Coldwell Banker Helps You find your “Dream Home”
Coldwell Banker introduced a fresh take on real estate search today with the launch of its new web site at beta.coldwellbanker.com. Besides a tarted-up user interface, the new site offers a couple of intriguing new ideas that I think push the innovation needle in the right direction.
The first of which is the new site now knows where you live. It uses your IP address to figure out where you are searching from and automatically offers up properties from that area. IP address detection itself isn’t particularly new, but I like that the team behind the site are thinking of ways that it can be used to help streamline the real estate search process for consumers. What I’d really love to see however, is for this idea to be taken even one step further by integrating the location awareness built in to the new Firefox browser (see New Firefox Brings Location to the Browser).
Most notable however is CB’s new Bluescape search. Here’s their description from the press release
…allows consumers to give a ‘thumbs up’ or a ‘thumbs down’ to various images that are displayed – similar to how popular music sites learn users’ preferences based on how they rate different songs. After rating various photos, consumers can then submit a query and the BlueScape technology will identify homes that might be a fit. Developed to help consumers actively looking to purchase a home as well as those still in the “dreaming phase,” this visually driven approach to search is new to the real estate category.
The tool works exactly as described. You’re presented a series of seemingly random “lifestyle” and real estate related photos; photos of mountains, pools, different styles of homes etc. You give each photo a thumbs up or thumbs down rating and after a period of time you can ask Bluescape to return your results.
The process is actually kind of fun (although the music got a little annoying after a while). Presumably, the more photos you rate the more accurate your results are. But it would be nice if the site gave you some indication of how many images a user needs to rate before good results are returned. Personally I just kept clicking until I couldn’t take the music anymore.
The results Bluescape returned were definitely intriguing – and at a national level the results were fairly close to the images I’d flagged. When I filtered the results to my local area however, things got a little rougher. For some reason, Bluescape recommended I live in a strip mall. Hardly what I’d call my “dream” home.
I’m not sure this is a problem with the algorithm behind the suggestion engine or if it was just my taste in photos. Very well could be the latter.
In any case, despite a few little glitches like this (and the fact the site doesn’t play nice with Safari web browser), it’s great to see a brand like Coldwell Banker thinking creatively and outside the box when it comes to real estate search.
The goal for any real estate brokerage in the coming months is going to be how to differentiate your real estate search site from the sea of Google Maps and pushpin clones that exist out there. Finding your own unique take, or angle, on search while staying true to your brand will be the most challenging, and rewarding task ahead.
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Jay Thompson | Dec 3, 2009 | Reply
I played with the “Bluescape” search earlier today. It was cool, and fun, and kind of interesting (and yes, the music was annoying) but I’m not so sure it’s really a viable way to find a home.
Seems more like eye-candy for the nerdy types.
Craig | Dec 3, 2009 | Reply
We have lost our way with technology in real estate. So much cool stuff. Every minute there is a new website, a new mobile app and something to help everyone find a home. Not sure it’s working as expected though.
Mike Hale | Dec 4, 2009 | Reply
It’s cool, but in itself doesn’t appear to be too accurate or effective. It’ll probably bring people to their site to try it which never hurts!
The music can always be muted (thankfully!) I could do without the moving pictures though. Takes too long for them to fly in and out one at a time like that. Ii would be more effective (for both their users and the search algorithm)if they displayed 2 or 3 contrasting pictures (city, suburban, country etc) at the same time.
Safari has less than 5% of market share and it about to be overtaken by Chrome, so I doubt they’re too worried about a few fancy features of their site not working for it.
Liz Voss with San Antonio Real Estate | Dec 4, 2009 | Reply
I like the idea they’re thinking outside the box, but sometimes the KISS rule of thumb needs to be followed. The sight looked good, but I have my doubts as to how many people will use it vs. REALTOR.com check the box which provides faster results.
Leawood Homes for Sale | Dec 5, 2009 | Reply
I got an error message that said “Internal Error”. I’m on a Mac with Safari… not sure if that is an issue or if Bluescape is just temporarily down.
Jim | Dec 7, 2009 | Reply
It’s a very novel way to search for real estate, although many of the properties that showed up were well into the seven figures (and none were in my home town of Minneapolis, MN) which is a bit outside most of my clients ranges. Maybe they need to have some different pictures that help set price range. Overall, as a Coldwell Banker Burnet real estate agent, I applaud my companies attempt to be different in the home search game
Gainesville Real Estate | Dec 7, 2009 | Reply
While interesting, I wouldn’t exactly call it ground breaking. It still relies on data feeds and photos from the local MLS’s to be adequate and accurate.
Mark Washburn | Dec 7, 2009 | Reply
The presence feature based on the location of your IP address is really cool and something that you take for granted on a smart phone. I also really like the way they offer up other similar listings, this is a capability that is missing from most IDX vendor offerings.
Scott Nachatilo | Dec 9, 2009 | Reply
I think this new site will help a lot of people to find in an easy way of where they can locate their dream house. Real estate business should really come up with this kind of technology for the benefits of many consumers.
Scott@Financially Free Landlord
Brenna | Dec 31, 2009 | Reply
Good information, thanks for the post.