Dodgy listings on realestate.com.au

There's plenty of evidence that real estate agents continue to engage in dodgy practices. Shonky agents like David McFarlane, for instance.

Browse their current listings on the realestate.com.au portal, and you'll get over 60 "homes for sale", including these:

Yes, that's right - almost one third of the properties advertised by David McFarlane have already been sold.

In some cases, over four months ago.

It seems obvious that it's David McFarlane's official policy to continue to advertise properties which cannot be sold, despite the fact that same policy only irritates the very customers they're trying to attract.

But what about realestate.com.au and their advertising policies? Are they deliberately allowing shonky agents to continue polluting the realestate.com.au property listings?

The realestate.com.au terms and conditions doesn't explicitly state how long an agent can continue to advertise an already sold property. Why is that? Could it be because it's not an important enough issue as far as realestate.com.au are concerned?

After around half a dozen emails to the customer care people at realestate.com.au, the only thing of substance I got was:

Unfortunately our site is not actively policed; however, we do appreciate reports from consumers and agents alike who report other agents who are advertising unethically on our site or are in breach of our terms and conditions. These reports are investigated by our quality assurance team. You can email them directly on ccccontentqa@realestate.com.au with relevant examples (property ids). Rest assured that if you wish your email will be kept anonymous.

Not actively policed? Why not? Now, I don't know much about the internal workings of the realestate.com.au web system, but here's a usability tip for them anyway:

If your system doesn't automatically disable dead listings from showing on your website, why don't you just get one of your junior programmers to write a simple daily report showing what needs to be taken offline?

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About the author

Ivan's mugshotI'm Ivan Lutrov and I'm the owner of Lutrov Interactive. I have 25 years of experience producing interactive work and I create cost effective business websites that are simple, engaging and easy to use. I practice what I preach and I say what I really think, even if it's sometimes not what you want to hear. Subscribe to the Lutrov Interactive feed via RSS and follow me on Twitter.