Google and Craigslist May Weaken Realtors' Hold on Home Listings

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Google and Craigslist May Weaken
Realtors' Hold on Home Listings

By James R. Hagerty
From The Wall Street Journal Online

Craigslist.com and Google.com, two Web sites that have fundamentally altered the way consumers buy a broad range of products, are emerging as places to shop for residential real estate, a development that in the long term could weaken Realtors' hold on home selling.

Listings of real estate for sale on Craigslist, a popular Web site featuring free classified ads, rose to 335,126 in March, more than triple the level of a year earlier. Google Inc., meanwhile, is testing a tool to help users sort through listings of homes for sale. Several more specialized sites launched in the past year -- including Trulia.com, Oodle.com and Propsmart.com -- offer free access to substantial numbers of listings.

 

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