Terry LeClair

Great point...the problem with scrappers is once they get the data and eyeballs without a acquisition cost to getting the content they will have a marketing advantage over Realtors who pay heavy fee's and educational dollars to do business...in the long run it eliminates the need for Realtors and what consumers feel are high fee's for something they or some other company (scrapper) can do cheaper or free...oh by the way Realtor.com is absurd.. Terry LeClair CEO, TLC Innovations Inc www.RealtySitesPLUS.com

Here's why scraping company websites is not cool. There is a VERY large newspaper company in Canada as well called Torstar. They have papers in every small community in the country. They just purchased a website aggregator and named it HomeFinder.ca. This site is just that. It aggregates leads and get properties good exposure...that's good. They are convincing brokers to upload their listings (usually automatically from the MLS Board) to their system...that good too. Where it's not so good is now they have a captive audience in a bunch of Realtors who now have to pay for a "premium listing" "open house ad" or "featured listing"...so now agents are being sold an upgraded service and pressured to do do so because if they don't and their competition does then how does that look to the consumer. Don't get me wrong I am all for free enterprise but creating eyeballs and a business using my inventory and then basically selling it back to me under pier pressure is not cool... Terry LeClair CEO, TLC Innovations Inc www.RealtySitesPLUS.com

Laurie has been a great leader and we are sorry to see her go. My only hope is that Earl Lee decides to come back and run the show. He is one of the most amazing men I know!! Come on Earl we want and need you back! Terry LeClair Broker/Owner Prudential LeClair & Associates Realty www.LeClairRealty.com terry@leclairrealty.com