Roost.com Kicks over the RE Search Cart
I do a ton of flying for business these days and one of my favorite travel search sites is Kayak.com (Farecast is another great search tool too). The idea was pretty simple – Kayak took a look at a crowded category on the Internet (travel sites) and told themselves they could do it better.
Roost.com, which launches today into public beta, is trying to do the same thing to real estate search. Coincidentally, the major investors in Roost (they received around $5 million in VC dollars to build the site) are the same folks behind Kayak.
So what does Roost think it can do better?
First and foremost – it’s fast. Blazing fast. The search experience is, quite frankly, awesome. Adjust a slider in a market and the property results update immediately through some slick AJAX. To attain this speed, properties are displayed in a standard hierarchal list. A map view is also available, but it been pushed to a secondary tab – and I actually don’t really miss it.
Additional photos of any property are viewed inline and through some more slick AJAX, can appear and disappear with the click of a button. Rollover any thumbnail and you get a popup of the larger image.
Secondly, it’s complete. My biggest issue with the other Real Estate 2.0 sites is their incompleteness. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great sites; but the bottom line is that Zillow and Trulia don’t have all the listings and until they do, I just can’t recommend them as a tool for consumers or buyers. Period.
Roost, on the other hand, is not striving for national coverage. As CEO Alex Chang put it when I spoke with him last month, “We don’t want to launch nationally and be lame.”
Rather, Roost has cultivated partnerships with local MLS’ and brokers’ IDX feeds to provide complete coverage in each market it enters. It reminded me of the approach another of my favorite search tools, Estately.com, has taken.
Unlike Estately however – which only works in Washington State – at launch Roost will be live in 14 markets. These include Atlanta, Baltimore, Boise, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis, Orange County, Philadelphia, Portland, Sacramento/Modesto, Washington D.C. and San Diego. Chang expects by the end of 2008, they will be in close to 40 markets.
How it works is, in each market, the search results are sponsored by an individual broker (e.g. “Portland listings brought to you by…”). As a consumer, if you want more information on any particular listing, including contact information, all the traffic drives through to that sponsoring broker’s site.
Every market however, can have an unlimited number of sponsors and the sponsors rotate in based on the amount of traffic they have bought. This is perfect for some of the smaller brokerages that may not have many listings to market themselves (and therefore can’t participate in Z or T’s listings feeds) but are still looking to court buyers online.
Roost also offers those brokers a co-branded/private labeled search interface they can embed into their site too.
Personally, I really like the approach Roost is taking. (And as a buyer myself right now, especially thankful they chose to launch in Portland!) Like Estately, I think they may have very well nailed the right mix of best of breed search and having the total package when it comes to listings.
They have a bit of catch-up to play in terms of building their consumer traffic; Z and T have a good headstart – but just like Kayak, I think I may have just found a new favorite.
31 Comment(s)
6 Trackback(s)
- From Is Roost.com roosting on the brass ring? Start-up Realty.bot comes to market with two firsts: MLS listings and a business plan | BloodhoundBlog: Real estate marketing and technology blog | Realtors and real estate, mortgages, lending, investments | Jan 23, 2008
- From Portland Oregon Real Estate Agent Blog » Roost: A High-Flying Real Estate Search Engine | Jan 23, 2008
- From DallasDirt » Blog Archive » Roost Spreads It’s Feathers In Dallas | Jan 23, 2008
- From The Odysseus Medal competition — Voting for the People’s Choice Award is open | BloodhoundBlog: Real estate marketing and technology blog | Realtors and real estate, mortgages, lending, investments | Jan 27, 2008
- From Roost is a new real estate search engine | 3 Oceans Real Estate, A Boutique Real Estate Brokerage Serving the San Francisco Bay Area | Jan 27, 2008
- From The Initial Reaction « A Bird’s Eye View | Jan 28, 2008
Todd Carpenter | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
It might have been fast for you. But I think the site just crashed on me. It’s 3:30 AM right now. Maybe they are not open to the public yet.
Looks pretty cool though.
Mike | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
Looks interesting. Much more user friendly than Zillow I think.
Alex Chang | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for bearing with us Todd
We’re working through some small issues that you only run across once you actually bring it live. Performance should improve significantly throughout the day.
kingfisher | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
I’m not sure I understand. Where is Kayak’s advantage over Realtor.com. Today, next month, or next year, what is game-changing about it. Kayak is cool because I save $5 per ticket over Expedia by going direct to the airline site, which is something Kayak enables. I also think they will be hard-pressed to have sponsors advertise when the flagship sponsor/partner gets all the default traffic.
kingfisher | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
Roost I meant
Cockledoodledoo | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
Roost just crashed my browser. So much for experiencing all the AJAX based features. I did manage to see how many New Construction and FSBO listings were in there. Guess what? None.
The big difference with this site is that it’s a real search engine. Once you’ve done your initial search and get some results, to learn anything more, you are clicking off. Their CPC model will have to work because there are no page views to sell ads on. Most of the other RE 2.0 players at least keep you on their site for a couple of clicks before linking off. Roost is much quicker about sending you to the broker sites. The lack of national coverage hurts. I don’t live in any of the markets they are in so I was left poking around in my parents’ neighborhood.
I think their real competition is Vast becuase Vast gets its listings from IDX too, and it’s a pure search driven model.
Makes you wonder what’s going to happen to the eNeighborhoods of the world.
Incredible Agent | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
Sorry folks, but I don’t see this as big news. In truth the only reason it’s getting any pub is because it’s linked to Kayak/VC money. Money talks. Otherwise there’s nothing special about it.
Estately is doing the same thing, Vast is doing the same thing, others will be doing the same thing. Listings are becoming a commodity and this is only one more way to get them. The difference will be made with who gets the most traffic and who has the best business model. Right now I don’t see brokerages or agents paying for CPC and I certainly don’t think consumers will ultimately dig the experience.
In truth, we could put a site like this out in about a month with at least 8 IDX’s with AJAX, etc. for free to our broker partners. If it’s that simple…it’s not a big deal.
David | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
I liked it! The layout is easy to read and follow, the filtering is easy to understand. Overall, I think you have a great thing going here Alex! Ajax and everything else worked fine for me.
Andrew | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
real estate search is broken. nothing new here. site is slow and they have that map search bs i hate. Speed is everything – this site needs work. prob will never gain traction.
LivePads | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
Seems to be working fine for me as well. I think they have an innovative concept here and will continue to build on that. Be curious to see how they market this to home buyers; being the market is already over loaded with many different options to search for a home today.
retrove | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
“My biggest issue with the other Real Estate 2.0 sites is their incompleteness. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great sites; but the bottom line is that Zillow and Trulia don’t have all the listings and until they do, I just can’t recommend them as a tool for consumers or buyers.”
This is 100% true. The reality is none of these sites are “search engines”. They are simply advertising platforms with a search component.
A search engine is supposed to be transparent – taking you directly to the source without filters. This roost experience is close as Cockledoodledoo pointed out but it’s still just an advertising platform since it’s not really indexing outside sources.
The market currently has over 6 million listings and most of these sites provide access to just a fraction of total available listing. As a consumer if you based a purchase decision on only a fraction of listings you may miss out on a better opportunity just around the corner.
ak mls | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
I don’t get this real estate search category and why VC’s are throwing millions of $$’s at it. In RE, unlike other industries, you can search virtually everything (residential at least) in the MLS or IDX-enabled sites. Why does there need to be another aggregator?
Kate | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
Just looked up a couple of our listings on the site. In both cases, the click through to get more details went to another broker’s website instead of ours. This aspect certainly needs addressing. Begs the question of what other information might be incorrect?
Gerry Bourgeois, CRB, CRS | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
Hi Kate,
I believe that is their business model. They will send the traffic to whichever company is willing to pay for the ‘click’ (i.e. Feature Broker’s Site). In the search it shows the listing Firm’s name (only). To view more details you land on the Featured Brokers Site.
Not sure what the $$ is. I inquired this AM via e-mail but I’ve yet to receive a response.
Kevin Boer | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
Also experiencing some performance issues with the site, but I’m willing to cut them some slack in the first couple of days of a launch.
I like the fact that they’ll have all the listings in each area they launch in, but I’m also skeptical about the business model. RE Search is rapidly becoming a commodity, and it’s not clear there’s room for yet another player.
Their interface is cool, but I have to wonder whether “cool and fast” will be enough to make people switch from their current search engine?
Robert Moreno | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
Wait a second!!
This is a Prudential Real Estate website.
http://prurealty.idx.roost.com/web/realtors.action
Look at the URL. So is Inman plugging the big real estate website and not giving the smaller companies any due?
I see the larger corporation real estate companies begining to push the little guy out just like the corporate farmer did to small farmer.
We need to get John Mellon CougarCamp and Willie Nelson to do a benefit for us!
Lots of this corporate website, blogger invasion. They are locking up the website and bloggs so their agents get stuck into them forever. They will own your database and contacts without you even knowing it!
Better look out agents of large corporations..they will have you by the balls if you try to leave.
OnlineFreak | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
I don’t get why this is so exciting. It looks like yet another website trying to show listings, yet not able to provide all the listings in the area. Realtor.com has all the listings offered by Realtors. If I want to see all the listings offered by owners, I’ll go to a fsbo site.
Nope. It doesn’t cut it for me. It doesn’t even have listings in most of the country!
Joel Burslem | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
@Robert Moreno – Quite the opposite Robert. As far as I know, Roost will work with any broker, regardless of size. In fact, Roost’s offerings will likely be very attractive to the small guy.
MLSwatcher | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
The idea of a site using a broker “sponsor” to gain access to IDX listings, and then selling ads around those listings has been tried before (see Homegain) …. and failed.
Once the MLS gets a few complaints from member agents/brokers, the MLS yanks the IDX feed faster than Web 2.0 real estate sites are currently folding. Most IDX rules explicitly forbid selling advertising on IDX listing diplay pages.
The VCs need to spend a little more time doing their due dili instead of drooling over how much of the $60 billion RE commission market pie their “industry transforming” start-up is going to capture. Good luck Roost.
Jay Thompson | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
@Robert Moreno – Roost is *very* willing to work with small independent brokers.
@MLSwatcher Roost isn’t selling any ads. They are sending visitors to brokers sites when they click through a listing. The only branding on the Roost feed is the broker’s…
MLSWatcher | Jan 23, 2008 | Reply
This violates the spirit of IDX – that listings will be displayed on broker/agent sites, not third party sites.
Roost is the latest clever scheme from VC land in the game of “how do we get listing data from Realtors, and then sell the traffic the listings generate back to these same brokers/agents.”
See Realtor.com, Trulia, now zillow, homepages, etc.
How many times will agents and brokers (and their MLS directors) fall for the scheme and give away our content so we can buy it back?
One thing I can say with 100% confidence- without listing data, Roost will generate exactly zero visitors and zero pageviews….but don’t forget, the listing data is a commodity that has no value…yeah right!
For Sale By Web | Jan 24, 2008 | Reply
Consumers will continue to go where they’ve always gone until something comes along that saves them money or gives them free money, or offers great entertainment. I see none in Roost.
Still waiting for the IWON.com version for real estate search. I know it’s coming.
Andrew | Jan 24, 2008 | Reply
As a big fan of Kayak, I have high expectations for Roost. The UI is cool, the whole slider functionality to narrow down search results in AJAX is great. I originally noticed this type of UI on Bluenile.com and thought it would be great for real estate too.
David G from Zillow.com | Jan 24, 2008 | Reply
Hi, it’s David from Zillow;
MLSWatcher -
Please note that listings data arbitrage is not Zillow’s model. In Zillow’s case it is Zestimates, access to property records and our community of users that first attracted a massive audience to our site (i.e. not listings.) Only once millions of consumers came to love and use Zillow.com did we begin to offer agents and brokers the opportunity to market their listings to them.
We believe that a publisher should create (new) value for its advertisers. As you look to partner with media companies it’s important to be skeptical and to ask them what they bring to the table – and to be able to recognize those media companies that have something unique to offer you.
MannyMo | Jan 24, 2008 | Reply
RE search is clearly not a 400 meter sprint. It is a marathon of quite a few years, where only those adding real value to consumers & RE professionals will survive.
That said, I want to congratulate Roost for giving it a shot.
And just for the record, most websites run into technical problems since day 1. It happend to Zillow too– on their first day.(http://www.zillowblog.com/were-now-stable/2006/02/)
Christian | Jan 24, 2008 | Reply
Tough crowd…it’s like startup pinata around these parts.
Alex Chang | Jan 25, 2008 | Reply
Alex from Roost here. Wanted to make a couple points/clarifications:
- Roost is really two things that work together. First it is a network of IDX compliant broker sites on the Roost platform. These are either sub-domains on Roost or domains owned by the broker if that is required by the local MLS. Across those sits a powerful and intuitive search engine for consumers to search for homes for sale. All of this combines to drive qualified customers to Realtors who can then convert them to leads under their own brand
- We specifically built the platform to be open and inclusive of all types & sizes of brokers. And you’ll see from our partners that we already have a nice mix of large brands and small independents
- Like anyone trying to innovate and offer a new marketing channel in this space, we will only succeed if consumers find what we have compelling, and more importantly if those consumers turn into transactions at a compelling ROI for our partners. This is the challenge, and of course, the opportunity.
Finally, one thing that I feel gets lost in a lot of these dialogues is that IMO all of this innovation and competition should result in more powerful/efficient/effective marketing options for both brokers and agents. Most new companies in this space are competing to provide the industry more efficient marketing than was previously available (as opposed to trying to disintermediate) and just like competition generally benefits consumers, it should ultimately benefit the industry.
RE observer | Jan 25, 2008 | Reply
One thing that is very big that nobody has mentioned is that Roost has zero chance to ever enter the NYC real estate market because there is no MLS there. It’s going to be hard enough to gain traction in a crowded market, but to do it while completely ignoring the country’s #1 market and media hub is like running a race in concrete boots.
slappy | Feb 16, 2008 | Reply
Weeks after launch, I still find the site to be unusably slow. Any idea what the root of the lag is? Seems like a useful site once it loads.
Garret | Feb 29, 2008 | Reply
I like it! Intuitive, wickedly fast. I’m in the market right now for a new house. Yes there are a lot of other sites out there. I have tried most of them. I’m using these guys right now as they have figured out how home buyers search.
Hawaii Life | May 23, 2008 | Reply
I agree with Joel, I think this is a very attractive solution to the small guy. We are looking to expand our software that runs http://www.hawaiilife.com.
For any broker interested in receiving leads, let me know.