Comments on: Big Shakeup at HouseValues

By: Santa Clarita Valley Real Estate Guide: Web 2.0 is changing Real Estate again...

Santa Clarita Valley Real Estate Guide: Web 2.0 is changing Real Estate again... — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 19:21:39 +0000

[...] HouseValues got a lot of people talking this week. Questions about the long term survivability of the company echoed through the blogosphere, much of it spurred on by the grumbling of ex-employees.As one of the highest profile real estate 1.0 web properties, I believe HouseValues’ troubles are ultimately a result of the macro changes that are happening right across this industry. It’s pretty clear. Real estate professionals are no longer the gatekeepers of information.On the surface however, HouseValues has not evolved. It’s main sites JustListed.com and HouseValues.com still treat consumers and real estate agents like children and are obviously little more than lead capture tools. Homepages.com is so confusing and poorly designed, it borders on being virtually unusable.In the past, there may have been few other options to turn to; but consumers these days have many more friendly data sources to choose from – Trulia or Zillow, Redfin or Shackprices, and Cyberhomes just to name a few. HouseValues, who built their business selling leads on to agents, is under the very real threat of losing that business as consumers and struggling real estate agents wise up. [...]

By: HouseValues | generalsearching.info

HouseValues | generalsearching.info — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 09:43:28 +0000

[...] Big Shakeup at HouseValues HouseValues also announced Wednesday that President and Chief Operating Officer Clayton Lewis will be leaving the company, joining a parade of executives ? including Mark Jancola and Jun Choo ? who have left in recent weeks. … Related: • Big • Shakeup • at • HouseValues [...]

By: Realtio

Realtio — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:45:21 +0000

Analysis: The Condition of HouseValues Own House…

Online lead generator HouseValues has been under fire lately. New layoffs, disgruntled customers and employees, and the exit of its COO and mortgage lead business. In case you missed what’s going on here are a couple of links: 1. Shake……

By: Eloise

Eloise — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:43:36 +0000

Businesses like HouseValues do not have a sustainable model. Such businesses take advantage of boom markets that are always cyclical. Think about what they do. To a large extent, people, curious about their neighbor’s home prices visit websites like those of HouseValues and input unreliabe information. HV-type businesses vigorously market to real estate agents promising sure leads. Some agents for for the bait only to discover sooner or later that it is like playing the lottery and try to quit. The penalties for quittinf are stiff. How does HV handle supplying customers with leads as fewer and fewer homes go on the market? What happens to an agent who says, I am dissatisfied with your service and want to quit? I am not surprised at the downsizing.

By: Ken

Ken — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 23:53:54 +0000

Theirs is a dying model where they pimp the consumer for contact info and sell it to the real estate agent. It seems to me that a model like that is only sustainable with an everlasting budget for PPC. I think a deadpool is a great idea.

By: Steve Leung

Steve Leung — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 23:53:21 +0000

There’s definitely going to be consolidation in the online real estate industry, but it’s not a huge surprise to HouseValues stockholders that there’s an executive shakeup. Skiers would call the price curve a double black diamond.

By: REBlogGirl

REBlogGirl — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:00:29 +0000

Wow, that kind of executive overhaul seems to be a hallmark of disaster to come. I sure hope those boys know what they are doing… Much like the above comment, I wonder what this will mean for companies like Trulia, Zillow and Redfin.

By: Calculator

Calculator — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 23:51:44 +0000

I’d put Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin in the deadpool before HouseValues.

HV is in trouble, but they built a business that was very profitable up until the last quarter, and they are sitting on a huge pile of cash. If they invest that money wisely they will thrive.

Zillow and the other newcomers have never been profitable and are bleeding cash, and they have far less cash to figure it out than HV did. At best one of Z,T,R will survive to be a profitable company, IMO.

By: Rory

Rory — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 22:07:06 +0000

I know that there is currently an active effort from within our MLS system to establish and enforce rules about MLS data being used by the business models such as HV.

There is a problem if I, as an agent, take a photo of a listing, only to have a site display the same photo in order to sell me back a lead!

Not that this is the exact case with House Values, but perhaps their partners in ideology.

By: Incredible Agent

Incredible Agent — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 21:47:03 +0000

Definatley interesting news in our space. They say they’re out of the mortgage business game, but I wonder how much they were in it to begin with. It didn’t seem like they really went after the mortgage industry with full force.

As far as a death pool. I don’t think they’ll be closing down shop anytime soon, especially with $100m in annual revenue. They have some great branding and serious assets that will carry them thru for at least a few more years.

Who knows, maybe Zillow will buy them out after they IPO. :*)