Online real estate reality check
A guest post from Tim Fagan, CEO of HomeFinder.com
A while back I was in the audience at an industry conference when a woman on stage asked this question: “At the end of the day, do any of these online real estate companies really help anyone buy or sell a home?”
My initial reaction – as someone running one of “these” companies – was to dismiss the question as gratuitous, and dead wrong.
She’s just trying to provoke the audience. We provide all kinds of information on our site – of course we’re helping. And that’s what a REALTOR is there for anyway. So what’s the problem?
But the question kept creeping back into my head in the following weeks, prodding me to dig deeper into our value proposition and think about what it would take to answer “yes,” unequivocally.
How could we at HomeFinder.com – and, for that matter, my colleagues and competitors elsewhere in online real estate – provide a more essential service? And while our REALTOR partners would always be the ones who would get properties bought and sold, what could we do to help them get to that goal more efficiently?
Doing this, of course, would not be easy. The online real estate category is a crowded place. Consumers can view listings on myriad sites, all of which offer functionality that is strikingly similar. A set of standards and best practices has emerged as a result – which is good – but with that comes a pressure to stick to proven formulas, familiar features and accept assumptions as to what an online real estate site should and should not do. And that can be quite limiting.
So how do we move forward? I don’t have clear answers yet, but here are some things I believe to be true:
We need to take more risks
This sounds trite, but it’s true. When is the last time an online real estate company did something that made you think, “Wow, that’s gutsy?” Putting real estate listings online in 1994 was gutsy; Zillow took a big risk offering home values online ten years later. But who’s sticking their neck out now? It’s been awhile.
At the beginning of 2009, we expanded from being a technology provider to major newspapers across the country, previously known as Homescape, to rebranding as HomeFinder.com and growing our business to become a world-class home search and information site. While this is a goal we continue to strive toward, the HomeFinder.com name change was both a catalyst and reminder of not only what our site and our competitor sites offer, but also what consumers truly want — to find a home.
Granted, this isn’t Page Six material. But we’re relatively new to the game and that also puts us in a position to more easily escape our own history than others. That’s an opportunity I plan to capitalize on.
Online real estate needs more big moves.
It’s not just about a house, it’s about living a life
Having all the listings – including FSBO’s – is something we at HomeFinder pride ourselves on. But we need to understand that for most people, the house is just part of what goes into a decision to live somewhere.
To make that important decision more effectively, consumers need to get a sense for what lies beyond the four walls of the home they see on the screen. Sure, most sites offer school ratings, basic demographic information and some high-level housing market data.
But today we can go beyond that. The emergence of the “Real-time Web” allows us to capture what’s happening now in any given place, to hear the ambient noise of a neighborhood. The number of new APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) makes exciting mashups of place-based images, video and data possible in ways we could online imagine just a year or two ago.
It’s time to innovate in these areas.
A more effective model: better connect home finders with home sellers
Recently, a small storm erupted over a pornographic advertisement appearing on Realtor.com. While this was entirely inadvertent (apparently the result of an error in their ad serving system) it did underscore a point: The largely ad-based online real estate category often delivers a less-than-optimal user experience.
Ads, featured listings and the like can be quite effective for our agent and broker partners. But for consumers, they often just get in the way.
How can we deliver a better experience that gets consumers where they want to go more efficiently, while also placing our broker and agent customers in the right place, at the right time, on the right platform?
We’re working on some of the answers at HomeFinder.com as I write.
Call to action
In the end, the conference panelist’s question was not an annoyance – it was a call to action. To deliver even more value to consumers and practitioners. To rethink the online real estate formula. To challenge ourselves to question those things we take for granted.
I do not have many answers at this point, just directional notions like those I list above. But I’ll get there.
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Gainesville Real Estate | Oct 29, 2009 | Reply
I agree completely. The issue however is that most Realtors aren’t in touch with technology and most IT people don’t have a passion for real estate.
We innovate by writing our own crm software and have dramatically improved the user experience. BTW – Nothing is more irritating than popup ads on Realtor.com
Not too sure about any new ideas for national re sites right now, but there is a lot to capitalize on the local level for Realtors up to the technical challanges.
stewart taylor | Oct 29, 2009 | Reply
I live in Florida and I’m into Flipping Houses. I couldn’t do what I do with out the use of online real estate companies and other real estate related websites. Where I live we have the local MLS available for all the public to view. Of course you don’t get 100% of the information, but non the less it is a very important tool in my business.
Thanks. Nice site. Great info and insight. I will bookmark for later.
Ted Lesher | Oct 30, 2009 | Reply
I am a Buyer’s Agent. I think generic real estate sites have one primary value to the prospect who is almost always a buyer, not a lister: They help the buyer communicate with a local knowledge expert about the kind of house they think they like.
Other than that, the current listing- based business model is preoccupied with soothing and placating home sellers as a “modern day marketing tool’ (cheaper than print ads) and as a lead generator. Nice pictures but It’s content is relatively useless.
My new personal strategy is to know lots about my state-Florida; know about everything going on in my town, Palm Coast, in great detail; know my neighborhoods,gated and not; be real good at searching for a specific house profile-whether listed or not; and know how to research and negotiate a low price. And know how to create and use custom videos to communicate with buyers.
I provide my services for a negotiable fee and credit commissions earned to it. When the industry breaks cleanly into only fiduciary listers and fiduciary buyers agents who compete with each other we will begin to develop some consumer credibility. Am I leading edge or bleeding edge? Time will tell.
John | Oct 30, 2009 | Reply
Tim,
Great post.
“Consumers can view listings on myriad sites, all of which offer functionality that is strikingly similar.”
This is exactly how I feel as well. And how much of the information is just pure noise? The real estate listing site really needs to offer something both innovative and truly useful for the consumers.
Claudia Gonella | Oct 30, 2009 | Reply
I’d love to hear your view on Google’s real estate move today – real estate is now just a click away in Google maps – here is the update from Google: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/10/more-more-more-real-estate-in-google.html
I agree with your point that online real estate is more than just about listings. Does Google’s street view, transit information etc deliver the kind of experience you describe in your post?
Reamark | Nov 2, 2009 | Reply
In seller’s markets, often they show only one home. After all, how many homes does one family need?
Some buyers will keep looking for years, but buyers who do that aren’t motivated. A motivated buyer will find a home within two weeks. Good real estate agents will listen to the buyers needs and arranges to show homes that fits their expectations. Your agent should preview homes before showing them to you as well.
Property Listers | Nov 3, 2009 | Reply
Great article. It makes me want to think of ways to further reach out to the needs of the buyer and seller. We need to be more gutsy and stick our neck out.
Tim Fagan | Nov 3, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for the comments, all. Claudia, as for Google’s improvements to their listings database, I think this is a big step for them in creating an better search experience for consumers (vs. their Google Base application which I always found clunky and with spotty data quality). I do question, however (as I have done in the past with portals) Google’s ultimate commitment to the real estate category vs. other online media firms (HomeFinder, Trulia, Zillow, Homes.com etc.) who do nothing but serve real estate professionals. But we shall find out.