Portland MLS Changes Rules on Address Display.

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In a move reminiscent of the current US election campaigns, Roost, the MLS-driven real estate search engine released a series of YouTube videos today showing how its results best those returned by Trulia, Google and Yahoo.

Check ‘em out.

Trulia

Google

Yahoo

Roost’s conclusion? That using these sites “homebuyers waste tons of time searching through homes that aren’t actually for sale.”

The company, which previously released a commission report claiming its search superiority (see Quantity, quality vary at real estate search sites), seems to be hammering relentlessly on this point. It remains to be seen whether it’s a message that resonates with consumers however.

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photo by Ewan-M

Reposted from Inman News blog:

UK readers, mark your calendars. On October 16th in London, industry professionals will be gathering with Inman News publisher Bradley Inman at 6pm at the Windmill Pub in Mayfair. It’s being hosted by the good folks at Nestoria and you can read more about the gathering on the following blogs: Nestoria Blog, theRatandMouse, Globrix Blog and Renthusiast.

Similar meetups will be held in the following European capitals:

Amsterdam - October 23rd (stay tuned to nieuwbouw20 for details)

Paris - October 27th

Berlin - Date TBA.

We hope to see you there! If you have any questions about any of these events; please feel free to email joel [at] inman.com.

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Compiled by the folks at GlobalEdge, a list of the top 100 bloggers and real estate journalists from around the world makes up The GlobalEdge Top 100.

Their methodology, from their site:

This list was compiled by searching Google’s top 100 results using terms like “real estate blog” and “property news”. In this respect it is biased towards English-language sites. We also searched the blog rolls of some of the biggest blogs in the UK, US and to a lesser extent the rest of the world to add to the list. It took us several weeks to compile a list of over two hundreds sites. We then used the SEOMoz Trifecta tool to rank the importance and notoriety of the sites most relevant web page (we link to the page we ranked).

As a result, the list is a curious mishmash of news sources, portals, blogs and other web-based sources but interesting nonetheless. I picked up a number of new sites I’d never seen before.

This blog comes in at #35 and it’s nice to see some other familiar faces in the mix too; Geek Estate Blog, Saint Paul Real Estate Blog, the Tomato and the Phoenix Real Estate Guy to name just a few.

Looking for some more international flavor for your readers? Check out  The Rat & Mouse for peek into the UK Market, the always interesting Renthusiast and, for slice of Oz, Business2.com.au.

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Not a dedicated app, mind you. But if you visit ColdwellBanker.com on your iPhone’s Safari browser now it’ll pull up a specially formatted version of the site.

They’re not the first company to do this (Realtor.com has an iPhone-ready page, as does Intero) but they are, as far as I know, the first to launch a major marketing campaign advertising this fact.

The app itself looks great and is nicely thought out and pretty functional. You can search for current listings and, like Trulia (see iPhone Real Estate App Showdown), open houses as well. Search results return reasonably quickly on both WiFi and 3G.

The individual listing pages are fleshed out, though not as tightly integrated with multimedia as Utopria’s (see Utopria Brings Property Listings to iPhone). You can see all the photos associated with the home however. Clicking on Map Property link will bring you immediately to the Google Maps application for driving directions.

Unfortunately, because it’s not a dedicated app, the overall usability of this function gets a bit frustrating. Getting back to your search results requires several taps back and forth to switch between the map and the browser.

Also, CB’s tool does not seem to tap into the iPhone’s location awareness capability which seems a bit of a shame - you still need to tell it where you want to search.

Probably the biggest issue however is that (perhaps not surprisingly) ColdwellBanker.com on the iPhone only returns CB listings from Realogy. Unfortunately, since you’re only ever seeing a fraction of any market’s listings, this severely limits the app’s use for consumers. As a result I can’t see many people turning to this tool beyond mere curiousity, despite the fancy ad.

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At the recent TechCrunch50 event, Japanese company TonchiDot demo’d its new iPhone application called Sekai Camera to wild enthusiasm.

TonchiDot’s idea is to use the iPhone camera and location awareness as a mobile information interface. Using the Sekai Camera application you can tag real-world locations and simultaneously view the tags shared by other users - Tonchidot calls it “Air Tagging”.

It’s a heady concept and to really understand how it works, you need to watch this video:

I love their slogan that ‘Real space is the new interface to the Internet’. Kind of mind blowing when you think about it.

And it brings up obvious applications for real estate. Imagine a real world property tour (boots on the ground, walking through a home) where you could instaneously access Zestimates or property data, read individual tags on the features in a room or listen to audio clips describing the amenities through the Sekai Camera terminal.

It’s still a few years away of course. But a very cool glimpse into the future nevertheless.

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photo by paulhitz

A weak dollar and fire sale prices have all led to strong interest in US real estate market by foreign buyers.

Whether it’s Russian oil billionaires in Manhattan, Asian buyers on the West Coast or Canadians seeking warmer climes in Phoenix, international investors are eying US properties these days and US Realtors are perking up to that demand.

Trulia, which has enjoys decent international traffic, is now making an active push to help those agents reach those potential buyers (see How Can I Reach out to International Home Buyers?).

In principal this is not terribly unique, since most ad platforms offer
some sort of geo-targeting capability. As an advertiser on Trulia you can now opt to display specific ads only to Trulia’s international visitors.

For example, a San Francisco based Realtor might want to run a Chinese language ad to Chinese visitors or, alternatively, a Phoenix based Realtor might want to run a Beer and Hockey themed ad to Canadian visitors. (Go ‘nucks!)

The real challenge is going to be get the right messaging and in many cases, get the advertisement and listing information translated into the appropriate. Immobel is one company that offers translation services for real estate.

I think it’s smart for Trulia to position themselves as US based alternative for Realtors looking to market overseas.

There are other international-based options out there (GlobalEdge maintains a great list and so does Simon Baker’s Property Portal Watch) but this is the first dedicated effort I’ve seen by a local portal to tap that need.

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High profile Finnish search portal Igglo.fi is gone. Kaput.

The company was founded in February 2006 by entrepreneurs Jussi Nurmio and Mikko Ranin and in 2006 Benchmark Capital Europe invested 12.5 million euros in Igglo to help them fund their expansion deep into Europe.

But that investment now looks all for naught, as Igglo declared bankruptcy in February 2008 (see Wikipedia) and just last week, according to Forbes.com, ceased its brokerage operations and sold its web site to Finnish publishing house Sanoma Group.

Igglo was one of the very first online brokers and web sites to incorporate Web 2.0 technologies, winning it many fans at the time, including Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman who, whose company sought to be bring Igglo’s novel auction idea to the US (see Redfin Corporate Blog).

The news that Igglo has exhausted its capital and folded, is not particularly comforting then. And I wonder if it’s just the tip of a cresting wave for many of the venture-funded real estate plays both here and abroad.

That said, it may not be the last time we see Igglo. According to Sanoma’s press release on the acquistion, Nurmio insists “Igglo will focus on its core competence, developing online business and internationalizing the service. This transaction provides Igglo with an excellent platform to take the housing portal concept abroad.”

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Maybe it’s the dominant position that MLS.ca (recently rebranded as Realtor.ca) occupies in the market, but real estate search north of the border seems to have been stuck revving in neutral for a while.

Zoocasa is a new free Canadian real estate search engine that aims to kick it in to gear. Zoocasa covers the Canadian market from coast to coast and marries real estate search with research tools, like neighborhood guides and listing comparisons that are aimed at home buyers.

The site does a few things really well. The search queries are fast and results are returned quickly. The site’s pale blue, Web 2.0 palette is a little predictable but not obnoxious.

Individual listing pages map the home with the obligatory Google map and the expected property details (only one photo however!). A unique touch is their Commute Cost Calculator, where you can punch in the address of your work, the fuel consumption of your vehicle and average cost per litre of gas and Zoocasa will return an estimated average fuel bill for your commute.

US search site Estately recently introduced the ability for people to search for homes along transit lines (see Estately Comes to Portland) and we see services like Walkscore that calculate the walkability of particular neighborhoods (see Measuring Walkability with Walk Score). It seems, for a certain segment of the population, these sorts of environmental factors are weighing in on the decision making process.

On a similar note, I wonder if at some point we’ll see Energy costs alongside Property Taxes in the listing details. And how long it will be till we see search sites that allow us to filter out McMansions from our real estate searches (see Are McMansions Making Some Americans Unhappy?)

The only problem with Zoocasa is that its database of homes is pretty slim, probably since it has been cobbled together by indexing brokers sites.

For example, a search in Vancouver, BC:

• REALTOR.ca (MLS driven) pulls up around 5500 homes for sale
• Zoocasa pulls up only 2481 for sale.

Also unclear is the site’s business goals. Other than display advertising there doesn’t seem to be a clear revenue model, though I suspect if the site builds enough traffic amongst Canadian consumers, we’ll eventually see the same sponsored listings and zip code sponsorships its US counterparts display.

Despite it’s glossy Web 2.0 shine and its solid performance - Zoocasa is going to have a hard time knocking MLS.ca off its perch. That said, if it can jump start a better search experience for Canadian consumers (Century21.ca is about the only other decent search experience I’ve found) then the race may be on.

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photo by other war

Yawn.

Don’t get me wrong. I think a Zillow Ad Network makes some sense.

And unlike Valleywag, who calls it a “desperate ploy to make sales numbers,” I do see some value in publishers aggregating their advertising inventory for potential real estate advertisers.

I’ll go on the record, I don’t think this is a Hail Mary pass for the Seattle-based search site.

…But it has been done before. Trulia launched a similar deal earlier this year. And, as Valleywag points out, vertical ad networks are a dime-a-dozen these days.

More worrying to me is that it feels like Zillow has lost its edge.

The take-no-prisoners approach Zillow had when it launched now feels anachronistic. The whole thing now feels mainstream. The fire is gone.

Honestly - I had not been to the site for a while. But I went to Zillow.com today and when I got there I was surprised. Is it just me, or is the whole thing looking slightly more subdued now?

Scrolling mortgage rates, a big search box (and hey, where’d the Zestimates go?)… yawn.

What makes me sad is what Zillow represented when it launched was a big inspiration for me to starting this blog.

It was about thinking big and challenging well-entrenched assumptions. It was a big, ballsy play and ultimately, it was aspirational, however controversial it may have been. It was technology unsaddled by expectations. It was the future of real estate marketing.

So it saddens me to see one of the Real Estate 2.0 leaders tack to the center and become generic. But maybe it’s the current business cycle that is forcing Zillow’s hand.

More deeply however, I guess what I’m really sad about is the whole site now just feels… well, kind of boring.

Yawn.

I, for one, hope they can find that fire again.

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