{"id":2277,"date":"2022-06-13T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deeds.com\/articles\/?p=2277"},"modified":"2024-04-25T23:18:44","modified_gmt":"2024-04-26T03:18:44","slug":"we-bought-our-home-years-ago-why-is-it-still-on-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deeds.com\/articles\/we-bought-our-home-years-ago-why-is-it-still-on-the-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"We Bought Our Home Years Ago. Why Is It Still on the Internet?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Why are all those staged photos and information about your home still open for all to view online, along with the history of the home\u2019s pricing? If you haven\u2019t looked since you bought your home, it\u2019s likely to be easy enough to find. Just do a search for your address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether the internet puts your home in a laughable<\/a> light, fails to show its real current state, or makes you feel exposed to friends and \u201cfrenemies\u201d who might be snooping, you might not be thrilled about the exposure. Just how long is all that information going to hang around the internet? Can you take it off?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To an extent, you can change your home\u2019s information online. Here, we explore what the internet says about your home, and steps you can take to control the narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The World (Wide Web) Knows More About Your House Now Than It Did Before Covid. Here\u2019s Why.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A home\u2019s online descriptions can be surprisingly thorough. The history of transactions and pricing, size of the property, complete floor plans, features of every room and every amenity\u2026 For many homes, this all shows up in public, for the world to see. These days, virtual tours through that show every nook and cranny are commonly posted on real estate sites. Viewers can get a pretty good grasp of a person\u2019s financial situation, just by doing an address search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back when you were searching for homes to buy, perhaps you appreciated the internet\u2019s capacity to help you shop, compare homes, and get a feel for what it would be like to actually live in the homes you liked best. And buyers are getting more detailed information all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the Covid tech boom, the National Association of REALTORS\u00ae lauded an \u201cincredible array of available technology<\/a>\u201d available for virtual staging. Virtual house tours became the norm. Highly sophisticated virtual showings were created, using 3D property apps like FloorPlanOnline and Matterport. These tools began to offer prospective buyers the experience of exploring the house, just by browsing online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But once a buyer owns the home, all that fantastic imagery now seems more like a digital privacy issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Does All That Data Get There in the First Place?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Traditionally, the source of the picture-posting is the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). When a homeowner wants to list a home for sale through a real estate agent, it\u2019s the MLS that first enters the data for the listing, and the related images. From there, the system automates the spreading of all the data to real estate platforms like Redfin, Trulia, Realtor.com, Compass, Zillow, and dozens more. Those companies have their own systems of platforms, so the distribution of data just keeps going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sellers are happy to have their homes showed off to a sprawling online audience. And a seller\u2019s real estate pro has plenty of incentives to aggressively market homes through a constellation of social media platforms. Today\u2019s agents have technology in their hands to do a lot with imagery. Ideas like showing the exterior and interior of a home using drones, for example, coupled with social media channels like YouTube and TikTok, can give agents plenty of ideas for virtual open houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Licensed agents and brokers who subscribe to the MLS have the ability to post their listings on official sites, and to take them down, or set dates for them to expire. So, more can be done while the home buyer\u2019s agent is still in touch with the seller\u2019s agent than years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even if the buyer is extremely proactive \u2014 say, by making the home sale contingent on deleting the data \u2014 it\u2019s important to keep online realities in mind. By the time the marketing is done, there are too many platforms to track. And there is a tangled web of data ownership rules, relicensing chains, and privacy policies in the mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s Possible to Remove Your Info From Redfin, Zillow, Etc. \u2013 To an Extent.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A homeowner can change the availability of a home\u2019s posted details. If you own a home that can be viewed on a real estate site, you can create a profile on that company\u2019s platform and claim the home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If, for example, photos and tours of your house are on Zillow\u2019s website, you can create a Zillow account. When you\u2019re signed in, you can edit your property\u2019s information. Specifically, you would:<\/p>\n\n\n\n