongside listings for sale.
One downside is that some listings have ‘Price Withheld” which is pointless for users. But this is the responsibility of agents to make sure they enter the sales price for properties they sell.
Although products offered by property sales data companies are more extensive than what Domain has here, this move does reduce some of the stranglehold these companies have over sold property data!
38 Comments
Glenn Rogers
I introduced that on http://www.commercialrealestate.com.au 8 years ago, it’s a must, gives the public important information and gives egents another way of promoting themselves, suprised it took this long to initiate.
Glenn Rogers
Price withheld, yes annoying but you cant deny the vendors right not to publish the price, at least we can see that the property sold.
One can always ask the agent they will usually give it to those who ask.
Domain should sort the sold listings by locality then date sold BUT sort the ones with prices on top, those withheld can be held to the bottom of the list, seems fair 🙂
The Insider
It’s the vendor’s decision regarding whether the price is displayed but agents should put in as much effort as possible to provide Domain with this data.
This could mean explaining vendors about the benefits of providing Domain with this data, actually going to the effort to manually enter this data into the Domain backend, or stressing to their website/property listing software company to automatically provide this data to Domain.
Paddy
Perhaps put in a Price Range which was used to market the property might be a nice stop gap measure. They can just take that from the listing history.
Robert Simeon
We are finding that more and more vendors are issuing us with instructions that under no circumstances is the sale price to be revealed.
The Insider
Good idea Paddy, then at least the end user can make some sense of the listing being there.
I wasn’t around during the last property slump but i’d imagine as property prices reduce so to do the number of vendors who want their sale price published.
snoop
mosman vendors must be too embarrassed!
what would the neighbors think!!
Robert Simeon
Snoop,
Personally I don’t blame them as I can’t remember seeing any advice that once you sell your sale price will be posted in a public domain for the interests of the neighbours and general public. Vendors have a choice and we find that the vast majoity select the not for publication option.
snoop
Point is you would have to be pretty uptight to even care.
Why should this info be locked away?
If i asked one of your agents what a property sold for would they tell me,if the vendors had asked for confidentiality?
Personal experience tells me many would.
I guess in your area which is the top end people would be more uptight about it.
Sal Espro
Couldn’t agree with you more, Snoop. It’s a sad indictment on our society that there is so much emphasis on who has what possessions, rather than how much knowledge they have and how they use it to the betterment of the community in general!
My last personal property sales were @ $450K, $400K, $1.2M, $350K, $350K and they are all on the public record – who gives a toss. Let’s just rip into this property data sales rort. Everyone will benefit, agents, sellers and buyers alike.
Well done Domain!!
(Ps Note how I am also now referring to ‘sellers’ rather than ‘vendors’ – death to bs jargon!)
Sal 🙂
Greg Vincent
Whilst I believe in the transparency of the web, there’s lots of transactions in other industries that will never be made available to the public.
I must be missing something… Can somebody please explain to me how putting all of your sales information up for everybody to see is actually going to help our industry?
snoop
Well property is a pretty major assett class(I think the number one) and the fact that 2m australians own investment property would show a need for some transparency in much the same way as the stock market?
Greg Vincent
The sale price of a property alone never tells the full story about the sale.
To be truly transparent you’d need to include a list of the inclusions, the settlement period, if it’s vacant possession or with existing tenants, any price negotiations due to pest & building inspections, bank valuations or purchasers settling earlier/later, etc, etc.
Also, each sale price has a personal side to it, whether that be the sellers motivation or the buyer’s emotional feelings about the home.
Plus, there’s one last component, the agent’s skill level in the negotiation.
Displaying sale prices leaves it all too open for misinterpretation.
I also think that agents readily providing this information for Domain, REA and other sites could have a long term detrimental effect on our industry as more & more people seeking this information will simply take the sales information on face value & interpret it without consulting the real estate agents directly.
Sal Espro
What are you on about, Greg?!
I agree that all of the aspects you mention are valuable, I thought we were discussing sales data and how to plan for the removal of the purchase of such by agents (in the longer term). If you sales data is currently available through Val Gen, RP-Data, APM, et al, then you won’t have a problem in sharing your data with a site that provides it for free!
Greg Vincent
Sorry Sal, if you thought I was off topic. 🙂
Is the sales info only available via an agent admin, like the Just Sold part of the old Just Listed site or is it going to become freely available to everyone like Zillow do in the US?
Sal Espro
Further to all of this is that now RPData is using agent data to provide an ASX derivative trading product. Who of the agents ‘out there’ is getting a share of this little step into the real $dough?!!! And all based on agent data!!
C’mon, where’s that tugger Michael McNamara’s fair suck of the sav now?!
I reckon this is a real issue that deserves an article, please Peter.
Michael McNamara
Sal,
mate I don’t respond to trolling
e.g. people that call me a tugger…
Sorry to spoil your fun.
If anyone wants a genuine discussion about this I am happy to contribute but i will not respond to Sal.
Robert Simeon
Agrees totally with Michael on this point – as there is in my opinion no need for unfounded personal attacks.
Paddy
Just for clarification – a ‘Tugger’ is?
Paddy
Michael,
Whilst you are waiting for someone other than Sal to pose his question to you, perhaps you might take the time to respond to my posting sometime back.
I am still waiting a response.
You will find it at the following link http://www.business2.com.au/2009/03/23/rpdata-and-realestatecomau-enter-a-new-strategic-alliance/#comments
Looking forward to finally hearing from you.
Paddy.
Sal Espro
Sorry Michael,
I felt your previous ‘snipe’ at me where you attempted to belittle what I thought was a serious comment, was just setting the tone of the manner in which you were happy communicating.
I now know otherwise.
Looking forward to your responses on the issue at hand wrt RP-Data using copywritten agent data (presumably purchased from REA) for commercial gain (where the major clientelle is presumably those same agents).
Needless to state yet again, I think this is a very serious issue that the REI’s should be taking on legal advice for their membership.
Sal Espro
Ps
Rupert Murdoch seems to finally be heading towards enforcing copyright protection for his expensive content creation in an effort to protect revenue streams online. (As several European newspapers have already done vs Google). My feeling is that this sits in the same area. RP-Data et al would be OK to re-use publicly available data e.g. from Val Gen, but the data agents list within a private portal management area is not public and is still copywritten to those agents (and perhaps even to their vendor clients and buyers).
Knock yourself out on the response Michael because this is not going away! Your business revolves around agent-provided data and agents are now more awake in this area than than ever before!
snoop
Dont know what your hobby horse here is Mr Salespro,but I spoke to my local agent about this on the weekend ,while he was at an open house next door. Surely this is not dis- similar to the credit agencies where they pool data for banks etc for a common good?
Dont agents use this sales data to do comparitive market analysis charts for their listing proposals,and arent they legaly obligated to do this?
Dont agents use this product for intell on gaining listings?
Dont agents use this product to see who has listings in their area and what is happening to them?
If this wasnt useful to agents would Michaels company be in business?
Isnt some kind of commercialy viable independant body holding this information of use?
Dont you believe paying a fee for all the cost of collation storage and distribution of this data is appropriate?
Or do you think REIS should be doing this as well along with running listings portals etc etc which they have proved inability to attract the right management or capital structures to do effectively over the last 10 years??
Do I take it your issue is with commercial bodies making money from this form of pooled info and you would happily give away all your data to an REI?
Paddy
Snoop,
I think what many agents (not all) feel when it comes to Data Suppliers, is that there is a lack of engagement with the agent, and perhaps a contemptuous attitude to the intellectual property rights of agents.
The data suppliers will pay large sums through licensing data, or scraping it from the web, instead of engaging with the clients (agents). Their activity points more to distancing themselves from agents.
Agents get disenfranchised when the core product of their business, is making a huge profit for an external entity. In some cases, multiple external entities.
Transactional data at the agent level is an Agents IP. Some agents do not wish to give that away, and yet have discovered that not only has their IP been taken by another company, they do not know how to rectify the situation.
There have been cases of companies claiming copyright over agents photos, copy etc.. there are other cases of competing agents using images taken by another agent – all through the ‘services’ offered by RPData, APM and the like.
Snoop, would you give away your IP? for nothing?
Yes these companies provide a service. However, at what cost?
Without agents listings data, RPData et al would not have a product to sell in this market. So pay the owner of IP, not a third party.
The balance of what Agents IP is worth in comparison to the overall costs of supplying data information might not be equal, however there is a principal and a legal issue at stake.
The REI’s if they were worth anything would be pursuing this on behalf of the industry. Would not be difficult to get a class action together should that prove to be an option.
Robert Simeon
Subject to approval by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) you can punt on property prices. Described as a world first for ASX punters (subject to approval) can take out a derivative contact from Rismark/RP Data market indices which are in turn quoted daily to the share market. I did laugh when I read daily
Glenn Batten
Snoop…
One of the big problems here is transparency. Most of the uses for the data you describe is sales data from the VG. This is public information on record and is where these companies have evolved from. The extra information is sold as an extra charge to only some of the subscribers as it is outside of the basic subscription. RPData call it “on the market” data.
In recent years portals have realised that they have access to listing data which the data companies find valuable. They sell that data to the data companies using obscure clauses in their Terms and Conditions to justify it.
If this transfer was out in the open and all agents knew it existed and they chose to participate then everything is above board.
Unfortunately there is one problem that this current situation creates and that is the Privacy Policy. We as agents have to notify our clients what happens with their data that we collect of them. How many agents, including the one holding the open house next door notifies their sellers according to the law that the data they provide, including the photos agents take of their home will end up in a private database. And how many are notified according to the law that that data will be sold by these companies to other clients.
It would be reasonable to assume that a seller would know that their data would be sent to the property portals but there is no way I can see the average seller would know that they private data would end up on these databases totally removed from them or their agent. There are still many agents that are completely oblivious to this data feed in the first place let alone their clients.
How can they do this… because the terms and conditions we as agents sign allow for a “royalty free licence to commercialise, copy, license to other persons”.
I believe that if REA and RPData were open about it that most agents would participate, as long as there is a benefit to them and thats the problem and why its kept under cloak and dagger.. This way REA gets is money and RPData gets its feed and the agent and the seller gets shafted.
Hopefully when ACA or TT decide to run a beat-up exaggerated story on this issue they remember that the agents are not at fault but the corporates are. And when the privacy commissioner investigates why an agent had not declared to a seller where that data ends up they understand that the agent probably did not realise himself.
Actually, given the restrictions on using data under the relevant privacy acts which they have to abide by themselves, you have to wonder if there is any legal requirement for REA to notify the agent of exactly what they are doing with the private data we give them.
I wrote an article about all this back in 2007 and nothing is changed other than it is a little more widely understood by the industry.. not much, but some.. http://www.business2.com.au/2007/12/04/privacy-be-damned/
Just for the record, real estate agents are only one user of this information when the data companies recycle it. This information is not just sold back to agents but is sold to other industry participants such as valuers and banks, plus it is used to generate reports to the public.
Bob Colman
Up to date sales data is, in my humble opinion, the most valuable information an agent can have particularly in a market such as we have now.
snoop
I think this is common across many industries though.
retail data companies collect from supermarkets,motor vehicle data cos collect from car dealers,hitwise collects data from isps and the list goes on.
generaly good data sold back to companies makes them more efficient and profitable if used in the right way.
I struggle to see what the issue is here other than some agents think they should be paid for it?
Also is a property sale an agents IP?,I guess perhaps for a short time.
In the end it has to be made public by the VG by law doesnt it?
And finally Valuers have been calling their local agents since day dot and asking them for comparable recent sales?Would you charge them or with hold info ?
Glenn Batten
Snoop,
This is not common across many industries!
Does a supermarket record the names of who they sold stuff to, what they sold and passed all of that on? Could you imagine the uproar if a supermarket did that. Does a car dealer? Hitwise do not identify pass the identity of individual browsers to anybody. Honestly, how can you compare the transmission of detailed transaction data that identifies the agent and the client to summary industry information like that.
An apple and an orange might both be in a fruit bowl but they have about as much in common as your examples with the topic at hand.
The property sale is not the agents IP.. but I already stated that in the first paragraph of my last comment. It is a matter of public record, when it hits the government databases Agents notifying before hand is clearly identified as “Agents Advice” in the systems and is obviously sourced from the agents. But other stuff sent to the data companies is not. The owners name, the photographs of the property, the features of the property the marketing text and description of the property are all sent from realestate.com.au to RPData. None of that stuff other than the owners name is recorded by the VG under the law or outside it.
I hope you not going to suggest that the photographs and marketing text the agent created are not their own IP and copyright? Because of some obscure condition in their policy we as the owner of that property give a free license for them to sell it. Whether you want to accept it the fact that this information is sold to RPData and to the public guarantees that it has value.
Does it have enough value to pay the agents, or for them to derive a financial benefit from it, I don’t know as that might be asking to much. If they REA has say 10000 clients and they charge $200,000 for the feed that works out at say $1.66 per agent per month. Even if its $500k the per agent cost is still minimal and I cant see that the numbers involved will be that much that it could effect an agents subscription costs..
But that leads to the real I issue I have with it and thats the issue of transparency both from a legal and ethical standpoint.
Agents should be given the option to opt in or out both at an agency level and at an individual property level. If a property owner asks for their information to be withheld from the property databases as is there right, there is not way to do this at the moment. Agents dont even notify sellers that their information will be stored on a database owned and controlled by a a party totally removed from the transaction.
Can you seriously suggest that every single owner would be ok with this sort of leakage in their private data without any sort of notice?
Is it reasonable? Could they easily and clearly forsee it?
If not, then they have to be notified, but if the agent is not notified that it is taking place who is at fault?
I struggle to see how you cant see the issue. It is not about the money, it is about control of the data. We are not talking about the actual sale data.. we are talking a lot more information. The sale data in terms of the quantity of the digital transmission would represent about 0.5% of the transfer, if that. All the rest of the information is from the agent.
Remember, we give a totally royalty free license for them to do as they see fit. If it was public information why would they need that clause? What is to stop them selling full sales history of one agent to another ??? Nothing, thats what! The insertion of that clause is unfair to the agent.
As to you raising valuers… again whats the relevance..
Firstly… THEY ASK!!! Thats the big difference. We have a choice to give it to them or not.
Secondly, in around 17 years I have never provided a valuer with photos, just the sale information which we both agree will soon be a matter of public record anyway. They have never requested or used photos or any information to identify the buyer or seller….. and even if they did ask and we gave it to them there is one big difference….. we would GIVE it to them…. A fully transparent exchange with all parties agreeing and with knowledge of what is going on.
As far as photos are concerned even if the use of the REA clause was upheld, there is an additional issue of Moral rights. Since 2000 Australia has the issue of Moral Rights with regard to photographs under the Copyright Act. Moral rights are personal legal rights belonging to the creators of copyright works and cannot be transferred, assigned or sold. Someone using copyright work may need to get consent from the creator as well as permission from the
copyright owner. I know I have had to sign as the moral rights holder in several cases. Basicially creators have the right to be attributed for their work and as far as I can work out the REA clause would not cover moral rights. Now one of the reasons that attribution is not required according to the Australian Copyright Council is on the grounds of reasonableness and one of the examples offered is based on the relevant industry practice but given that the use of these photos is not totally transparent that might be a pretty small wall to hide behind. It would be interesting to see how this applies to the matter.
snoop
Yes It is an interesting arguement ,as a professional investor i source my research wherever i can.
Some I pay for some i dont.
If I really wanted to find out who owns a property I just go to espreon and do a title search.
If i want sales data their are any number of sites incl free ones where i can get that.
Of course photos and certainly the flowery prose used by some agents to describe propertys could be considered copyrite,but who really cares about that as useful data.
I have not seen your customer agreements with the portals but i suspect you waive all rights anyway in the standard boilerplate.
I think you can obfuscate data sources and most responsible data providers have privacy officers and processes, but the nett of it all is it has value and data consolidators have a role.
I mean you credit check tenancy applicants dont you?,I know my property manager does.
By the way the new chip technology in your new emv compliant charge and debit cards can and will over time transfer enormous data on your spending behaviour.
Supermarkets even have tracking technology on trolleys that track how you move around a supermarket and where you stop and look.
Glenn Batten
Snoop,
Again your examples are just not directly relevant. Supermarkets and credit card companies tracking and analysing their own client data is fine. Thats the same as agents keeping their customer data and doing internal stats. Thats not what is happening here.
Even selling or giving away that data is ok as long as it is all their work they don’t identify the individual customers. If they do, then they need to make sure customers are aware of this and have the option to opt out. Again, the whole collection and transfer of data is not hidden and the company that collects the data (the supermarket and credit card company) decides what to do with it. Thats not the case here by a long shot.
I have no idea what tenant credit checks have with the discussion as again that is fully declared and everyone participating knows and openly approves for that information to be stored in the tenancy databases.
Answer me this somebody… We sort of know they sell it to RPData but who else does REA sell that data to?
Can anybody outside of REA answer that?
Have REA ever notified agents directly that they are feeding their listing data to RPData?
Considering it is our data shouldn’t we know the answer to those question considering we are the ones providing privacy collection notices to our clients of how that data is to be used.
snoop
So your real issue here is what?
Seems to me you are just REA bashing again which seems to be a common thread in many of your posts?
Who agrees to have their info stored in tenancy databases,the poor old consumer is forced to agree to get you lot to give them the lease.
Glenn Batten
Snoop..
Now I and several others have explained the issues quite calmly and intelligently explained our position. Ok.. may Sal was a little less calm there 🙂
Nobody is asking you to agree but you are smart enough to know and understand exactly where we are coming from yet you continue to brush off everything and associate totally different scenarios to the problem. What I can’t understand is why.
Claim it as REA bashing all you want.. your not the first one to say that and you wont be the last I am sure. Whats interesting is the type of people who claim it either work at REA or are on the other side of a discussion or debate and have to resort at the end of it to claiming I am anti-REA when I don’t agree with them. If that is the best argument you have that still does not excuse the issue at hand nor does it make your examples any more relevant.
For the record, a tenant openly, freely and legally agrees to have their details on a Tenancy Database.. They just don’t LIKE it.. There is a big difference and you know it. Just to show you how an example can still remain relevant, I may not like giving the bank all my financial details when I get a loan but I AGREE to it anyway.. They don’t even FORCE me to do it just to get the loan because I know its part of the process involved…
Talk about credit card chips, supermarket trolleys, car dealers, hitwise and websites etc etc etc all you want. Maybe its your “hobby horse” that needs questioning!
What I particularly find humorous is that in this thread you initially called for transparency in property like the stock market, but when I ask for transparency to the agent in what REA and RPData do with our data you don’t want to entertain that. Who was it you said is biased?
snoop
OK
So its transparency that is the only issue here,I was just probing whether you were just on an anti data or anti Rea hobby horse?
Surely all that takes is a letter to the relevant parties?
Glenn Batten
No its not the only issue here. Trying to put words in my mouth (or keyboard 🙂 ) will never work. It is a MAIN issue the I personally have with it. Another MAIN issue is the control of the data. Agents should be given the option to opt in or opt out either at the agency level, or specific properties… but I have said that before I think 🙂 That control would conform with the agents requirements under the relevant privacy legislation.
Obviously other people here have other primary concerns, and that often centers around the value of the information. I certainly think it has value, but I am of the opinion that when broken down to each agency it is not going to be enough to make a difference. It’s real value lies in the agents having control of their data. Of course I am the first to say that if I worked for REA or RPData I would be fine with the current arrangement naturally.
I don’t think a couple of letters is what it will take to fix it, but its a start at least.
IMHO REA needs to advise agents that they are utilising the clause in their terms and conditions that gives them a “royalty free licence to commercialise, copy, license to other persons
Sal Espro
Snoop, I think Paddy and Glenn have explained the situation very extensively and succinctly. (You sound like you a being a bit belligerent – I hope it’s not because you have a vested interest??)
Simply, REA is on-selling agency/vendor data to a third party without the agents’ specified approval.
Without agent/vendor participation, this business model would be particularly disadvantaged. (Especially this new ASX derivatives product!)
Still no word from M McNamara (RPData) ??C’mon, Mike, fair suck of the sav!
Glenn
What my property sold for, or what I purchased a property for is of no concern to or the business of ANYBODY except myself and the other party. It’s not for anyone’s entertainment, interest, reference, precedence etc etc. It’s MY BUSINESS only.
Anyone mining & selling that data are engaging in a very dodgy practice, and I can see class actions arising from it.
This is just another broken element of the completely plucked real estate industry.
Jenifer
Nice post, I’d like to add that… Make sure that you spread your investments around a little. You do not want to put all your eggs in one basket, as the saying goes. For example, if you invest everything you have into one share and it goes belly up, you will have lost all your hard earned money.