Cyberhomes Sneaks Into the Big Time
Inman News Blog has the news that Fidelity’s Cyberhomes has signed a deal with AOL Real Estate to power all of its home valuations. This is a big win for Cyberhomes, which has been steadily and stealthily rolling out new features and signing up brokers to get access to their listing feeds (most recently with Prudential CA/NV/Texas).
Cyberhomes may just end up the ‘dark horse’ winner in the Real Estate 2.0 arms race that is erupting between Trulia and Zillow.
Trulia’s betting its search interface will win out and that their listings will be the ultimate draw for buyers. While the site definitely is easy to use, it suffers from some glaring holes in its inventory and its strategy of handing traffic off to its broker partners may ultimately be its weakest link.
Especially as brokers develop better search tools on their own sites, and do a better job of converting and capturing some of those consumers that Trulia sends them. I know in my own home search I started on Trulia and then stayed on a local broker’s site because I found more listings there.
Zillow, on the other hand, is gambling that Web 2.0 social features will be the ultimate traffic drivers to their site. Unfortunately, I’ve seen little evidence that there’s much demand for this type of activity (see Zillow Flounders A Bit With New Release). I could be proven wrong on this one, but I have a hunch that the “real estate thrill” might be gone.
Zillow might be the most “fun” but it’s still chasing the average consumer, which is a very fickle market indeed.
Cyberhomes, meanwhile, seems to be splitting the middle and focusing on building out a very compelling and rich feature set. The site offers a deep source of data for anyone considering a home purchase. Thankfully it looks like they have resolved their browser compatibility issues too (see Cyberhomes AVM is a Total Joke)!
Cyberhomes seem to be focusing on the serious buyer and real estate investor. And in a down or turning market — when the average consumer is sick about hearing about falling home prices — that might just be the sweet spot.
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9 Comment(s)
2 Trackback(s)
- From Real Estate | Nov 30, 1999
- From kebmillard | kebmillard | Nov 30, 1999
Nice Job | Jul 12, 2007 | Reply
Kudos to Cyberhomes. They have really really really deep pockets to compete against Zillow and Trulia.
Two questions no one seems to be asking:
1) How is Cyberhomes paying AOL? For sure AOL is taking its pound of flesh and then some.
2) How come no one is chatting up the fact that Realtor/Move seems to be losing all of its portal partnerships? First, Yahoo and now, AOL. What’s going on in Westlake Village?
Tony Arko | Jul 12, 2007 | Reply
Nice breakdown Joel. I agree with your analysis. The one thing that all the sites lack is way to actually help people/agents sell homes. They generate leads and then sell the leads to agents. As an agent these leads are very suspect to say the least. Or they generate advertising revenue. But in the end, none of them really help get homes sold. It’s kinda like the last mile for telecom industry. How can they actually get buyers and sellers to come together and consumate a deal?
Louis Cammarosano | Jul 12, 2007 | Reply
Here’s a question for everyone- what does the company that “wins” the real estate 2.0 arms race get?
What constitutes winning?
Getting the most blog mentions?
Driving the most traffic?
Interesting enough, Zillow, the “front runner” in this faux race is driving increasingly FEWER visits year over year -at least according to Media Metrix, Compete.com, Alexa, Hitwise and QuantCast.
I won’t print the results charts that show the decline in Zillow’s traffic but I will ask all the gushing Zillow blogsters -if Zillow is adding the coolest features and “changing the face or real estate”, how come users are not flocking to the site in increasing numbers.
Does ultimate web 2.0 win by getting the most blog mentions?
Does profit matter?
Most telling to me is that of HomeGain’s thousands of agent customers, not one has called or written to me and demanded that we add Heat maps, community blogs, make me move features etc.
Even more telling is that HomeGain continues to drive between 4.5 and 5.2 million unique visitors a month.
Indeed, we will be releasing some cool Web 1.5 features and a redesigned web site soon, but all under the guise of serving our agents and staying profitable.
Until I understand what the winner of the web 2.0 arms race gets, Homegain is happy to take a specutator’s seat and see who blows up first trying to win…..
galen | Jul 12, 2007 | Reply
Tony – I like that question. I don’t think anyone really knows the answer, so they’re all hoping to get lots of eyeballs until they figure it out.
Like the last mile, the final bit of real estate is really messy. I think it’ll stay in the hands of individual agents for longer than you might expect.
John | Jul 13, 2007 | Reply
AOL has a history of doing light integrations with partners where they simply link off to the partners to power the experience in a co-brand environment. I assume they’ll keep this trend up and will simply kick the traffic over to cyberhomes. I sure hope cyberhomes improves their search experience before then, right now it is clunky and extraordinarily difficult to search for listings.
Cyberhomes may have access to all the data in the world, but unless they can display it in a meaningful, user-friendly way, it will be useless.
Rhona Sutter | Jul 13, 2007 | Reply
John- I think your point is spot on. Unless Cyberhomes and other sites similar to them can display all their data in a meaningful way it will be useless and if too much information is given and it is difficult to search the visitor will simply leave the site.
It will be interesting to see how much money the Venture Capitalists keep throwing at all these Web sites and what happens when they look for the next big thing.
Trang - The Legacy Group | Jul 13, 2007 | Reply
Louis,
for someone taking a “spectator’s seat” you sure comment in a lot of blogs and bash zillow, and all the other 2.0 companies.
Incredible Agent | Jul 16, 2007 | Reply
Louis,
I too wonder what it means to “win” the race. It’s almost as if profits & revenue aren’t a criteria. It’s just what’s the coolest idea/widget out there. I love all the 2.0 stuff as a user, but that doesn’t mean they can be turned into dollars in the long run. The trick is going to be converting all these “cool” features into “profitable” features. Which so far, doesn’t seem to be that easy.
Kansas City | Nov 29, 2007 | Reply
I’ll be keeping an eye on Cyberhomes — also, it is not necessary to pay for leads if you can produce them yourself. I wonder how many agents actually pay for the weaks leads that are being sold.