The real estate application category on the iPhone seems to be filling out. When the upgraded version of the launched in July, Pulawai was the only real estate specific search tool (see 5 Apps Every Real Estate Agent Should Have on Their iPhone).
But that’s now changing and it looks like there is an epic battle brewing for screen space on my phone.
Trulia iPhone application
Trulia’s app is notable because of the prominence they give to open houses on the home screen. I think this is a wise choice, since people will likely be using this app as they are out and about and will want to find out what’s open near them to go have a look.
The search experience was very easy on Trulia’s app - simply pushing the ‘All homes for sale’ button takes you to a list of all the properties near you. (Your definition of “All Homes” may vary).
Searching all homes, it was a bit frustrating because wasn’t immediately obvious how the results we returned - it didn’t seem to be sorted by price or even distance away. Using the Custom Search option does let you get a little more specific on how those results are returned however.
Personally, I would have loved to be able to refine the search from the All Homes results page to weed out the listings that didn’t fit what I was looking for. Unfortunately instead, Trulia makes you go back to the beginning and start over again.
The biggest disappointment with Trulia’s app however are the listing pages themselves. Next to Utopria’s offerings they pale in comparison (see Utopria Brings Property Listings to iPhone) Only one photo? Also, it’s great that you can show me where the property is on a map, but what does staring at a pin from space really tell me? I want a little more.
StreetEasy Real Estate
StreetEasy doesn’t waste any time. The New York based real estate site just takes you right into the search results as soon as you fire it up. I actually kind of enjoyed this - the less decisions I have to make up front the better. Let me get right to the meat and then let me start carving away.
(Though I have to say, the fact that the top listing it returned on its default search was an $80 million, 4 bedroom Central Park apartment made me feel more than a little bit inadequate.)
Clicking on the Edit Search button lets you refine the results and StreetEasy makes good use of the iPhone UI elements to make the refinement easy and enjoyable - lots of tumblers to spin up and down. Making search fun is one of the things the iPhone can be great at.
On the whole, StreetEasy succeeds where Trulia fails - showing you all the photos associated with a particular listing. Clicking on the thumbnail floats all the images upwards to a gallery like environment you can thumb through. I also loved the fact that the app lets you pull up the details on the building that a particular apartment is in.
Further, StreetEasy makes it really easy to tab between the listing description, the map and the agent’s contact information. Trulia struggles to accomplish this with a slightly clumsy popup menu.
HomeFinder was created by developer Brandon Alexander (Alexander Mobile) and claims to bring over 4 million listings to the iPhone. Listings are drawn from Google Base, FSBO websites and feeds from several large MLSes and brokerages (not identified).
Compared to the two previous offerings, it’s pretty bare-bones, yet functional. HomeFinder gives you loads of options to filter a search - but it also kept crashing whenever it returned the results. So I’m going to have to withhold judgement on this app until we see a new revision.
So what’s the verdict?
StreetEasy’s iPhone app blows the competition out of the water in terms of ease-of-use, functionality and sheer slickness. Unfortunately it’s only available in New York City.
Trulia’s app looks great, gets off to a good start and then falls flat on its face. Frankly disappointing and hopefully future versions will add some of the missing features.
The others (Puluwai and HomeFinder) well, compared to their commercial competitors, feel unpolished and struggle due to poor data sources.
So for now, there’s no clear winner. Unless you live in New York.
Simon Baker, former CEO of Australian REA Group, has launched a new web site he’s calling Property Portal Watch. From his blog:
Property Portal Watch will be the one stop shop for all information on property portals around the word. It is designed to provide news, views, rumours, overviews and general information on property portal sites throughout the world. In addition it will provide tips and techniques for those wanting to advertise online. Its first incarnation is as a blog (while i get the proper site built).
Simon helped build REA Group into a truly global real estate search powerhouse that now has operations in 10 countries. It owns 22 websites, eight print publications and its web sites have over 8 million unique visitors each month.
Given that background, I’m sure there will be some great info coming out of there. For anyone who’s interested in watching the Real Estate 2.0 space - make sure you give it a visit and subscribe.
In its September 2008 issue, alongside its reviews of tub cleaners and organic produce, Consumer Reports turns its critical eye on the real estate industry.
The publication polled a sample of 3753 readers who sold or tried to sell a home, 4029 readers who bought a home and 7368 readers who did both. The results are illuminating to anyone in the industry; especially some of its findings which will surely be controversial.
Let’s look a bit deeper at the numbers.
First, the good news. Only 1% of sellers tried to use an online web site (craigslist, forsalebyowner.com etc.) to sell their home. 80% chose to go with an agent. It suggests that any fears that online players may someday distermediate the Realtors seem overblown. Sellers want to work with a real estate professional
The bad news is that CR concludes is that overall “higher commission didn’t always translate into more service or better results.”
Moreover, respondants who “paid commissions of 3 percent or less were just as happy with their brokers performance as those who paid 6 percent or more.” In fact, those who paid more were “more likely to say they had regrets about the selling process”.
More troubling, is that CR recommends that consumers continue to aggressive negotiate the 6%
commission downwards.
Seems to me that the real challenge here is that, moving forward, the industry needs do a better job of communicating its value (beyond puff advertising pieces) and, more importantly, delivering that value to consumers.
There are many ways to turn this tide, but I believe one way to slow the downwards trend on commissions is if brokers and agents can demonstrate to consumers they have an aggressive multi-modal marketing package in place for each and every listing.
Unfortunately, despite overwhelming evidence that consumers are looking for homes on the Internet (about 80%), it seems some Realtors are still choosing to ignore the medium.
According to CR, 85% of Keller Williams agents advertised homes on the Web - compared to only 76% of RE/MAX agents and 75% of Century 21 agents. The numbers, while high, are still unacceptable.
Agents should be syndicating their listings across the Net, taking dozens of high quality photos of the home, creating single property sites, doing video tours, blogging about their listings’ key selling features. Any or all of these approaches can add value (either real or perceived) to the bottom line of the transaction.
Brokers aren’t off the hook either. They need to be educating their agents on what the 21st Century internet-savvy buyer is looking for and then provide those platforms that can deliver those services to their agents.
The Internet is not the be all and end all to getting a home sold. But far from being a threat to commissions, it may just end up being their salvation.
One of the things that always struck me at the last couple of Connect conferences was the number of folks in the audience that came from outside the US.
Last month in San Francisco was no different. I met people from Canada, Mexico, Germany, Australia, Spain, France and many others, all walking the floors of the Palace Hotel.
Every day, I look at the Inman News Facebook and LinkedIn groups and there are requests from entrepreneurs and real estate professionals from every corner of the globe who want to participate in the conversation.
Let’s examine REALTOR.ca, a truly national real estate search site, MLS driven and controled by Realtors. Sound familiar?
Let’s look at markets in North America, Asia, Europe, South America and understand how the greater global economy can impact even the smallest local markets.
Let’s learn how brokers and agents around the world are retooling, relaunching and reacting to ever-changing global real estate markets.
Let’s understand how new technologies like smartphones, video and social media are knocking down traditional barriers and borders around the globe.
Global Connect will be all of that and more… Mark your calendars, we’re bringing the world to New York City, January 7-9, 2009. You can learn more on the Real Estate Connect NYC 2009 web site. With much more to come.
I’m also looking for speakers, topics and anything else FOREM readers can contribute. I’m honored that this blog reaches the far corners of the globe, and over the years I’ve had many conversations on line and off with readers from around the world.
So whether you’re in Rotterdam or Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town or Chennai, Tokyo or Toronto; if you’re working on a cool technology, doing something innovative with your business, writing a blog or just have a interesting new idea - let me know. I want to hear about all of it. I want to bring you to New York.
Please contact me at joel [at] inman.com or phone me at +1 (971) 228-5704.
This should be a lot of fun. Hope to see you there.
Google Insights for Search is a fantastic new tool that allows you to dig into Google’s search volume patterns to find trends.
While I think there are a lot of ways you can use this tool (see agentgenius.com), I think that for most marketers the geographic breakdowns will be one of the most interesting - mainly because it can help identify brand awareness in any particular location.
Let’s look at the national brand awareness of the big search portals:
iPhone 2.0 turned the iPhone from smartphone to full-fledged pocket computer. Applications continue to pour into the iTunes store and I’ve been experimenting with a lot of them. Here are a few of my favorites, practical applications:
Evernote - Need to keep track of all the contacts and colleagues you meet on the road? Scan their business cards with the iPhone’s camera and Evernote will scan in the information so it’s waiting for you in text form back on your desktop.
Pulawai - The power of location-based, mobile real estate search can be seen in this app. Bare bones for now, and the search results are pretty sketchy - but familiarize yourself with this experience… the future is here.
Yelp - Keep track of your online reputation in Yelp’s reviews with this handy app. Better still… find a good place for lunch when you’re out on the road.
Nearby - On a neighborhood tour with out of town clients? Top up the databanks with useful local landmarks pulled from Platial’s geobits. Better still create your own neighborhood tours on Platial and pull them up on your iPhone.
Sketches - Take a photo of a property you want to email to a client? Use Sketches to mark it up, add arrows and notes right on the photograph.
The biggest change is the search criteria, which were previously available on the left and right sides of the listing results and are now all above the fold. They are now, according to company PR, “completely hide-able” too.
Once expanded, the criteria panels slide from left to right. It reminds me somewhat of the Xbox 360’s dashboard tabbed interface which features 5 “blades” that also slide in and out.
The goal, I’m guessing, is to get people right to the meat of the search, the results, quickly and not clutter it up with too much extraneous information. Also notable is the map results now take advantage of Google’s new terrain image data and the map pins dynamically update as you view the listings.
Overall, it’s a pleasant experience. But it strikes me that it may still be a bit much for the average real estate consumer. The bigger issue here is that as more and more filters get added to Real Estate 2.0 search tools; neighborhood boundaries, school districts, keyword searches, I’m finding myself a little overwhelmed with options.
Ultimately the challenge for any of these sites, lies in creating a user experience that is both rich with data and pleasant, intuitive and easy to use.
Companies like Redfin, Estately, Trulia and Roost are all creating innovative new ways to present the massive amounts of data that is available to online searchers. But, in many cases, the rush to add even more features (fsbos, foreclosures, mls/broker listings, local context) to search results isjust adding more noise.
I applaud Roost’s attempt to ‘hide’ some of this features but personally I’m still waiting for someone to bring Google-like (or even Cuil-like) simplicity to real estate search results.
— Related Articles at Future of Real Estate Marketing:
Frontdoor.com, the upstart real estate search portal from media giant Scripps Network Interactive, continues to move forward. From their most recent press release:
Just six months after opening, FrontDoor.com, the real estate Web site powered by HGTV, continues to unlock home ownership information for users – now offering more than 3 million listings of homes for sale across the country.
Young buck Roost.com has about half that… but then they’re only live in a handful of markets.
Roost.com now provides consumers access to homes for sale in 26 major markets, over 12,000 cities and nearly 1.5 million listings in total.
Nothing from Trulia on how many listings they have but I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that they have… oh I don’t know… approximately 3 million listings?
— Related Articles at Future of Real Estate Marketing:
What’s impressive is that despite the gruesome economic news and horrific market conditions many in the industry are facing there is still so much innovation happening on the technology side.
I think this is going to be the big story of the latter half of 2008. It’s make it or break it time for many of the players on the list and those who haven’t raised a few rounds for a decent war chest to wait it out (see Trulia Gets Beaucoup Bucks) are going to struggle and probably fail.
— Related Articles at Future of Real Estate Marketing:
Deep Fork Capital LLC led the financing to top up Trulia’s reserves; Trulia’s other investors Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners and Fayez Sarofim & Co. also participated.
In the statement, Trulia co-founder and CEO Pete Flint said… well, he didn’t say all that much really…
““This additional capital will help us take advantage of this opportunity and continue our accelerated growth. This market is also a unique time to help real estate brokers and agents transition their marketing efforts and services online. In the coming year, we plan to roll out world-class products that will continue to transform the online real estate experience.”
Also found in the release - Trulia claimed it has:
Approximately 5 million unique users
100,000 real estate professionals as registered users
More than 3 million real estate listings nationwide
Over 70 million property records providing constantly-updated comparable sales
Trulia has now raised $33 million since it launched. That’s big money - so somebody definitely thinks there’s a payoff somewhere to be had. The only question is from where?
— Related Articles at Future of Real Estate Marketing:
So HD video might not be in your gameplan yet (see The Power of HD Video) - but video surely is coming.
I’ve been talking to Realtors and Brokers all over the country this year who are using video successfully in meeting and servicing buyers’ need and helping sellers market their homes (see Century 21 Puts Open Houses in Youtube).
And it seems large brokers are catching on and building video into their marketing plans too; just this week I saw a press release that East Coast brokerage Weichert, Realtors had announced a deal with Turnhere to add online video home tours to their website.
I wanted to probe a little deeper so I asked Morgan Brown, fellow Blogger and newly minted Marketing Director at Turnhere to answer a few questions about video.
How can real estate professionals use video in their marketing?
With such a large percentage of home owners starting their search for property online, using video in online listings is the first thing that comes to mind. Pictures are nice and descriptions are helpful, but there is no substitute to video for giving a user a firsthand experience of the property with a well-done video home tour. In addition to using video to highlight listings it can also be used to showcase neighborhood attributes and provide a profile of your business and team.
For example if you are a Realtor in the East Bay of California you can use video to highlight the quaint neighborhood of Rockridge and its beloved walking streets lined with local restaurants and shops. This content is ‘evergreen’ and helps people evaluating your listings get a true sense of the surrounding area.
Is appropriate for every listing?
I can’t think of a listing where it isn’t appropriate. Even properties that don’t have the most curb appeal can benefit from a video by capturing the attention of just the right buyer. Listings that are moving fast already and perhaps properties that rely less on online research for sales are exceptions to that statement.
Videos too expensive for most Realtors, right?
Professional video production is totally affordable for nearly all marketing budgets. Compared to traditional marketing channels it’s a bargain. It’s much cheaper than print materials, flyers, radio, TV, outdoor (bench and billboard) and other marketing vehicles.
What makes a good web video?
I think there is a big misconception out there that it is easy to make a good video. The fact is making good video that is compelling, authentic and relevant to the viewer is difficult. To wit, of the millions of videos watched on YouTube each day the average view time is less than 10 seconds. This is a direct result of most video not meeting the needs of the viewer.
When the viewer gives you permission to talk to them by clicking play you have to deliver, and deliver right away. To make good video for the Web (which is much different than traditional broadcast video advertising i.e. a :30 second TV spot) it needs to focus on three key things: authenticity, delivering a compelling message, production quality which makes it enjoyable to watch and drives action.
Bottom line is that web viewers have near-infinite choice for their attention and are typically skeptical. This means that your message has to be compelling, relevant and real. Over-produced sales pitches or videos that don’t meet the viewer needs are big turn-offs online.
What are some ways you can leverage the video content you create?
The nice part about video is that it’s a highly portable piece of content so you should look to get it out on the Web to get as many eyeballs to it as possible. Using a smart distribution strategy can put you in front of the right people at the right time. Whether it’s putting your video up on YouTube, Facebook, Active Rain or making it shareable via email and embeddable in a widget the idea is to get your video out there to where the viewers are.
Can you give us some examples of some of your favorite videos on the web? (Not those kind of videos…)
My favorite videos are ones that are compelling and interesting. They take a piece of everyday life and show it to you in a different way. I love to see the stuff that you don’t get every day in mainstream media. Show me the true character of a city by doing a tour of all the BBQ joints in town or show me the kitchen of the hotel that cranks out 1,000 four-star meals a day. Give me a clip of the author talking about why they wrote their new book. One of my favorite videos is the author David McCollough talking about how Washington escaped from the Red Coats at the site of the Brooklyn bridge - amazing insight that I would never get. I also love the videos of Mentos and Diet Coke so it goes both ways. Videos that give me a unique, authentic perspective on life are the ones that I love.
(Full Disclosure: Turnhere is owned by Inman News Publisher Bradley Inman)
— Related Articles at Future of Real Estate Marketing:
And while there are still complaints over the accuracy of Zillow’s estimates — the company itself refers to them only as “starting points” — the Zestimates are still arguably the most compelling feature on the site.
In the same way that Zillow brought transparency to home values, Fundrace is bringing it to campaign donations in this election year. The site (which first launched in 2004) has now been swallowed up by mega-news site The Huffington Post.
On Fundrace, you can search by city or zip code and see the results mapped onto a Google Map. You can see to whom and how much your neighbors have been contributing to political campaigns.
Frankly, it’s a little creepy, but I guess it’s all public information.
You can also search by company to see how their employees break out. So, of course, I had to start looking at the real estate category…
I have to say it felt a little weird searching for houses on Walmart’s site - but I’m not a regular Walmart shopper. And I had quite a few problems accessing the site too which dampened the experience.
But I think the greater trend we’re seeing here is that map-based real estate search is fast becoming ubiquitous.
Oodle’s platform and competitors like Vast which power these initiatives are easily deployed on just about any site and I suspect we’ll start to see even more online retailers leap on this band wagon too.
The challenge here is how do the dedicated real estate search portals compete with these retail giants?
Pretty paltry traffic in comparison.
And I wonder do people really care where they start a real estate search online? Is searching at Walmart.com any different from Zillow.com? Do people know that they aren’t seeing all the listings? Do they care?
These are some of the questions I’m wrestling with.
One upside is that it’s almost impossible to find the classifieds link on Walmart’s home page. So they certainly aren’t doing all they can to drive traffic there - no need to hit the panic button yet.
But like I said, I think this is a growing trend. Perhaps Trulia has recognized this and realized that building a single destination is a long, expensive process. Perhaps why they’ve built the Trulia Publisher Platform to enable them to power these kinds of partnerships.
So how ultimately can the real estate destinations compete?
It’s no longer about just getting the listings - listings are everywhere. It’s going to come down to context and content and providing a great experience. Something these white-labeled retailer sites can’t deliver.
On the flip side - agents you just got a bunch more destinations to advertise your listings. And I guess that’s a good thing.
— Related Articles at Future of Real Estate Marketing:
We’re only 4 days from the (much anticipated) launch of the new iPhone - but more importantly of the iPhone Apps storefront.
What does that mean for real estate?
When Apple first announced it was opening up the iPhone platform to native applications, I speculated we’d start to see new software that would run on the mobile platform (see Apple Releases SDK Kit for iPhone) and now we’re starting to see the first few trickle out. Over the coming weeks/months I expect this trickle may turn into a flood.
Here’s an app by CodeMorphic. It’s conceptual (i.e. pulls no real data) but the demo very slick - a brokerage wanting to make the leap into mobile or local MLS looking to offer new tools to consumers could easily rebrand this software.
Real estate search is inherently a mobile activity and the iPhone (which is more pocket computer than cell phone) coupled with advanced software like CodeMorphic’s AppFindr, is the perfect launching pad to start, conduct, modify a house hunt.
4 more days and we’ll start seeing more of this. Can’t wait.
— Related Articles at Future of Real Estate Marketing:
When Trulia launched its new ad network (see Trulia Launches First Online Real Estate Ad Network) it was an attempt to leverage their network of advertisers while providing a way for third party publishers to showcase their advertising inventory to larger brand advertisers.
It’s a proven business model that works well across the Net, as evidenced by the success of networks like Glam Media and Federated Media and niche networks like the Deck.
And to give credit where credit is due, it’s also a concept in the real estate space that blogger (and occasional FOREM contributor) Erik Hersman first brought up in his post on Realty Thoughts over a year ago (see The Need for a Real Estate Specific Ad Network).
(BTW - Erik walks the walk too and just built a fantastic ad network for the automotive vertical for Piston Media Group.)
So while Trulia’s network may have been the first, surely it wouldn’t be the last…
Now’s as good a time as any to start an ad network business, several panelists said. It’s like starting an Italian restaurant in New York. The good ones will thrive.
So whose business will last? Trulia or Cyberhomes? I suppose it depends on the depth of the advertising relationships both sites maintain and to what degree they are successful in getting publishers to sign up.
There’s no question there is a glut of unsold advertising inventory available these days with so many ad-supported web sites having been launched over the last couple of years. We’re also seeing dollars being shifted into web based advertising like never before So the one that’s able to marry those two needs might very well have a great business on their hands.
— Related Articles at Future of Real Estate Marketing:
