How open is OpenHouse.com?
Transparent Real Estate has a post about OpenHouse.com:
Although developed and managed by Realogy, OpenHouse.com is positioned as non-denominational and is encouraging any brokerage or agent to participate by submitting listings feeds. It’s significant that one of the largest brokerages is developing an “open data” product for the benefit of the industry.
If OpenHouse.com truly is a non-demoninational website truly supporting “open data” not only should they make available an API for submitting open house information but they should also make available an API for extracting open house information so that we can all contribute and reap the benefits on our own sites.
But of course the site might be soon killed off given this comment from a soon to be ex-Realogy employee:
You know the site is a dud when even Realogy’s own brands don’t use it. I jst ran a search on open houses in a few major cities and little or nothing came up. This open house should be cancelled
January 15th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Open House.com - Inviting Broker Participation
Currently OpenHouse.com ranges from 15,000 -20,000 open house events each weekend and more than 160,000 Virtual Open Houses on the site. These listings are all provided by Realogy’s brands - Coldwell Banker, Century 21, ERA and Sotheby’s International Realty.
Our goal is to include open houses from as many brokers who are interested in participating - there will be no fees other than a nominal setup charge to put a data feed into production. To date dozens of brokers have contacted OpenHouse.com to participate, including some national franchisors.
Numerous real estate portals have indicated interest in having OpenHouse.com submit open house listings to their sites and we are evaluating this and many other suggestions.
If interested in submitting listings to OpenHouse.com please send an email to inquiries@openhouse.com.
Ben Phillips
Managing Director
OpenHouse.com