RE/MAX North Central reported testing an active Edina listing on the top 7 real estate search engine sites in the US according to Hitwise and didn't find it on any of them. Those seven sites account for more than 34% of online searches so is a significant share.
What this means to you as a Twin Cities buyer is that you cannot be confident you are seeing all the available listings if you search for a home using third party search sites such as Trulia, Zillow, Yahoo Real Estate and Realtor.com (i.e. those not affiliated with a real estate broker).
What this means to you as a seller is that your listing may not be seen by about a third of the buyers searching for homes online. With about 90% of buyers doing their home searching online, this can have a huge impact on your listing exposure. According to Realtor.com, the decision to remove remove Edina Realty listings from Realtor.com removes Edina Realty seller's listings from the screens of 20 million home buyers around the country.
Another thing for sellers to consider is the rise in foreign and investor buyers to about 37% of properties sold in the USA last year. Rather than using a local real state site such as that of Edina Realty, those buyers are more likely to use nationally known brand sites such as Remax.com or the new global.remax.com site, which offers listings in over 70 countries and 32 languages.
When speaking to a Realtor about listing your home for sale be sure to ask if your listing will appear on sites such as Realtor.com, Trulia and Zillow to assure you will get maximum exposure. I did a search of some currently active Edina Realty listings and found them there, perhaps because those listing agents have their own agreements with those online search sites...but you can no longer assume they will be there.
You cannot assume your listing will appear in all the major search engines... be sure to ask!
Sharlene Hensrud, RE/MAX Results - Email - Minneapolis - St. Paul Realtor