3taps built a data exchange that aggregated user-generated data housed on various websites and then made that data available through an API to developers, including PadMapper and Lovely.
Craigslist discovered that it had become (has become) the "MLS" of rentals... and perhaps even more accurately -- it's a brokerage of _housing_ data -- both rentals and sales. So when property management companies (PMCs) discovered how darn easy it was, for example, to flood craigslist with multiple ads for the same unit, or to flood it with units that were never available to begin and thus alter market perception -- certain people got exactly what they wanted: hyperinflation in rents, or the subsequent upward pressure on housing prices, or both.
As recently as 2010, craigslist welcomed innovative uses of the publicly available data ... Over the next two years, as innovators like PadMapper and AirBnB began to thrive, craigslist reversed course, and punished the innovators it previously welcomed to use the data. In February 2012, craigslist rewrote its Terms of Use, abandoning its long-articulated position that users own their own content which was freely available on the “public” part of craigslist's website.
As outraged as everybody was about this, it is exactly what the real MLS does when you decide to sell your house. You sign a contract promising to pay some Realtor's brokerage company 6 percent of whatever your house goes for -- in that contract you are essentially giving them the "copyright" of your house listing; they own it on the MLS and that is why you have to pay them the big bucks. Never mind that they do basically NOTHING other than simple photography and data entry to post on the MLS... but now they require you give them ~$66K of your equity for their 3 hours of work. (Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_28512250/report-silic... Median price of "entry level" home in San Mateo County = $1.1M).
Same thing is happening in rentals / property management co's (PMCs), but slightly different symptoms.
The market should be putting more pressure on brokers to compete with each other ... damn that 6 percent. (Right, but the NAR signed a non-compete agreement with itself so it gets to do that)
Hackers should stop building tools that make it easier and cheaper for the PMCs and real estate agents to steal everybody's equity.
People were 'outraged'? Really? The average person couldn't have cared less. There's nothing stopping anyone from building a new CL, marketing it and then getting people to post on it. The fact that there's a chicken egg problem is irrelevant; that's the same problem faced by every social startup, yet the successful ones manage to overcome it.
Craigslist discovered that it had become (has become) the "MLS" of rentals... and perhaps even more accurately -- it's a brokerage of _housing_ data -- both rentals and sales. So when property management companies (PMCs) discovered how darn easy it was, for example, to flood craigslist with multiple ads for the same unit, or to flood it with units that were never available to begin and thus alter market perception -- certain people got exactly what they wanted: hyperinflation in rents, or the subsequent upward pressure on housing prices, or both.
As recently as 2010, craigslist welcomed innovative uses of the publicly available data ... Over the next two years, as innovators like PadMapper and AirBnB began to thrive, craigslist reversed course, and punished the innovators it previously welcomed to use the data. In February 2012, craigslist rewrote its Terms of Use, abandoning its long-articulated position that users own their own content which was freely available on the “public” part of craigslist's website.
As outraged as everybody was about this, it is exactly what the real MLS does when you decide to sell your house. You sign a contract promising to pay some Realtor's brokerage company 6 percent of whatever your house goes for -- in that contract you are essentially giving them the "copyright" of your house listing; they own it on the MLS and that is why you have to pay them the big bucks. Never mind that they do basically NOTHING other than simple photography and data entry to post on the MLS... but now they require you give them ~$66K of your equity for their 3 hours of work. (Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_28512250/report-silic... Median price of "entry level" home in San Mateo County = $1.1M).
Same thing is happening in rentals / property management co's (PMCs), but slightly different symptoms.
Nobody is attacking the problem the right way, though. 42Floors tried the experiment and found it to be a failure, too. (Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9881213)
The market should be putting more pressure on brokers to compete with each other ... damn that 6 percent. (Right, but the NAR signed a non-compete agreement with itself so it gets to do that)
Hackers should stop building tools that make it easier and cheaper for the PMCs and real estate agents to steal everybody's equity.