7/30/07
The New Frontier of House Stalking
 | By Latham Jenkins Read more of Latham's posts |
House stalking has always existed, yet online sites that cater to the behavior have not. With the transparency of information now available on the Internet, from the name of the homeowner, the property’s sale history, number of rooms, etc., house stalking has seemingly become the next frontier. And this may not be a good thing.
Whether innocently driving by a house or becoming as intricate – or obsessive – as studying satellite views and online tax records, house stalking and the information currently available 
online are potentially problematic for both homeowners and the real estate industry.
House stalking and the websites that cater to it are obviously raising questions of privacy. It seems inevitable that in the near future privacy concerns like those raised in Oakland (when a woman noticed her cat through her window via Google Maps’ Street View) will become more frequent within the press. However, in the meantime real estate agents and brokers must continue to deal with the special breed of well-informed – or obsessively well-informed – prospective buyers.
Check out the sites house stalkers frequent (such as Realist.com, Trulia.com, PropertyShark.com, and others) before meeting and discussing properties with inquiring buyers. Staying atop of the matter will help keep you abreast with one of the industry’s up-and-coming controversies while continuing to provide useful information to the market’s most eccentric consumer.
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Technology, in our industry as in others, can be good and bad. It is another example, though, that reminds us to take care of our personal safety and identy and for those of us in the Real Estate Industry, it demands that we understand all new resources and tools so that we can better serve our clients.