OpenHouse.com
While at the Inman conference last week, I met up with Ben Phillips, Managing Director of OpenHouse.com, a new site focused on supplying open house listings data, glaringly missing from most MLS systems. Although developed and managed by Realogy, OpenHouse.com is positioned as non-denominational and is encouraging any brokerage or agent to participate by submitting listings feeds. It's significant that one of the largest brokerages is developing an "open data" product for the benefit of the industry.
The impetus behind OpenHouse was to develop a user generated content site of open house listings and do away with all Realogy companies' print ads that were populating weekend newspapers. Ben says it saves the company several million per year. With the real mission of saving brokerages money (and of course, further disintermediating print media), advertising will be limited or non-existent. Realogy may benefit from owning a valuable online asset if OpenHouse.com does become a destination real estate site.
Will other brokerages adopt OpenHouse? Mass participation would be a signal that real estate brokerages are understanding the concept of free data, and are getting over walling off "proprietary" data as a competitive advantage. The new brokerage role is finding ways to get their agents to leverage all free data so they can provide the best possible service.
Apologies in advance for the blatant referral but I thought your readers might be interested in an alternative site. OpenHomez.com has the same features and will also syndicate/publish your open house listings throughout the Internet. If you have a feed prepared we'll load it into our data base for you. We're a free, non-denominational site and all of the links are back to your site, not ours, providing additional search engine exposure for your site. Post your data, your pictures, your links. You directly control the content. You can visit us at http://www.OpenHomez.com or read more about us on our blog at http://www.openhomez.blogspot.com/. Thanks.
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What this is not - will other brokerages Adopt this model. Realogy is late to the open data game - I would guess Re/Max was the leader in show all listings from all brokerages. Finally, Realogy decides or is forced to not limit the internet home buyers view of available open homes to tour on the weekend at OpenHouse.com
*"encouraging any brokerage or agent to participate" - is far from how OpenHouse.com was originally. The link referenced with my comment - Explains that OpenHouse.com has adopted the concept of free data.
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Kyle, thanks for alerting me to the fact that Openhouse.com was a Realogy only system when it started. Your TourSheet blog was excellent and I miss seeing update. I should have checked google citations more closely and noted FoREM's article on Openhouse last June.
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You know the site is a dud when even Realogy's own brands don't use it. I jst ran a search on open houses in a few major cities and little or nothing came up. This open house should be cancelled
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How was the show? I was not able to go, but I imagine there was some good insights. Anything for commercial real estate?
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I don't see commercial real estate on Inman's panels... commercial real estate is still so opaque, I think there should be at least one session on it.
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To be effective, a site like OpenHouse.com needs to be more than just non-denominational with respect to brokers and agents. It needs to be open to ALL sellers holding open houses, including FSBOs. Consumers primarily rely on the local newspaper for open house listings not because it's the most convenient and feature-rich resource available, but because in most markets it's the ONLY resource where they can see all of the open house listings. Until there is an effective alternative to the local newspaper for consumers--i.e., a site focused on the local market with a comprehensive listing of all the open houses--I think it will be difficult for "national" sites like OpenHouse.com to gain much traction. We are currently developing such a site in our local market. Check us out sometime: http://www.OpenHouseTrekker.com
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Not sure about this idea, in our market open houses are a hugh waste of time anyways.
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