10 Kick Ass Real Estate Search Sites
Ten of my favorite real estate search experiences on line today.
Regional Brokers
Big Brands
National Brokers
Redfin
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53 Comment(s)
10 Trackback(s)
- From Joel lists 10… « 4realz.net | Feb 21, 2008
- From The Little Website That Could | Redfin Corporate Blog | Mar 4, 2008
- From What A Real Estate Website Should Be « The Notorious R.O.B. | Mar 6, 2008
- From Century 21 reaches out to Consumers with Web 2.0 « Internet Marketing for Real Estate | Mar 18, 2008
- From 10 Kick Ass Real Estate Search Sites | Mar 31, 2008
- From HawaiiLife.com receives top rating for search interface | Hawaii Real Estate Blog | Apr 16, 2008
- From What will real estate search look like in 2010? | 1000Watt Consulting | Mar 24, 2009
- From Hawaii Life Makes Me See Paradise | Future of Real Estate Marketing | Apr 6, 2009
- From HawaiiLife.com receives top rating for search interface | HawaiiLife.com | Apr 7, 2009
- From Agentpress Launches Wordpress Themes for Real Estate | Future of Real Estate Marketing | Oct 26, 2009
Michael Wurzer | Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
Joel, I’d love to know what you liked about each of the sites.
Tim Ayres | Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
What, no MLS.ca? A national MLS® for all of Canada, now that’s kick-ass!
Andrew | Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
Only problem with all these sites is that it takes forever to do search and get results. I want fast results.
Anthony Longo | Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
No love? I was for sure our new Boston site would make the list this year! (http://boston.condoDomain.com)
Corri | Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
Joel, I want to reiterate what Michael asked. Is is something they all have in common?
To be honest, there were a few that I thought had terrible mapping functionality, were too slow and really didn’t give the consumer a seamless, exciting, fast process for finding a home.
Just my two cents.
me | Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
For real estate in europe and parts of asia check http://www.properazzi.com
jeffX | Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
All great choices, indeed…
It would seem that someone should/will offer such robust (and slick) search UI’s via an agents IDX feed, indigenous to their own site…location agnostic, plug and play style…
Andrew | Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
Definitely like the slidebars on blueroof.com. Noticed that roost.com uses this too. Anyone know about the .NET components for this? The UI is good for most of these sites. But in terms of search experience, consumers want more than pretty pictures and maps. Real estate analytics drive decisions too. Something to look forward to in the future.
Greg Tracy | Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
We’ve found that most people want a great experience and would rather wait an extra 1.04 seconds during the search to have a really great web experience.
Consumers are tired of templates and form-filled data collection or “stealth” sites.
Offering a fun experience adds to the chances that the consumer will want to work with you.
Corey | Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
Shameless plug.
http://idx.diversesolutions.com
Pete | Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
PropertyMaps – http://www.propertymaps.com
Guy @ Sawbuck | Feb 18, 2008 | Reply
Joel, thanks for including Sawbuck in your list. As the new kid on the block, it is great to be well-received by those who spend all day, every day thinking about real estate online. We’ll keep working hard to increase our kick-assiness.
Movoto Real Estate | Feb 19, 2008 | Reply
Thank you for including Movoto in your list of good websites. We have expanded our California regional footprint to include Massachusetts, and will continue to cover additional areas.
Joshua Ferris | Feb 19, 2008 | Reply
I’d love to see a post of 10 Kick Ass Real Estate AGENT Search Sites. It’s not just the juggernauts of this industry who can create online real estate search bliss.
John | Feb 19, 2008 | Reply
While we genuinely appreciate being included, we are not content nor complacent. Most of these comments are dead on .. speed, content, ease, and excitement (the ultimate achievement)are what we are finding in usability studies. Change is afoot, and we hope to be in your Top 10 next go around.
Jason Brown | Feb 21, 2008 | Reply
Yes, half of them were great but I doubt a few of those would generate a repeat visit. Not that I’m not grateful for you for sharing them! Thanks.
Patrick | Feb 21, 2008 | Reply
Those cool. Being a Century 21 guy very pleased to see the inclusion on what I agree is a super consumer site.
Angel Caballero | Feb 21, 2008 | Reply
Cute, extremely cute sites. Amazing investments in incredibly complex user interfaces.
But wonder what Jacob Nielsen would say about’em
I agree with Jason. It takes so much time to find a property. What about the simple table-based listings. Do they hurt or something?
What I one want to browse all the properties in a particular search. Do I have to remember all the icons I’ve clicked so far?
What if I could not afford a very wide broadband connection?
What if I am in front of a 800×600 display?
Look at Craiglist in CA, or inzoco.com, or idealista.com in Spain. They may look horrible, but people like them and they are tales of success.
Sorry for my english :/ Best wishes from Spain!
Hawaii Life | Feb 21, 2008 | Reply
In response to Andrew, our site is extremely fast. To us, speed is everything. Please take the time to check out our site.
THANKS JOE!!! We put a lot of hard work and effort into the site. It really means a lot to be included in this list.
Robert Lockard | Feb 22, 2008 | Reply
Excellent list! I just want to suggest one additional Web site to include as one of the best search sites online: http://www.luxuryrealestate.com. This isn’t exactly a regional site, like many of the ones on your list, but it is the best place to find luxury properties in the United States and in 100 other countries around the world. I highly recommend checking it out.
Jodi Summers | Feb 22, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for the update.
It’s great that you let us know who is excelling in turning content into sales.
What criteria did you use?
It would be great if you’d share the love with my two sights – http://www.SoCalInvestmentRealEstate.com – is commercial while http://www.SantaMonicaLandmarks.com is residential. Both are content rich.
They are complimented by a suite of blogs
- http://www.SoCalIndustrialRealEstateBlog.com
http://www.SoCalOfficeRealEstateBlog.com
http://www.SoCalGreenRealEstateBlog.com
http://www.SantaMonicaPropertyBlog.com
Funny, I was on the Century 21 site this week looking for agency contacts in Sherman Oaks – I didn’t get the contact information I wanted needed.
Thanks for keeping us up to date,
Jodi
Bucking the Real Estate Trend | Feb 23, 2008 | Reply
Great list… I want to be on the cutting edge too! Have to graduate from RE Tomato school first I guess. Love reading your posts. Thank you.
Susie
mrsfairview | Feb 25, 2008 | Reply
The century 21 website has only operational since December, 2007. There needs to be time given to work out the “bugs”. I think that it is awesome to have such a new site to be on Joel’s list.
Furnished Homes | Mar 2, 2008 | Reply
Great technology and kudos to the developers. Here’s a new site worth taking a look at – try the auto suggest feature to locate properties in the text boxes – really have not seen anything out there like it -
http://www.furnishedhomes.com
We enjoy your posts – thanks
Jeff Manson | Mar 5, 2008 | Reply
A couple of those are really cool site, but not sure what you see in the JL Scott site. Really nothing special there. Some of the have really neet map features and search, but they are really slow and kind of hard to use…
Josh Martin | Mar 25, 2008 | Reply
http://www.propsmart.com is another visual map based search engine that allows agents to provide free property listings.
Rich | May 14, 2008 | Reply
How’d you miss our kick ass condo site – Condo.com!!!
Erik Peterson | Jun 13, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for the list, very helpful.
Real Estate SEO Man | Aug 19, 2008 | Reply
Great list, like the first commentator, I too would like to know what is you liked about each site.
Frank LLosa- Broker FranklyRealty.com | Sep 25, 2008 | Reply
You missed one. http://www.FranklyMLS.com We just hit the 4 million listing page views in 2008. 4 times more than your Innovation winner.
Low tech (fast) is the new high tech.
Frank
Broker FranklyRealty.com
Owner FranklyMLS.com
Ashwaria | Nov 4, 2008 | Reply
Great List
Thanks for the list, very helpful.
Neha | Nov 4, 2008 | Reply
Great technology and kudos to the developers
ken | Dec 10, 2008 | Reply
Windemere has a new version of their website. It is nowhere near as good as the previous version.
Robin Taylor Roth | Apr 15, 2009 | Reply
Jodi …
For Sherman Oaks, you’d have to use the CENTURY 21 US website, http://www.century21.com.
The Top 10 site is CENTURY 21 Canada, http://www.century21.ca, which is very fast, and has marvelous features for consumers.
… Robin
foreclosure expert | Apr 29, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for forwarding this useful information about your favorite real estate sites. It will make the searching job of many easy.
bob stoneburner | May 14, 2009 | Reply
Jeff,
I helped design the mapping UX/UI for the JohnLScott site. The original plan did exactly what you suggest. We built a plan to offer agents websites based on 1 of 30 templates (similar to Agent Achieve) that appeared to be independant, but were actually an extension of the broker site. This would have allowed JLS to provide full NWMLS inventory on every agent website along with a feature that allowed the agent to zero in and define their market area and set it so an interactive map search was localized. It also included a CRM system which took user web behavior into account and was able to classify target clients as hot, warm or cold leads. Sadly the plan was scrapped half way through as the brokerage was concerned about getting into the business of training and supporting template driven agent websites….Pity, the plan was awesome.
Charles | Sep 9, 2009 | Reply
You should check out http://www.spacesearch.com It is a real estate aggregator with mapping and some fairly complex results filtering. The site is still being tweaked but the search is fully functional.
Roger ( Realtor SEO ) Grant | Nov 1, 2009 | Reply
Thank you so much for your this blog it’s great to find “luving” bloggers who care and are interested in sharing G Juice!
Where you aware that the more comments you get the better your blog will rank with the big G?
Anyway well done and keep up the great (hard) work of maintaining your blog.
Investment Real Estate | Nov 6, 2009 | Reply
This would be a great article to update every year, to see who is the latest cutting edge real estate site.
Mike Lautensack | Dec 8, 2009 | Reply
very intersting – i have been in real estate for almost 10 years and have not heard of many of these sites – i will take a look at several and leave some feedback on which are good
Mike
Round Rock Realtors - Jacci | Jan 13, 2010 | Reply
Like Mike, I’ve been in real estate for 15 years and have not heard of all of these. Thanks for the list though.
Billie Hillier | Jan 21, 2010 | Reply
I agree, template and stealth sites are everywhere. I like to see an pleasing site with easy navigation – it makes me want to stay on it. I personally have no patience for sites that are not.
Billie Hillier | Jan 24, 2010 | Reply
Great list! A few new ones that I haven’t played with yet – yea! New toys!!!
Round Rock Realtors - Jacci | Jan 29, 2010 | Reply
Yeah I did the same thing… Spent a few hours going through each site.
Prcanj | Feb 2, 2010 | Reply
Generally the larger databases are just too slow to search through to be of use. You get what you pay for it seems.
Real Estate | Feb 2, 2010 | Reply
Really great. Is the list just a random or is number one the real number one?
Real Estate Living | Feb 3, 2010 | Reply
Nice websites! Thank you for sharing this up!
The Precision Team | Feb 18, 2010 | Reply
Great list. I would add:
http://www.MyArizonaLiving.com
The LakeFrog Team | Feb 20, 2010 | Reply
Hi Joel – For lake homes, you should check out LakeFrog.com. LakeFrog.com is a dedicated lakefront and lake area real estate search engine, allowing real estate professionals and home owners to connect with potential lake home buyers across the United States for free!
Silicon Valley Real Estate Team | Feb 21, 2010 | Reply
It’s great to see how what was relevant one day, week or month etc changes with time.
I too have not heard of all of these sites…but at the same time there is just so much information out there…and the internet is growing so fast. There are always new platforms and types of networking and social media popping up. It’s hard to stay on top of it all!
Don
RAI | Feb 24, 2010 | Reply
Always a sucker for these list blog posts. They never get old! I’d love to see an updated one of these for 2010 since it is Feb and all.
Gomer Homingway | Feb 28, 2010 | Reply
Interesting selections. It appears that you favor the ‘mapping’ search over simple search. http://www.gohoming.com hopes to make this list next time. Our research indicates that mapping is more of an ‘opt-in’ user feature than providing it explicitly. Although it looks great, it is not always effective or desired by the end user. Also, based on research, users just want to get to results and find homes. There are often too many refinements on results but rather a selective refinements until a more narrowed result set is appropriate. Usability is often overlooked.
10top | Mar 7, 2010 | Reply
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