Real estate search technology is overrated
The real estate industry is the search technologists' siren's song. They find a better way to search and look for applications to industry verticals. They see real estate, with its complex data parameters and believe that any iteration that makes search a little bit easier will become the consumer Holy Grail. In addition, they perceive the industry as a cash cow with agents and lenders, etc. making commissions of 4 to 5 digit fees, and believe it's more lucrative to capture a small % of these huge fees than to apply search to lower fee capture products like dating or retail.
Of course, the reality is simplifying search doesn't matter to the consumer. They want data credibility... consumers eventually figure out that they need to visit various sites to cobble together what they perceive as comprehensive listings data (remember, if you're a real estate professional who read blogs, you know MLS services, Trulia and Zillow paint partial pictures, but the consumer doesn't know this). Dothomes has a unique "search by site wrapping" technology that helped its cause with its recent news that it has doubled its US coverage to over 2 million listings. Although sliders and other bells and whistles are neat, the differential advantages of an advanced search tool are lost on the consumer (case in point, has anyone ever used Google advanced search?
Here is another search company with a real estate play - TransparenSee is displaying its demo on its fuzzy logic search capabilities for real estate listings - it just expands the query's search parameters to include comparable listings. There has to be something more than fuzzy logic to get consumer traction.
Related article:
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Pat:
I kind of like the Transparensee search and have a lot of clients who would relish it.
Wonder if they plan on marketing the technology to IDX providers--or is it a standalone offering?
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Roberta, I like your feedback... you're more astute than any consumer at seeing how fuzzy logic can enhance listings search, and you see the business model - I think it's a platform play, not a standalone offering which would require a marketing budget.
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In reality, it seems like every day I am contacted by a company that wants to sell me another search system for my site. I have been using basic search technology on a basic site since 2002. In my opinion all consumers want, and need, is the ability to simply put in their criteria and hit the search button and receive the matching listings. The easier this is for them the more consumers use my site and ask us to help them buy a home. I think these tech companies that are creating the next best technology need to spend some time in the Real Estate trenches actually using these tools to create business. With a visitor to lead conversion rate around 20% simple has been steadily proving to be better.
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I think many consumers have started to use google (simple search) for their holy grail of real estate search.
I used to think that when the consumer arrived at a real estate site, they would use the search tools on that site to find all they were looking for. Recently, I have noticed an increasing trend in my site's analytics that more and more people are coming to my site based on MLS numbers and property addresses directly from Google - how much easier can this get?
Maybe Google's 'custom search engine' or CSE is the answer in disguise? Certainly, if you could add Google Base functionality to CSE, this would be an outstanding front end to the consumer search experience (once on a site).
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Mitch, your anecdote on site analytics reflects what I also think about real estate search... the default is Google to direct the consumer to the other search sites... I would estimate it takes the consumer a few weeks of analysis to understand the relative credibility of various real estate search sites.
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I spend a good amount of time advising Companies trying to get into the Real Estate world. They all want a piece of our marketing dollars, but they really can't show me the benefits. It's usually they want me to spend $100 a month for their product which is not going to have any real value. I find the different search tools to be very similar. Lots of bells and whistles that the average consumer will not use and becomes more problematic than resourseful. I love this stuff though. As a Broker that analyzes and has spent over a half million dollars figuring out what was right and wrong, it amazes me the amount of money wasted on useless tools that really only justify their jobs versus value. Interesting.
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I think the process will be Google to find a local agents site, and then if the site itself is not simple they will leave and continue to search for a local site that is easy to use. my site realesearch has 2 mls systems that cover all of NH and VT. The biggest issue is the IDX does not give enough data to make an online CMA or many other features that the consumer may want. As for searching, our site lets you enter the town name and state and then there are all the homes, at this page they can change their prices range or click on the side nav to see the most popular searches like homes with a first floor master, or just 3 bed 2bath. no forms are needed to fill out. Also Realtors are suppose to be the experts, and to server their buyers correctly they should expect to provide some services for the commission. This is why the IDX feeds leave out some of the critical information like past sales data. If everything was there why use a Realtor as a buyers agent at all. In the end this would be a great disservice and may even open up the anti trust issue if the sellers agent was the only one with strong representation on the Internet. Trillia and all the others including realtor.com all are there to promote the listing with the seller in mind. So the answer is keep it simple, let the website do most of the thinking for the user. One click searches and search maps that allow for easy drill down are best. After all look at how ebay and amazon do their searches. just type in and go then narrow down from there. It works for me.
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I used to tell clients that we would list their home on all the available internet listing sites, but now it’s impossible. We use syndication services, but even that does not cover all of them. I hope we start getting some consolidation…
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It is almost impossible to place listings on every real estate website out there...you are right. Let's face it though, the majority of listings that sell, sell through the MLS. We market on 18 different Internet sites and carry about 75 listings between my two offices. With that, we generate about 5 leads per week. However, they do receive a ton of visits, about 400 per listing per month. I put all my money into driving traffic to my site and receive many more inquiries to my listings from that marketing and from that do sell a good amount of our listings in house through our marketing. Of course the longer you have your site and the more you understand Internet Marketing, Lead Capture, and Lead Conversion, the more you will enjoy the successes of what the Internet offers Realtors and Brokers. We are exclusively Internet and generate about 75 leads per day between both offices and feed about 40 Agents who do none of their own marketing, they just work the leads through our systems. If you would like advice or help with your Internet program don't hesitate to email me at [email protected]. I spend half my week these days giving out free advice on how to use the Internet. Internet tools are cool to look at, but if they don't generate leads or sales they are just another added cost of doing businesss...which I like to keep as low as possible!
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