Real Estate News

There are a lot of exciting things coming out in the next few weeks – here are my top 3:

1. Like it? Hate it? The iPad which drew a ton of rumors and speculation is ready to make it’s debut. The 1st commercial aired during the Academy Awards (which explains why Steve Jobs was on the red carpet) and is officially going mainstream. The iPad will be on sale on April 3, 2010 and pre-orders begin March 12, 2010.

Here’s the commercial in case you missed it:

2. Better than the iPhone?! The Google Nexus One phone – the phone that had a lot of buzz when it first came out, is a phone that critics are still wondering if it can compete with the iPhone and other touch-pad type smartphones. Google has never made it a secret that they plan to release it to multiple carriers – just WHEN is the question. This phone is rumored to be coming to Verizon on March 23, 2010.

3. Wonder if I could sneak into this? f8 – The Facebook Developer Conference is slated for April 21-22, 2010.

According to the Facebook blog,

“f8 has always been about empowering a community of developers to hack, to build and to delight users. We’re looking forward to continuing this tradition at our third f8 in San Francisco on April 21-22, 2010. Please save the date!”

BONUS: One more thing to add to your calendar this month. Planning on coming to Real Estate Connect SF (#icsf) – Early Bird Registration ends in 11 days! Sign up by 3/19/10 and save over $300!

Would love your comments – please leave feedback below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to find an email newsletter from – TWITTER! I guess it shouldn’t suprise me – but at first I was a bit surprised that the company that made “140 characters” a household name, decided to get a message out to their members via email.

Good reminder to all of us that email is still a great way to get a message out – especially to your loyal fans (or followers!)

Here is the body of the email in it’s original form – lots of great new things coming down the pipeline from Twitter!

Hi there,

In the early days of Twitter, I used to send out short updates just to keep everyone in the loop since so much was happening. It’s been a while, but you signed up for short, monthly updates from Twitter so we thought it was time to start sharing more information. We’ve had quite a year. If you haven’t visited in a while, we’d like to invite you to come have a look at http://twitter.com — we’ve been busy!

Growing Up
In the course of a year, registered Twitter accounts have grown more than 1,500% and our team has grown 500%. Recently, we hired our 140th employee! His name is Aaron and he’s an engineer focused on building internal tools to help promote productivity, communication, and support within our company. We celebrated with a little dance party.

Features of Note
Some features of note that we released over the course of a year include the ability to create lists, quickly spread information with a retweet button, and an easier way to activate your mobile phone to work with Twitter over SMS. We also built a new mobile web site that looks and works much better on smart phones.

Feeling Inspired
By working together during critical times when others needed help, sharing important information that otherwise might not make the news, and inventing new and interesting ways to use Twitter, you’ve shown us that Twitter is more than a triumph of technology — it is a triumph of humanity. Projects like Fledgling and Hope140 were inspired by you.

Chirp!
While there may only be 140 full-time employees working at the Twitter offices, there are thousands of dedicated platform developers who have now created more than 70,000 registered Twitter applications creating variety and utility for all of us. We’ll be gathering this spring at Chirp, our first ever official Twitter developer conference.

Thanks,
Biz Stone, Co-founder (@Biz)
Twitter, Inc.

Would love your thoughts on email newsletters. I am a big believer in them myself – especially to drive traffic to your web site or blog. I also think they are a fantastic way to keep your ‘raving fans’ updated on the latest and greatest that you are promoting.Leave me a comment below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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One of the topics people ask me frequently about is social media – and specifically they ask me for how to make the best use of their time. Anyone who has dived into social media knows that it is not “free” – it takes time and a thoughtful effort to make it work your time.

If you are like me, and seem to be “always connected” – whether it’s Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc  – it’s a great reminder that you need to be smart with your time. If you’re not careful, social media can be a time suck!

So how can you be more smart with your time?

Plan social media into your schedule for 1 hour a day: 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes late in the day.

The key here is multi-task, move fast, don’t get distracted.

If I was a real estate agent – this is how I would do it:

AM: 1st thing after or before you check your email

1. Turn on your computer. Open 7 windows: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, your web site, your blog, your favorite news website (i.e. Inman News ), and your favorite ‘drip marketing’ social media site (my fave is Hootsuite). Move fast, don’t get distracted.

2. Facebook: Scroll through the page – make 3 comments on other people’s posts. Post what you are up to that day. Respond to anyone who has commented on your or left you a message. Move fast, don’t get distracted.

3. Twitter. Click your @ button (i.e. – @katielance). Anyone who has mentioned you – thank them publicly. Respond to DM’s. Scroll through your home page and re-tweet 3 things of interest. Move fast, don’t get distracted.

4. LinkedIn: Post your status update – have it feed to Twitter (check the ‘Twitter’ box to do so – so easy!) Respond to any messages in your inbox. Check your groups. Not in a group? Join a group and comment on 1 discussion a day. Move fast, don’t get distracted.

5. Close these 3 windows: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Keep Hootsuite.com open and your web site, blog, and your favorite news site. Pick 6-8 links to share that day in Twitter. One can be a listing. The rest must be good content or newsworthy. Pick 3 links to share for Facebook. Twitter moves faster than Facebook which is why you need to post more often. Plug your posts and links into Hootsuite. Space them 1-2 hours apart. If something is a hot topic you can schedule it to go out more than once. Move fast, don’t get distracted.

PM: Repeat!

Next day: Repeat!

Do this everyday 5-6 days a week. If you follow this schedule it will become a habit. Also don’t underestimate the power of commenting and interacting – this is probably MORE important than posting your own content and links. Social media is just that – social!

BONUS TIP: Plan into your schedule an additional 2-3 hours a week if you are a blogger. Also plan one time a week to search for new friends, fans, and followers.

Looking for more info?  Stay tuned… I have something exciting in the works that will be revealed in a few weeks.

I would love to hear how you formulate a schedule for social media – what works and doesn’t work for you. Please leave me your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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This week every major tech blog has been buzzing about the iPad. Thank you to all the FOREM members who posted comments here as well as on our Facebook page. It was really exciting to see all the online chatter going on across the nation, as people waited to hear about ‘the big announcement.’ Whether the iPad will be a ‘game changer’ or not – especially for the real estate industry – is still up in the air.

In the meantime, I thought I’d add a little humor to the conversation. Enjoy!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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You can get 5,000 Twitter followers with no measurable benefit. You can blog until your fingers hurt with no readers.  Learn how to get measurable results from social media and increase your business for 2010!

FOREM members: you are invited to a BRAND NEW session at Real Estate Connect:

LIVE LABS: Building Brand and Influence Through Social Media: Selling Technology Solutions in Real Estate.

Thursday, January 14th 3-4pm

Register today and SAVE $100 off!! (use code “forem”)

Led by business development guru Paul Chaney, author of The Digital Handshake, you will learn how to get results, move beyond participation to engagement on the social Web, and measure your success.

During live labs you will get the opportunity to “roll up your sleeves” and mix it up with your fellow attendees at Real Estate Connect. Each Connect Lab starts with a presentation by an expert  leader aimed at giving you practical takeaways you can implement back at home. The second half of each Lab will focus on audience-generated discussion and debate facilitated by your leader. These sessions will deliver an intensive 90 minutes on the issue that matters most to you.

Get the social media “secret sauce” to reach potential clients and leads!

See you at Connect! 8 days left!

Register today and SAVE $100 off!! (use code “forem”)

Questions about registration?  Please contact us at registration@inman.com or by calling 800.775.4662 ext 143

View the complete conference program

p.s. Have you downloaded the ConnectNYC app yet? It is available for use on any smartphone. Go to http://connectnyc.boopsie.com on your mobile browser or for iPhone users, go to the iTunes App Store and search for ‘ConnectNYC’

posted by Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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Google announced today they have invited the press to an “Android press gathering” on Jan. 5. This date is very strategic on Google’s part – as the Consumer Electronics Show is in Las Vegas later in the week. Google representatives declined to provide any further details about the event, but most likely this will be the unveiling of the Nexus One. This will be Google’s first phone sold directly to consumers. The rumors are, that if purchased directly from Google, consumers could pay up to $500, or considerably less if they sign a multi-year contract with T-Mobile.

Google employees began tweeting about the Nexus One after Google handed out these new phones to employees. Then, on December 12, Google posted a somewhat odd blog post where it said that the devices were intended to test new mobile technologies. “We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities, and we shared this device with Google employees across the globe,” Mario Queiroz, vice president of product management.

Also there are rumors that at this press conference, Google will address the questions that have risen about the Android strategy. Many are wondering if Google will sell the Android directly from its website.

I’m curious to see what this all will mean for the real estate professionals. As referenced in my last post about smartphones, the iPhone is still the top seller,  followed by the Blackberry and Razr. Will the Google Nexus One surpass what the iPhone has successfully accomplished? For real estate agents, ease of use is their top priority – followed by superior phone and data service. This topic will certainly be discussed at Connect NYC.

What is the future of mobile technology for 2010?

Find out at Connect! (FOREM members receive $100 off , use promo code “forem”)

by Katie Lance

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Google’s Nexus One – Launch Date: January 5th?

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I realize I’m a little biased in the world of smartphones. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a proud iPhone user. I love the apps, the ease of use, the large screen and the ‘bells and whistles.’

In real estate, having a smartphone is not just an option but a necessity. Everyone wants a response right now, not later today.

So the question remains, can the leader, the iPhone still hold their lead in 2010 as the top smartphone in the United States?

According to Nielsen…
According to Nielsen, The iPhone is still the most popular smartphone, followed by the BlackBerry 8300 series, but despite all the new smartphones flooding the market, Motorola’s trusty Razr (yep, the RAZR!) flip-phone was the third most-popular phone of the year.

What about Andriod?
Comascore.com, a leader in measuring the digital world, announced a few days ago the release of its latest report on the mobile market, ‘Android: Crashing the Smartphone Party.‘ The report provided an overview of the current U.S. mobile environment and offered an in-depth look at the Android OS. Among the report’s key findings is that consumer awareness of Google’s Android is growing rapidly, due in large part to the Verizon Droid ad campaign.

Here comes Google!
Coming to the smartphone party (possibly) next month is Google’s Nexus One. Nexus One puts Google in business against other providers of Android-based phones. Google is the major force behind Android. Will this create a backlash against the company, or did other providers get into the Android game aware that Google eventually would make this move?

A major shift happened…
A new survey of smartphone users by PC World and Macworld found that 85% of smartphone owners were extremely or very satisfied with their handsets, and the same percentage said they rely heavily on them. On a typical day, people use their phones two-thirds of the time for personal use and the balance for business. This highlights the HUGE shift that happened with smartphones from being primarily a corporate use to gaining a wider consumer customer base, courtesy of the iPhone.

So what is it about the iPhone?
I think one of the biggest reasons consumers, especially real estate professionals, love the iPhone is because of how easily they work – not the mention the incredible branding campaign that Apple has done to make you “feel” extra cool when you own an Apple product!

Did you know?
Did you know, Apple didn’t even launch the iTunes App Store until a year after the first iPhone became available? Over 2-billion-apps-sold have been sold as of late September 2009.When the iPhone was first launched in June 2007, Steve Jobs tried to sell developers on just making Web apps. When Web-based apps couldn’t match the performance or capabilities of native apps, developers asked for more. Apple announced that they were changing course in October, but didn’t launch the App Store until July 2008—just as Apple released the second generation iPhone hardware

So, in the spirit of the holidays, and because I do love the iPhone, I wanted to share with FOREM readers 7 FREE new iPhone apps just released within the last few days:

1. Ribbit Mobile
This app has already gotten quite a bit of buzz. You have to sign up and request to be invited to their beta trial. Ribbit Mobile will read your voicemail and then text or email it to you, it will save your messages forever, you can dictate memos on your phone, and answer calls on any phone.

2. CallRec.me
Pretty cool app especially for real estate agents –record your phone calls and voice notes with the push of a button. I could see this being especially helpful for agents to keep track of conversation records.

3.  HWA, Inc. – Home Warranty of America
Videos, sales tools, what’s news, and much more. Great app for title/escrow officers, mortgage lenders, real estate attorneys and agents. I’d love a Realtor’s first-hand experience using this app.

4. iParked
Ok this app was made for me – it helps you remember where you parked your car! If you dare to go shopping in the next couple days, I recommend using this app!

5. San Francisco Tweets
Search by categories or by SF districts. I like that it is a live Tweet stream so you could theoretically be walking down the street toward a restaurant and see if there is anyone inside the restaurant tweeting about the food, service, etc.

6.  New York App
Look up shows/events, places to eat, bars/clubs, tourist attractions, Yelp reviews and much more. Cool factor: there are links to some of the best lifestyle blogs in NYC built right in and a NYC Twitter stream. Not bad! Can’t wait to check this one out in person next month.

7.   ConnectNYC
Saved the best for last! This app is specifically designed for Real Estate Connect NYC  Jan.13-15th (#ICNY) includes live Twitter feeds, conference schedule, what sessions are starting within the next hour, exhibitor and sponsor booth info, as well as NYC hot spot info.

So how do you feel about this smartphone debate? Are you loyal to your iPhone, Blackberry, Andriod, or Razr? Are you holding out for something else?

Leave me a comment or send me a tweet here or here!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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This past week has been a pretty exciting week around here. Last week, I began managing the Inman News’ social media streams. I’m pretty excited to say that within the 1st 7 days we have over 700 new Twitter followers.

I am fired up about the results we have had by simply ‘turning up the dials.’ So how can YOU grow your Twitter traffic?

Here are my top 4 tips plus a cool update from Twitter’s blog:

1. Work smart. Have a plan. Don’t get distracted.

I could just end my blog right now because that’s really the core of what I’m doing to grow our follower list at Inman. I have a simple plan that I follow every day. Where do you want to drive traffic to? What message do you want to convey? One of my favorite Twitter products is HootSuite.com which allows you to plan your tweets – much like drip marketing. Spend 1 hour a day on Twitter and plan out 95% of your tweets.  Also, Hootsuite just launched their iPhone app this week. This is quickly becoming my favorite Twitter app.

2. Don’t be passive. Twitter moves fast – you better keep up.

Twitter is not Facebook. Twitter is not email. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can just tweet once or twice a day and that’s going to cut it. Log onto Twitter and look at your Twitter stream. Scroll to the bottom of the page – when’s the last tweet? An hour ago? Half an hour? For me it’s 2 minutes ago.  If you aren’t on your follower’s radar– they will NEVER see your tweets – so be aggressive. Word of caution: don’t just tweet to tweet. Put out good content and good links.

3.    To be followed you must be a follower.

Twitter is not a “wait and see” marketing tool.  You can’t expect for people to just find you and follow you. One of the fastest ways to generate new followers is to follow like-minded people. Use the search function and search for people who are your target audience. In TweetDeck you can save searches so if you plug in a specific search like “Manhattan Real Estate,” anytime someone tweets about that subject, you will be notified

4.    Recognize and connect.

Aren’t you surprised at the number of people who just spew information out there and never interact!? Don’t be one of those! Your daily plan has to include checking to see who mentioned you, retweeting others, and responding to DM’s. This may be the last point to this blog but this is SO important. A great video for breaking this all down in 10 minutes a day is a fantastic video by Laura Roeder.

One last thing – breaking news from Twitter on their blog yesterday.
Twitter is beta testing a new function for companies called “Contributors” – it enables users to engage in more authentic conversations with businesses by allowing those organizations to manage multiple contributors to their account. This could be huge for brokerages – you could have the CEO, Broker/Owner and Marketing Director tweet on the same handle – but you would know who “the voice” would be.

These Twitter tips are so easy to do – but they are also so easy NOT to do. For every 5 real estate agents and brokerages on Twitter, there are 25 that are not. The odds are your favor – take advantage of it! And if you’re not yet following me on Twitter yet, click here or here!

posted by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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700 New Twitter Followers in 7 Days

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A couple of years ago I postulated that video would eventually kill the virtual tour (see Inman Connect Highlights Real Estate 2.0) – and, for the most part, that seems to have happened. The seemingly ubiquitous (at the time) 360 spin-and-puke photo tour has largely been replaced these days by Ken Burns-like slide shows and full motion video walkthroughs.

But, I could have spoken too soon.

Yellowbird is a Dutch company (who, incidentally, win the most awesome URL award with www.yellowbirdsdonthavewingsbuttheyflytomakeyouexperiencea3dreality.com – perhaps kicking off a new trend?) which has just pioneered the 360 spin-and-puke, inside full motion video.

Yeah, it’s as crazy as it sounds…

Check it out.

Most definitely this has implications for real estate marketing. Two years from now, could this be the norm in online tours? Will we be seeing 3D scrollable Street View videos from Google on their Place Pages (see Google makes yet another big move into real estate territory) any time soon? It’s something the Swiss already seem to be working on (see The Swiss Give Us A Peek At 360-Degree VideoStreetView Maps)

In all seriousness however, I kind of like this. It puts me in control of the watching experience in my browser. Something I find natural with the lean-forward nature of the web. And I like the idea of being able to virtual “drive” down a street and see a home from my browser.

In the meantime however, while I’m waiting for all this to transpire, I think I have some mighty big URLs that I need to go and register.

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Virtual Tours and Video Go Another Round

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On the iPhone at least. Android and other smartphone platforms have had livestreaming video apps for a while now. But the tide has finally turned in the favor of iPhone users too – as Ustream has finally had its app approved for distribution in iTunes (app store link).

For me, this release culminates three of the biggest technological trends of 2009; Lifestreaming, Location, and Video.

First up – Lifestreaming. Twitter. Facebook. You’ve probably heard of these sites. It’s now easier than ever to instantly share events to a large distributed audience online – what you’re doing. By sharing information via these networks you are building connections and, by extension, reach.

Location. GPS is nearly omniprescent in most modern smartphones. Your devices now know in an instant where you are in the world. Apps like Google Latitude, Foursquare and my new fav – Gowalla, all exist because they know where you are. So too do augmented reality apps like Layar (see Layar Technology Now Available for iPhone). Location awareness is a true technological paradigm shift.

And finally video. I’ve been on this soapbox long enough. But the web is rapidly becoming about video and video content — witness Comcast’s bid to acquire NBC/Universal; a traditional “pipe” getting into the video content game. Or U2’s massive live concert on Youtube that generated over 10 million streams across 7 continents.

So what does all this mean? The Ustream app has magnificent repercussions for citizen journalism, family ties and yes, even real estate (think of working with a relo client remotely to show them properties, for example). The power to broadcast live, each of us from the palms of our hands, will certainly change the way some of us communicate.

Time to go fire up my phone.

You’ll be able to find me here. Live.

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Coldwell Banker introduced a fresh take on real estate search today with the launch of its new web site at beta.coldwellbanker.com. Besides a tarted-up user interface, the new site offers a couple of intriguing new ideas that I think push the innovation needle in the right direction.

The first of which is the new site now knows where you live. It uses your IP address to figure out where you are searching from and automatically offers up properties from that area. IP address detection itself isn’t particularly new, but I like that the team behind the site are thinking of ways that it can be used to help streamline the real estate search process for consumers. What I’d really love to see however, is for this idea to be taken even one step further by integrating the location awareness built in to the new Firefox browser (see New Firefox Brings Location to the Browser).

Most notable however is CB’s new Bluescape search. Here’s their description from the press release

…allows consumers to give a ‘thumbs up’ or a ‘thumbs down’ to various images that are displayed – similar to how popular music sites learn users’ preferences based on how they rate different songs. After rating various photos, consumers can then submit a query and the BlueScape technology will identify homes that might be a fit. Developed to help consumers actively looking to purchase a home as well as those still in the “dreaming phase,” this visually driven approach to search is new to the real estate category.

The tool works exactly as described. You’re presented a series of seemingly random “lifestyle” and real estate related photos; photos of mountains, pools, different styles of homes etc. You give each photo a thumbs up or thumbs down rating and after a period of time you can ask Bluescape to return your results.

The process is actually kind of fun (although the music got a little annoying after a while). Presumably, the more photos you rate the more accurate your results are. But it would be nice if the site gave you some indication of how many images a user needs to rate before good results are returned. Personally I just kept clicking until I couldn’t take the music anymore.

The results Bluescape returned were definitely intriguing – and at a national level the results were fairly close to the images I’d flagged. When I filtered the results to my local area however, things got a little rougher. For some reason, Bluescape recommended I live in a strip mall. Hardly what I’d call my “dream” home.

I’m not sure this is a problem with the algorithm behind the suggestion engine or if it was just my taste in photos. Very well could be the latter.

In any case, despite a few little glitches like this (and the fact the site doesn’t play nice with Safari web browser), it’s great to see a brand like Coldwell Banker thinking creatively and outside the box when it comes to real estate search.

The goal for any real estate brokerage in the coming months is going to be how to differentiate your real estate search site from the sea of Google Maps and pushpin clones that exist out there. Finding your own unique take, or angle, on search while staying true to your brand will be the most challenging, and rewarding task ahead.

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New York-based broker Corcoran Group has launched a new iPhone application to help real estate consumers connect with properties.

The app is very well executed and joins StreetEasy and Redfin as among my favorite real estate apps.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To promote the new app, they commissioned Swedish artist Kari Modin to illustrate the key features of app. The ads will run in media outlets, online and on phone kiosks throughout the city.

The images are striking and I think it’s an important takeaway here; while real estate search apps are a hot ticket item right now — and I would suggest that any decent sized brokerage should be seriously evaluating their mobile strategy for 2010 — simply building and releasing an app isn’t enough.

It needs to be fully baked into to your overall marketing plan and supported through a well-imagined and targeted advertising campaign, which Corcoran has done.

There’s a land rush going on right now for screen space on smart phones and the window of opportunity for any broker to stake a claim will likely be short-lived. A few years from now and there will be likely dozens of “me-too” apps in any given market. Now’s the time to strike.

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From the Redfin Corporate Blog:

Big news! Redfin just announced a $10-million round of financing led by Greylock Partners’ James Slavet and his colleague David Thacker. Redfin’s group of existing investors — Madrona Venture Group, Vulcan Capital, DFJ, The Hillman Company — also pitched in on the round.

This new round of financing brings the total investment in the Seattle-based brokerage to just north of $30 Million. Greylock joins Madrona Venture Group, Draper Fisher Jurvertson, Vulcan Capital and the Hillman Company as investors in the firm.

Some key metrics released by Redfin in their blog post:

# Revenue exceeded a $20 million yearly run-rate and Redfin generated its first profits
# Redfin shipped the highest-rated iPhone application for real estate
# Site visits increased more than 200%
# Total dollar-value of Redfin transactions since inception exceeded $2 billion
# Redfin customer satisfaction remained at 97%

This news, coupled with the announcement that Realogy is in the black for Q3 surely means that things are starting to look up in the real estate space.

Congrats to all the Redfin crew.

More at Techcrunch.

Photo by aresauburn™

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The Realtors Property Resouce (RPR) is likely the most important technology story of the last few years. And it will probably be the most closely watched story for the next couple of years too.

What is the the RPR? Brian Boero from 1000Watt Blog sums it up nicely.

The NAR has taken over certain technology assets of Cyberhomes from LPS (formerly known as FNRES) in order to bring its RPR (Realtors Property Resource) project, as well as its consumer-facing play, HouseLogic, to market. To do this, they have created Realtors Property Resource, LLC – a wholly owned subsidiary of the NAR.

This is huge. A national database of over 140 million property records – eventually enhanced by property status (on or off market) data from MLSes around the country. A suite of tools built to allow Realtors to access and share this data with their clients. Even a stab at knocking off those pesky computer-generated Zestimates with a new RVM or “Realtor Valuation Model”.

This is huge. Rob Hahn,  calls it a “Coming Civil War” and a shot across the bow at the local MLSes — and it’s certainly is a bold move.

But ultimately RPR is an attempt (last-ditch?) for NAR to stay relevant to its membership – since the savviest of them have long been questioning the need for a national association.

Consumers can find reams of property data on any number of real estate search sites these days. Brokers and agents have a number of low-cost tools at their disposal to build a rich and compelling online experience. And most importantly these two groups can now connect in much more meaningful ways through social media.

As Jim Duncan, writing on Agent Genius, succinctly put it; “NAR recognized the need to be competitive“.

But frankly, I will be happily surprised, if the NAR/RPR can out innovate the innovators. While they have assembled quite a team behind the project, I worry that a monolithic enterprise like this will ultimately be doomed by legislative paralysis.

For NAR/RPR to truly take a run displacing the current status quo – they need to adopt the mindset of their free-market competitors. Do something really disruptive. Here’s a few ideas:

1. “Powered by NAR” – Build an API that will let engineers across the country to piggyback off of this data mine and build a thousand variations of the HouseLogic interface. Ask only for reciprocal link and acknowledgment of the source.
2. Offer a challenge like the Netflix Prize – A $1 million prize for the team that can take the base RVM algorithm and improve it.
3. Go open source – take a subset of the Cyberhomes code and release it to the world under a GNU General Public License – let the developers go wild and help improve the experience for all.

RPR is an important first step for NAR to take – but I’d like to see them go even further.

It’s time for a really big leap to restore the faith.

Update: You can now watch the introductory webinar in its entirety.

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A guest post from Tim Fagan, CEO of HomeFinder.com

A while back I was in the audience at an industry conference when a woman on stage asked this question: “At the end of the day, do any of these online real estate companies really help anyone buy or sell a home?”

My initial reaction – as someone running one of “these” companies – was to dismiss the question as gratuitous, and dead wrong.

She’s just trying to provoke the audience. We provide all kinds of information on our site – of course we’re helping. And that’s what a REALTOR is there for anyway. So what’s the problem?

But the question kept creeping back into my head in the following weeks, prodding me to dig deeper into our value proposition and think about what it would take to answer “yes,” unequivocally.

How could we at HomeFinder.com – and, for that matter, my colleagues and competitors elsewhere in online real estate – provide a more essential service? And while our REALTOR partners would always be the ones who would get properties bought and sold, what could we do to help them get to that goal more efficiently?

Doing this, of course, would not be easy. The online real estate category is a crowded place. Consumers can view listings on myriad sites, all of which offer functionality that is strikingly similar. A set of standards and best practices has emerged as a result – which is good – but with that comes a pressure to stick to proven formulas, familiar features and accept assumptions as to what an online real estate site should and should not do. And that can be quite limiting.

So how do we move forward? I don’t have clear answers yet, but here are some things I believe to be true:

We need to take more risks

This sounds trite, but it’s true. When is the last time an online real estate company did something that made you think, “Wow, that’s gutsy?” Putting real estate listings online in 1994 was gutsy; Zillow took a big risk offering home values online ten years later. But who’s sticking their neck out now? It’s been awhile.

At the beginning of 2009, we expanded from being a technology provider to major newspapers across the country, previously known as Homescape, to rebranding as HomeFinder.com and growing our business to become a world-class home search and information site. While this is a goal we continue to strive toward, the HomeFinder.com name change was both a catalyst and reminder of not only what our site and our competitor sites offer, but also what consumers truly want — to find a home.

Granted, this isn’t Page Six material. But we’re relatively new to the game and that also puts us in a position to more easily escape our own history than others. That’s an opportunity I plan to capitalize on.

Online real estate needs more big moves.

It’s not just about a house, it’s about living a life

Having all the listings – including FSBO’s – is something we at HomeFinder pride ourselves on. But we need to understand that for most people, the house is just part of what goes into a decision to live somewhere.

To make that important decision more effectively, consumers need to get a sense for what lies beyond the four walls of the home they see on the screen. Sure, most sites offer school ratings, basic demographic information and some high-level housing market data.

But today we can go beyond that. The emergence of the “Real-time Web” allows us to capture what’s happening now in any given place, to hear the ambient noise of a neighborhood. The number of new APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) makes exciting mashups of place-based images, video and data possible in ways we could online imagine just a year or two ago.

It’s time to innovate in these areas.

A more effective model: better connect home finders with home sellers

Recently, a small storm erupted over a pornographic advertisement appearing on Realtor.com. While this was entirely inadvertent (apparently the result of an error in their ad serving system) it did underscore a point: The largely ad-based online real estate category often delivers a less-than-optimal user experience.

Ads, featured listings and the like can be quite effective for our agent and broker partners. But for consumers, they often just get in the way.

How can we deliver a better experience that gets consumers where they want to go more efficiently, while also placing our broker and agent customers in the right place, at the right time, on the right platform?

We’re working on some of the answers at HomeFinder.com as I write.

Call to action

In the end, the conference panelist’s question was not an annoyance – it was a call to action. To deliver even more value to consumers and practitioners. To rethink the online real estate formula. To challenge ourselves to question those things we take for granted.

I do not have many answers at this point, just directional notions like those I list above. But I’ll get there.

If you’d like to have your writing featured on FOREM blog, please email us at futureofrealestate@gmail.com

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See the rest here:
Online real estate reality check

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