StreetEasy criticized by real estate brokerage

Real estate company Douglas Elliman says it's "assessing the return on its StreetEasy investment."

With little time until StreetEasy pulls the plug on automatic listing feeds, the brokerage has lambasted the move and said it will consider “alternative marketing options.”

In a December email to agents, Douglas Elliman said it was “assessing the return on its StreetEasy investment as it works to explore alternative marketing options.”

“We will not go backwards in our ability to quickly and accurately utilize technology to market and sell properties,” the brokerage said according to the email, a copy of which was obtained by The Real Deal.

Starting in January, the Zillow-owned portal will require agents to manually enter all listings, and it’s upped the daily fee for rental listings to $6. Until now, StreetEasy had agreements with individual firms to take their listings in bulk via a feed.

The portal now says manual entry will help reduce errors and benefit consumers.

In a statement, Zillow spokesman Viet Shelton said the feed technology was a “barrier to innovation.”

He said:

“We had to evolve in order to solve the pain points of today’s buyer, seller, renter and agent. Quality data is at the center of not only a good consumer experience, but an agent and brokerage’s business as well.”

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