Edgeio to Take on Trulia and Realtor.com

By Joel Burslem on Thursday, November 30, 2006 Filed Under: Internet

Edgeio, the online classifieds site has acquired Adaptive Real Estate Services, reports VentureBeat:

it has acquired the assets of Adaptive Real Estate Services, a company built over the past several years by father and son team Robert and Peter Meyer — and which has patiently built up relationships with brokers and agents in 70 of the top MLS organizations — and equivalent to about 70 percent of the MLS network nationwide. It has about 1.5 million homes listed for sale in the areas it covers.

What ARES really brings to the table is that it has already done the grueling legwork of bridging all the various IDX feeds from different MLS systems into a unified data stream.

Keith Teare, CEO of Edgeio writes:

As we integrate ARES into the edgeio platform it will be possible for users of edgeio.com, and partners of edgedirect to show these 1.5 million homes in search results.

Edgeio, which recently secured $5 million in Series A funding and counts Techcrunch founder and power-blogger Mike Arrington and RSS godfather Dave Winer among its advisors, seems to trying to pull together a national database of real estate listings to supplement its classified ads. Sound familiar?

This acquisition instantly springboards Edgeio into a position to challenge Trulia.com and Realtor.com (which is vulnerable position, having already lost one MLS feed)

What will be interesting to see is how those MLS relationships hold up when and if Edgeio starts including FSBOs and classified listings alongside the IDX results.

Edgeio, like Trulia, Zillow and others is counting on Realtor advertising to support its business model.

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9 Comment(s)

Titlerep | Dec 1, 2006 | Reply

This is some good stuff! I can’t wait to see how it all works out over the next year or two.
Calculator | Dec 1, 2006 | Reply

Wow, some of you guys just don’t get it.

Edgeio can’t legally display IDX listings without becoming a real estate broker in every state.

Yes, transparent, the data integration isn’t hard. It’s already been done by the hundreds of vendors that sell IDX websites to agents.

If it were as easy as integrating IDX data wouldn’t Trulia, Propsmart and others have already done it? The technology isn’t the hard part, it’s the IDX data is rightfully copyrighted by the realtors and/or the mls.

I hope Edgeio has a big legal budget if they display the IDX data on their website.
Jim Lee | Dec 2, 2006 | Reply

Hasn’t RealSelect/HomeStore/Move demonstrated throughly enough that you can’t make a living selling ads to Realtors???
Jake | Dec 2, 2006 | Reply

Jim Lee, Great point. I wish there were more discussion/blogs about these company’s business models. Seems like there is a new VC backed online real estate company every week, but I don’t see how many if any are ever going to make money.
curious | Dec 2, 2006 | Reply

I couldnt agree more with transparants comments….

my previous company aggregated nearly 1.5 million IDX listings nationally. While the field names, data types and other particulars are different, it really isnt as hard as many make it out to be. Create a standard and map each disperate format to that standard and use tools like SQL Server DTS to tie it all together.

Harder than the data mapping are the myriad display requirements mandated by each MLS: number of listings allowed per search, logos, disliamers, co-mingling, disclose agent/broker/phone, etc.

And its gotten much easier since we did it back in 2001.

The reason the big players are doing it isnt because it is hard, it is because IDX rules preclude venders from directly publishing OR republishing the data. Venders are only allowed to “touch” the data in order to make it available to an MLS participant on THEIR personal website for the purpose of allowing CONSUMERS to search listings.

If a vender wants to directly publish or republish IDX data, they simply cannot without becoming a broker and joining as many of the 850 individual MLSs time and money affords- not to mention having a qualified local office in each area.

The only other option is to license MLS data from each MLS, which will come at a big price, especially if there is significant revenue being generated as a result. But this wouldnt be through IDX, which is a very specific program intended to provide MLS participants with MLS listings for their personal websites for the sole use of consumers searching for homes for their personal use.

My previous company, Homes.com, Advanced Access, etc. would have loved to exploit IDX data for direct publication or republication like Edgio somehow thinks they will do. If it were that easy, it would have been done a long time ago.

Perhaps Edgio thinks NAR and individual MLSs are weakened by recent leagal challenges and they think the time is right to pile on. Who knows. they must know something the rest of us dont or they think the time is right for a fight.

Even giving brokers and/or agents a free website and getting them setup with IDX as a vendor does not entitle those brokers/agents to republish IDX data outside of their personal websites, even for their own listings within the IDX compilation. IDX is not an “open” distribution system that is intended to act as a common hub for such syndication.

And again, there are so many display requirements that Edgio’s generic display just doesnt satisfy.

Like most of you, i’ll be watching this one very closely. I wish Edgio all the best but i just dont see how they are going to get away with this. I look forward to learning more about their plans.

i’ll try to post some more particulars later.
Linda H | Mar 19, 2007 | Reply

If you need any ammunition against the REALTORS®, just ask me.

http://outsider222.wordpress.com/
Gwin | Apr 8, 2007 | Reply

Well, there is a lot of information over here, its good enough.
Natalia Arias | Apr 25, 2007 | Reply

The battle will get even because agents and brokers will publish their listings in all mayor websites, so basically the amount of listings on each site will be very close to the other. The one with every listing right now is only Realtor.com as they use what ever the MLS has.
Matt | Mar 6, 2008 | Reply

Actually, Remax.com is aggregating nationally based on all of their broker’s IDX data and they claim to have the highest total listing count on the Internet. Some brokers and MLS’ opt-out of Realtor.com, which doesn’t have a NAR mandated right to the MLS data like brokers do. Yahoo was doing similar aggregation with the Prudential brokers.

An interesting company is PropertyMaps.com, who is a national portal with which independent brokers can join forces. They are aggregating 26 regional MLS’ with about 1MM listings and claim to be in full compliance with IDX/ILD policy.