:check: One of those core “things” is that users do not trust Trulia, Zillow, or Realtor.com as you say. Users trust Google. And if users find a good experience users are lazy, in a good way, and will not look else where. Everyday we see thousands of people come into our customer sites for home specific terms. They look at the property, the look at other properties, they like the experience, and the come back. They come back at a rate of 50% on average. I think users prefer a local site, local knowledge, and local search.
I can say for a fact that local sites get indexed for new properties much faster than the national sites do and therefore they generate traffic for those addresses and MLS numbers faster.