Halstead Property Adds Manhattan Neighborhood Reviews
Photo by pinhole
I really dig this. New York based broker Halstead Property partnered with New York Magazine to provide its online reviews to the real estate company’s web site.
Check out their neighborhood profiles for Soho or Greenwich Village, for example. Great information that’s very valuable to the consumer. I think this brilliant move for Halstead and it’s an interesting trend for a few reasons.
First, it seems that brokers are increasingly interested in aligning themselves with established publications to bring a degree of authenticity and consumer name-brand recognition to their destination sites. Case in point - Realogy is in the midsts of rebuilding an entire real estate company around the Better Homes and Gardens brand. Why do this? Quite simply, because these brands resonate with consumers.
The reality is that, to many, there is still some cachet to “dead tree
media” - and the brokers may be waking up to that. These sorts of deals
are a natural differentiator in any market.
It also signals to me that more brokers are waking to the reality that they themselves are media publishers and therefore need to start acting like them. Inking content deals for their sites is part of that, but so is exploring trends like syndication and distribution for their own content (i.e. listings).
Secondly, it’s a brand new revenue stream for local media publishers. With the real estate brokers, they have found new customers who are hungry for neighborhood content to add to the on-site experience for their web visitors. I fully expect to see many more examples of this in the future, as media look to mine their archives for syndication opportunities as their advertising revenue scales back; Portland Monthly magazine could decide to license its Best Neighborhoods reports (PDF) to a Portland broker, for example.
It’ll be interesting to see where this all goes.
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Marc Davison | Jan 29, 2008 | Reply
Great points Joel. The power these trusted media brands bring to the brokers table are invaluable especially when it comes to providing decision support content such as reviews. In the wake of Web 2.0, where everyone has an opinion and a forum to publish it, it’s almost impossible for the consumer to find content they trust.
Realtor generated content carries some modicum of merit but tends to be viewed as advetorial and consumer generated review content is great but unreliable especially within the context of decision support in the home buying process.
Well known media publications, with unbiased coverage, written by professional writers would be the content of choice.
Your insight here is dead on!
Gato Callejero | Jan 30, 2008 | Reply
congratulations i like this blog, nice content
edherson | Jan 30, 2008 | Reply
Hi Joel, It was good to meet you at the NYC RE Connect. Did you catch my panel? http://www.realestateconnect.com/ny08/marketing.aspx#tech
I see that you posted on Halstead. That’s th efirm I am a VP at and the feature is very cool and useful. We are integrating with reputable information aggregators and the results are good. Please keep posted fo rmy new blog too! I’ll semd you the link. Best, Ed
andrew | Jan 30, 2008 | Reply
Great way for local publishers to montetize their content in new ways. Local brokerage firms have the need to keep content fresh. Co-branding with a local media company can only help.
Sandy Ward | Jan 30, 2008 | Reply
Loved your take on this site… simple and powerful with tons of room for growth!
Keep up the good work…
Jason Brown | Jan 31, 2008 | Reply
Fresh content is critical and that’s why many agents have quit expecting it to be done for them and started to make it happen on their own.