Trulia A Pimp?
A scathing review of Trulia.com from the new real estate 2.0 blog
Its pretty simple, trulia is a pimp – and if you feed them all of your listings, you are a whore.
Fightin’ words, but the author does make some valid points, I’d encourage you to read the full post.
Despite recently winning the Best Real Estate Search Site award from readers of this blog, I’m getting increasingly concerned about Trulia’s status among the pantheon of real estate 2.0 sites.
To build on realestate20’s argument, the only reason a broker or agent would want their listings on Trulia is if it is a highly trafficked/ well-recognized real estate destination – and while I see a lot of emphasis from Trulia on building relationships and awareness within the industry, I see little to no promotion of the site outside of the industry and to the general public.
They must be blowing through their $5.7 million in VC funding pretty quickly and as far as I can see they still haven’t even made much of a push into the most expensive part, building consumer awareness.
The problem is, that if I were going to put my listings on their site, the first thing I’d want to see is some indication they were going to be seen. I’d want to see a fully developed marketing/advertising plan. I’d want to see some sign they were busy building the brand. And I haven’t really seen this yet.
I realize this becomes a bit of a chicken and egg problem (no listings, no brand / no brand, no listings) and I’m not ready to count them out just yet, but I hope to see much more from Trulia real soon.
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anon | Sep 18, 2006 | Reply
Would you put your listings up on Zillow if they offered it? imho, Zillow is at least building the brand… they’re definitely the heavyweight right now.
Richard Johnston | Sep 18, 2006 | Reply
The only place I’m placing my listings is on my local Realtor MLS system. Then my listings show up on Realtor.com and other IDX systems. Any buyer or seller using other sites to view homes or an idea on what their home is worth is a complete waste of time.
Jack Wimberly | Sep 18, 2006 | Reply
As the owner of a real estate advertising/marketing firm in the Silicon Valley, I’m quite unimpressed with my “neighbor” Trulia’s lack of interest in exploring B2B possibilities.
It seems they are, as the original post and blogger indicate, interested in generating VC revenue over exploring lasting viable and profitable business relationships.
Time will tell…