[WSJ] 9/06/06
For years, amateur critics have reviewed books, music and chain saws on the Internet. Soon they may be posting online critiques of your bathroom.Operators of two real-estate Web sites, ZipRealty Inc. and Reply Inc., in August began encouraging customers to write reviews of homes available for sale.
Early submissions suggest it might be better not to know what strangers really think about your house.After a visit to a four-bedroom house offered for about $1.5 million in Lafayette, Calif., a ZipRealty customer writing under the pen name YuppieHomeBuyer remarked: "The house was OK, but the bathrooms should be cleaner. There were some broken tiles and loose panels. I wonder if water comes into the house or the basement during the rains."At a condo on offer for $389,000 in Cambridge, Mass., another anonymous Zip reviewer spotted "rot" in the bathroom, said the bathtub should be replaced and commented that the "green paint isn't nearly as charming in person as in photos." If all that wasn't bad enough, the reviewer added: "Neighborhood questionable. Two kids had a loud, screaming fight outside the door during showing. Loud cars drive up and down the street with thumping music."
A ZipRealty.com customer reported a "swamp" in the backyard (above) of this San Clemente, Calif., home. The listing agent says it's an ornamental-fish pond. These rude reviews threaten to undercut the gushing language in marketing materials prepared by real-estate agents. Even worse for real-estate agents, the reviews are popping up just when a glut of homes on the market in many areas is allowing buyers to take their time, dwell on defects and demand price cuts. Some agents and homeowners already are howling that the reviews are hatchet jobs, perhaps motivated by spite or a desire to discourage competing bids for property the reviewers want to buy.
Operators of the sites say the reviews -- some of which are full of praise -- will provide valuable insights for home shoppers. Companies like Zip and Reply hope this free, user-generated material will lure more shoppers to their sites. Redfin Corp., an Internet real-estate broker based in Seattle, plans later this year to start encouraging both buyers and sellers of property to add online comments on the Redfin site.
Stirring Up ControversyBig brokerage chains like Re/Max and Coldwell Banker don't seek consumer reviews, which could hurt the interests of sellers. Zip and Redfin are maverick brokers that mainly serve buyers and don't mind stirring up a bit of controversy to draw more customers.
Reply, which collects fees for connecting consumers with real-estate agents, also wants to generate more traffic on its site.The phenomenon has also reached rental properties. Apartment Ratings Inc., for one, says it has about 425,000 apartment ratings and reviews from around the country on its site. Internet company Yahoo Inc. is encouraging users to rate apartment complexes, as well as real-estate agents. On Yelp Inc.'s site, a renter complained about an apartment building in San Francisco's Mission district that she says was infested with "rats the size of a small dog." Another Yelp reviewer claimed she "risked getting splinters" from a broken wooden toilet seat in her apartment in San Francisco's Nob Hill neighborhood.
Ron Hornbaker is president of PropSmart Inc., a Kansas City, Mo., firm that operates a Web site featuring information on real-estate listings. The company's site has allowed users to post home reviews since last December, though he is skeptical about their potential as home-shopping aids. He says people trying to sell a home could post nasty and inaccurate reviews of competing houses nearby. "It's kind of scary to think of all the bad things that could happen" with these reviews, he says.
If some people post misleading reviews, others will step in to correct them, predicts Patrick Lashinsky, a senior vice president at Zip. Homeowners also might reply to criticism and provide more information, he says.Mr. Lashinsky says people at a screening service read each review before it is posted on the Zip site. Any reviews that might violate laws, such as those against racial discrimination, are blocked, as are those containing "inappropriate" content, including vulgarity, phone numbers or advertisements, he says. But Zip doesn't verify whether reviewers' descriptions of the homes are accurate.
Zip's lawyers believe that providing a forum where consumers can post opinions about homes doesn't violate any laws or regulations, Mr. Lashinsky says.Mary Lou Thomas, however, doesn't see these reviews as helpful. Ms. Thomas is trying to sell the house in Pasadena, Md., where she raised three children, partly because she can no longer do the yard work. She was furious when told of a review on Zip's site describing the floors in one part of the house as "kind of bouncy, like you would feel if you walked in a mobile home." Ms. Thomas says there is nothing wrong with the floors and that they wouldn't bounce "unless someone weighs 500 to 800 pounds."As for the home in Lafayette, Calif., Ann Ward, the real-estate broker managing the sale, says the bathrooms are "absolutely beautiful." She says that a viewing for a Zip customer was arranged on very short notice, which may have left little time for cleaning up.Steve Rankin, the agent for the condo in Cambridge where a Zip customer reported "rot" in the bathroom, concedes that there is "a little gushiness to the tiles." Replacing them, he says, would cost just $1,500. He adds that squabbles and loud music can erupt anywhere. "People fight in the most posh neighborhoods of all," Mr. Rankin says. "Just ask O.J. Simpson."
Even HarsherAnother Zip reviewer was even harsher in a review of a three-bedroom house in San Clemente, Calif., listed at $769,000: "This very small home has great interior upgrades, but the entire backyard is taken up by an unsightly swamp.... Can you say, West Nile Virus?" The listing agent, Sherry Klapp, says the water in the backyard is a pond for ornamental fish, not a swamp, and was "professionally done."After viewing a three-bedroom row house offered for $108,000 in Baltimore, a Zip reviewer described the décor as "strange" and said the third bedroom is "about as wide as a coffin." To reach this bedroom, the reviewer says, "you have to walk through the bathroom! And the lock for this room is on the bedroom side. Whoever moves in must be a very friendly family with little need for privacy."Paul DeLoach of ERA DeLoach & Associates Realty, Pasadena, Md., who is the seller's broker, says the description of the layout is correct but adds: "I've seen much stranger situations."
