A duplex-up at 1623 W Barry Ave is listed in the MLS at $2,500 a month. Coldwell Banker’s Jennifer Witt has the listing.
domu spotlighted the property at its blog, citing the rent at $2,300 a month, with a contact phone different from the listing agent’s.
The same contact phone – which doesn’t trace to any identifiable individual – appears in a Craigslist ad for the property, where the rent is listed at $2,200 a month.
Earlier today we were forwarded an e-mail received from domu by someone who had posted an apartment ad at Craigslist. domu’s e-mail was addressed to a Craigslist e-mail address.
The domu e-mail began as follows: “you have received a complimentary two-week listing on domu.com.” The Craigslist advertiser reports being told by domu that the listing was a “Broker Reciprocity” listing from the MLS – where the advertiser had not listed it. The advertiser’s Craigslist ad contained the standard notation that “it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests.”
We investigated a number of domu ads and found a similar pattern – a Craigslist ad followed by a domu ad. Some of the domu ads had contact info that traced to rental services, and one had availability stated as 1/4/11 – odd, given domu’s claim that it serves up “fresh listings from landlords.”
The vast majority of domu’s listings do not, in fact, connect renters with landlords but route them to the brokers who placed the listings in the MLS.
Anyone seeking a rental can find many more rental listings at broker sites than are available at domu. And YoChicago’s at-a-glance apartment lists and maps connect renters directly with more downtown properties than domu does. Far more properties.
What’s going on here? Is the Barry listing another domu Craigslist scrape? Is domu a Web site that’s worth visiting?
With all due respect, I would like to straighten the record.
First, the house at 1623 West Barry was conveyed by Mercury Group IV, LLC to Jeffrey Salas and Maureen Bantz on or about March 16, 2011. The new purchasers hired Jennifer Witt at Coldwell Banker and gave her an “exclusive right to lease.” Hence, the property now appears on the MLS.
Separately, Mr. Salas entered the apartment onto craigslist AND PAID domu for a two-week listing. It is HIS telephone number that appears on both the craigslist page and the domu contact form. Mr. Salas is a paying domu customer, although your blog post insinuates that he is not.
Finally, there was a computer error two weeks ago, and the domu content management system was accidentally serving webpages with the MLS logo on non-MLS listings. As perhaps you know, content management software is prone to occasional glitches. This particular glitch has since been corrected.
Thanks for the clarification, Andrew.
Perhaps you can clear up a few additional questions I have about domu.
domu’s landlords page invites prospective advertisers to “join thousands of landlords who broadcast their listings …” and its “why domu” page touts “2,236 fresh listings from landlords” and “contact landlords directly” as domu advantages.
Am I correct in thinking that domu treats a broker reciprocity listing from the MLS as a landlord ad in arriving at the “thousands of landlords” / “listings from landlords” figure?
If I am correct in that conclusion, how are the “thousands of landlords” / “listings from landlords” claims not wildly misleading to renters and potential advertisers?
And shouldn’t the “contact landlords directly” claim be more accurately rephrased as “contact lots and lots of real estate agents – and a much smaller number of landlords – directly?”
Does domu employ a date cutoff for MLS listings or are some of them not, as domu contends, “fresh?”
I note that you don’t dispute that domu has placed “complimentary” ads scraped from Craigslist.
Finally, can I fairly read your silence on the topic as agreement that I was correct in stating that:
“Anyone seeking a rental can find many more rental listings at broker sites than are available at domu.”
Joe,
That is just not true for small or mid-sized rentals.
boiztwn,
You’re correct that small landlords are typically not represented on the MLS – but you’ll find very few of them at domu either.
I’ve tediously taken an exhaustive look at some of domu’s inventory, and there just isn’t very much there beyond the MLS listings. From what I can see the landlords aren’t drinking domu’s Kool Aid.
Check our Lake View apartment lists and compare them with what domu has – we’re probably about 20:1 over domu, and many of the properties we’ve listed are small landlords who’ve hired management companies.
What domu does well is its interface – but it often breaks down on the details.
Joe,
I don’t mean small as in small landlords; I mean small as in smaller apartments — studios, 500-600 square foot range 1/1s — places like that. Unless those ARE owned by private landlords (and trying to get a premium for them, no doubt) they are hardly likely to be in the MLS, and more, most brokers won’t take the time and energy to list them because of various issues I could detail, but it’ll be tl;dr.
I have seen the lists here, and they are impressively thorough if you know what you’re looking for and want it as a resource for the neighborhood (I personally prefer the killer neighborhood guides in general). But you cannot search them. There is no ballpark on pricing. They’re also arranged by address as opposed to size, price — what have you.
Domu is pretty much in its infancy; of course they’re not going to have huge, exhaustive listings. But I’ve been watching the site since last summer and the number of listings for the near-north neighborhoods has increased dramatically. I think landlords (more appropriately: management companies) are turning around on it; if they weren’t, I don’t think I’d be seeing the number of them popping up recently as opposed to this time last year.
Less than a decade ago, you’d find more listings for rental housing in the Reader (and via Reader Online) than Craig’s List. Landlords slowly adopted CL, making it the juggernaut it was; but you know as well as anyone it’s a different story now that the agencies went to it as a direct advertising source as well.
The trends move. Many were slow to adopt Craig’s List, but now you’d be hard pressed to find landlords and management companies looking to print media for advertising. So, no, domu is not going to give everyone everything — in my opinion, no online venue ever could — but they’ve come a long way in a year, and I don’t really understand the rancor against it.
Just my take.
boiztwn
In the area currently covered by our lists, the great majority of studio and 1-bedroom apartments will be in the larger buildings we’ve listed.
Our list grids indicate which buildings have studio and 1-bedroom apartments, but you’re correct that more is needed.
We’re committed to making the lists as easy to use as possible, and that involves addressing the lack of pricing information in our list grids.
We’re working on developing a price-coding system for the lists – similar to the $-$$-$$$ system you see in restaurant reviews. The coding, plus a legend explaining it, would enable renters who download our lists into a spreadsheet to home in instantly on the buildings that meet their price qualifications and click on the building links to check availability and communicate with landlords.
As you can appreciate, getting the price coding right in a way that’s both useful and doesn’t require constant updating is a tricky proposition. We’ll get it done over time.
We have a lot of in-house database / Web programming / map interface expertise that’s currently devoted to servicing our newspaper and broker clients. If staff time frees up we may make the lists available in a more interactive, map-based format. In the meantime, however, print media still pays the bills around here, and we understand its continuing demise very well.
There’s no rancor with domu. There’s clearly a need for it, and it’s doing some things very well.
I just think there’s a disconnect between what it is, and what it represents itself to be, and suspect that may unfairly cost me and my newspaper and broker clients some business.
“I just think there’s a disconnect between what it is, and what it represents itself to be, and suspect that may unfairly cost me and my newspaper and broker clients some business.”
Yeah, but that goes for anything regarding advertising. The BEST this, the BEST that, the most responsive and attentive customer service, the greatest area — and not just real estate, but any product as well. Whether national, provincial, local, or a personals ad on craig’s list, you’re going to talk up the product you’re selling, whether it’s a bogus “muscular” body, a disingenuously “newly rehabbed” apartment, or a “barely used” futon.
Despite that, I still think domu does well in what they are representing.
However, I am really looking forward to what you have planned for your maps, lists, and so on. The guides here are fantastic, and I look forward to seeing the at-a-glance lists go into even more detail. Rock it.