Trulia to Build New York MLS
Big news from Trulia today. They’ve really been on a roll lately and this one more feather for them to stick in their cap. Congrats to Pete and Sami, they’ve pulled off a real coup.
Trulia Selected by REBNY to Power New Residential Listings Portal for New York
The new portal will bring together residential property listings from REBNY-member real estate brokerage firms onto a single public Web site for the first time. Consumers will have access to the full complement of Trulia’s easy-to-use real estate tools including interactive market Heat Maps, Real Estate Guides and property listings. Trulia was selected from among six finalists under consideration to build the first real estate search engine dedicated exclusively to New York-based listings.
This could be the start of a whole new business for Trulia.
They’ve successfully built a very compelling consumer-focused real estate portal. Not perfect, mind you. But they’ve steadily been chipping away and adding inventory to their search results.
This will eventually cap out however, there’s only so many deals to be made. Building the best consumer real estate search site takes time, but only so long. So, it only makes sense they start exploring new markets for their technology. Consider this their transition from a B2C to B2B model.
Leveraging the backend and systems they’ve built to offer next gen, Web 2.0 search tools to regional MLS’ is a natural evolution of their business model.
I wouldn’t be see surprised if we start to see more of these private label sites pop up in the future as the MLS’ seek to upgrade their sites. Who better to look to than Trulia?
Thoughts on the Trulia/REBNY deal from sellsius real estate blog
Official Annoucement from Trulia Blog ยป REBNY selects Trulia to power New York search engine
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- From Hamptons - Manhattan - MLS - REBNY - HANFRA - MBOR - LIBOR « Hamptons Real Estate Blog | Mar 25, 2007
- From New York Times Online Real Estate Section to Become Extinct? - sellsius real estate blog - real estate, blogging, business, advertising, marketing, and technology | Mar 25, 2007
- From Real Estate Blogs | Jun 8, 2007
Incredible Agent | Mar 24, 2007 | Reply
That’s huge news. Once they’re done with NYC, what’s stopping them from doing it in other markets as well? Same problems, same inventory type. The only barriers will be the MLS boards. Good job Trulia!
Michael Daly | Mar 25, 2007 | Reply
It’s interesting to note comments from readers not familiar with the parochial nature of Manhattan (and Hamptons) real estate.
REBNY is, in fact, a competing board to the Manhattan Board of Realtors, which are Realtors (members of NAR) and use the MLS.
The REBNY Listing System (RLS) is a competing listing system to the MLS and currently has no public portal, like the MLS uses Realtor.com.
Interestingly enough, approximtely only 10% of the listings in Manhattan are on Realtor.com, the largest portal of real estate in the world (do a serach yourself and see) This Trulia deal doesn’t appear to change that. It is most likely intended to create ANOTHER competing public portal for REBNY members listings only.
The same is true for Hamptons real estate. The large firms in the Hamptons and Manhattan have resisted MLS and NAR membership over the years because they believe their real estate is so specialized, that the traditional associations and listing systems don’t serve them. And, oh by the way, that also means that they don’t have to make their listings available to anyone outside of their markets to show - you know, those nasty “bridge and tunnel” brokers for Manhattan and those horrid “up-island” brokers with “the hair, the gum, and the nails” for the fabulous Hamptons (pronounced “Humptons”).
It’s actually signifigantly more complicated that it appears and most certainly unfathomable to outsiders. What’s the opposite of Transparency? Pathological Control?