Too Busy to Search? Turk it Out Instead
RealEstate-turk.com launched today and is an interesting new service that leverages the power of a distributed user base to complete one of the most unpleasant real estate-related tasks online, finding a new home.
Much like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, RealEstate-turk is all about crowd sourcing your home search. For a flat fee (pricing to be announced separately) “Turkees” on the other end of the service troll real estate search sites like Zillow, Trulia, Frontdoor and Realtor.com to find potential homes for you and email you listings as soon as they find them.
It’s really very simple, you provide basic information (city, State, bedrooms, pricing, etc.) through a secure form to RealEstate-Turk.com and they farm out the criteria to an army of overseas workers connected through a common search interface. When one of them finds a match for your search criteria you are automatically emailed with that listing. You can also subscribe to an RSS feed of all the properties they find.
I think this is a service that has real potential.
Say you’re too busy to find your own home… why not let a crowd of anonymous Internet users do it for you?
The popular book 4 Hour Work Week talks about outsourcing your inbox and I think RealEstate-turk.com is the next logical step following the same methodology. As our lives get increasingly busier and busier, finding efficiencies (wherever they may be) will ultimately be the secret to more productive days and more productive real estate searches.
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Stacey Derbinshire | Apr 1, 2008 | Reply
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
Stacey Derbinshire
Incredible Agent | Apr 1, 2008 | Reply
Sorry Joel, I am tired of all these april fools jokes. You got to release them at least 1 day before the big day or else you won’t catch me.
Max Christian | Apr 1, 2008 | Reply
Brilliant! (Though it doesn’t reflect well on real estate technology that I actually fell for this for a few moments…)
marc | Apr 1, 2008 | Reply
I must need more coffee because you had me. Well done.
Dave | Apr 1, 2008 | Reply
What a great idea, the lazy man’s search engine.
Dave | Apr 1, 2008 | Reply
What a great idea… the lazy-man’s search engine.
Richard Dale-Mesaros | Apr 1, 2008 | Reply
Woah Nelly!
Farming out your Zillow and Realtor.com house searches to an army of overseas search junkies?Brilliant! Now comes the fun part….. how about having them do the same thing on CRAIG’S LIST – AND, dare I say it, do your Craig’s List posting for you. Now there’s an idea! Here’s to the 4-Hour Work Week for providing us with the inspiration.
Yours buried with craig’s list postings,
Richard
Chief Deal Weaver
http://www.BlackWidowNetwork.com
Landflip | Apr 2, 2008 | Reply
This sounds like an interesting product. It sounds like real estate agents are going to need more and more computer skills to keep up with advertising. Other than the fee for using the service, will an agent still show the house?
Julia | Apr 2, 2008 | Reply
LOL, isn’t that what an agent is for?