Know Your Neighbors, Then Tell the World How Bad They Are
It seems that city level real estate search is so thoroughly saturated now (Trulia, Shackprices, Move.com, Homegain, even Zillow getting in the game) that next great trend for web 2.0 services is a virtual land rush to cover your neighborhood, even your street.
Neighborhood Crossing launched this week (see Bringing neighbors together with NeighborhoodCrossing.com) by offering to help you connect with your neighbors online. The motivation behind the site? Neighborhood Crossing says:
It’s strange: these days, you can know people across the world, and not know who lives two houses down the street. That’s why we made neighborhoodcrossing.com.Our mission is to help you turn your neighborhood into a vibrant, well-connected place.
It’s a good pitch. In my post Niche Networks and Marketing Real Estate, I wrote how home owner associations or condo stratas could build out a social network of home owners. And I still think that may have merit as an interesting marketing gimmick for developer or builder. Especially if it were built on an existing platform (Facebook, Ning) that could be quickly scaled up.
Neighborhood Crossing strikes me as service whose heart is in the right place but I just can’t see it going very far. It didn’t help that I got numerous ‘Error processing your request’ messages across the site either.
Ultimately a successful web site solves a problem. Finding an good aggregated source of real estate listings online was a problem (still is, arguably) and the web gods have responded by giving us umpteen different options to choose from these days.
Personally though, I’ve never had a problem talking to my neighbors. And even if I wanted/needed to connect with them I’m not sure it isn’t something that couldn’t be accomplished with a Yahoo Group or even a shared Gmail calendar.
StreetAdvisor, on the other hand, takes the neighborhood concept even further (see the post on Realty Thoughts) allowing people to rate your neighbors, the nightlife, noise levels, even the quality of mobile reception and internet speeds.
Interesting concept – I’m thinking of moving right now and access to decent broadband is definitely an important criteria in a neighborhood for me. The site is usable and designed nicely enough though it suffers from a definite lack of content. Nothing worse than when you go to a site and find nothing but the crickets chirping.
They were giving away iPods to stimulate street reviews – no sure that will help. They’d do well to seed the site with content, but that’s a pretty big challenge when you’re hoping to compile data on every street in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. It’s a lofty goal that might be better realized if they just focused on one city. How about Portland?
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- From Real Estate 2.0 | Nov 30, 1999
- From LeadCritic News > Real Estate News > Know Your Neighbors, Then Tell the World How Bad They Are | Jun 25, 2007
shaun mclane | Jun 22, 2007 | Reply
I made an attempt at this about 5 months ago for a community I sold homes in. I was one of the original sales reps for the neighborhood, and over 90% of the homeowners know me. I made the site, and added a forum section. To date, one person has posted to it. The neighborhood is struggling with the HOA, and I thought this would be a perfect way for people to open the discussion, but sadly, it’s just sitting there. I send a monthly reminder about the site, and it gets a few hits, but nobody participating.
Incredible Agent | Jun 22, 2007 | Reply
I agree Joel. I don’t really see a need to connect neighbors in this way. There really isn’t a huge void being filled here.
Roanoke VA real estate | Jun 22, 2007 | Reply
I’m not going to comment on the neighborhood portal thing but on StreetAdvisor. I think this is a big waste of time too. The ratings don’t really fit most of the streets in the area I live in. This is a small city where most homes are in the suburbs. Restaurants are on main drags and in the downtown area, not so much on quiet neighborhood streets. If I rated my street based on their criteria it wouldn’t be very high but it’s actually a great street. Quiet
TitleRep | Jun 22, 2007 | Reply
I notice that you and I are the only people registered in Portland on neighborhood crossing.
In my neighborhood, and in NE Portland in general, the neighborhood associations are very active and do a great job connecting and offering activities and events. So, yeah, not much of a need in my eyes either.
Toby Beavers | Jun 23, 2007 | Reply
People are so secretive nowadays with what’s happening in the real world (America’s Most Wanted, Cops etc) so any excuse NOT to meet is ok for many. Where I live in Charlottesville Virginia it’s the same. Neighbors wave but very little more is done even when dog walkers walk right by my home.
I grew up in a very fancy Fifth Ave coop in NYC on 93rd St and even when we got into the elevator merely a nod or demur hello was spoken.
It Was Strange…
Now I know this does not happen down in the hood though!
Everyone knows everyone’s business…
Cheerio…Toby
Marty Van Diest | Jun 24, 2007 | Reply
I was thinking about doing a neighborhood blog. But not sure it would be successful after reading Shaun’s comment. I was looking at a 500 lot subdivision that does not have an HOA. It would be a good way for them to connect. I would seed it initially and then hope locals would pitch in with posts.
I’ll do some more thinking.
havensofmanhattan | Jun 25, 2007 | Reply
I think all the social networking sites like myspace and facebook do well because of the vast numbers about people available to network and “friend.” It seems like a neighborhood social networking site would fizzle out due to the small number of possible people connected through it.
ken @ realivent | Jun 27, 2007 | Reply
did you guys see http://fatdoor.com/
looks like another one
Brian Copeland | Jun 28, 2007 | Reply
Havens, I’m in full agreement with you. I checked out virb.com last night also. It’s a very similar networking site.
Natalya | Jul 2, 2007 | Reply
hey monlnars how are you doing because i wnat to know everything about you and don’t be afraid of me okay. Well i would like to talk to julie and see hoe she is doing and she really needs to know alot about me because i’m a really good neighbor and don’t forget that about me okay.
Natalya | Jul 2, 2007 | Reply
hey molnars you might not sometimes be good neighbors because you don’t like to clean up your house and that is not cool.
TitleRep | Jul 6, 2007 | Reply
I got a package in the mail yesterday from NeighborhoodCrossing.com…
They sent 5 pretty nice looking door hangers with their website info on the front and a place on the back to write a bunch of info about myself.
I guess it’s a good way to their name out if people actually use the door hangers. Personally, I don’t see myself going door to door hanging these things with a bunch of info about me on them but some people might.
Either way, it was pretty creative…
JasonG | Jul 27, 2007 | Reply
As per havensofmanhattan’s post, that’s why Point2 NLS created our neighborhood application using Facebooks API. To try to establish a niche venue outside of one of the mainstream social networks is a very big challenge. It seemed to make more sense to us to create it as a sub-network within the main one. What do you guys think of it? http://apps.facebook.com/neighborhoods/
Nathan | Jul 30, 2007 | Reply
There is an app on Facebook that has a growing number of users and shows you how far others (or employees of your company) are from you. It also has the ability to post messages for your neighbors and tag yourself by interest so that it is easier to connect w/ folks. Check it out:
Your Neighbors
Tina Loos | Mar 18, 2008 | Reply
Hey Toby. I was just Googling info on your brother Nick. I used to date him in MN. The “Rogue” days. I miss him and feel so sad about what happened. I just wanted to say, “hello” and to say that I am sorry for your loss. He is missed.
Users | Nov 26, 2010 | Reply
THE BEST OPTION http://www.ratemyneighbors.net
Charlottesville Real Estate | Apr 6, 2011 | Reply
I would like to agree with you,it is not necessary to built a site like that. The normal way of getting to know your neighbor is still preferable for me,it will built much more connection and trust if you socialize with your neighbors personally.