Terabitz Blog

Who is the best incomplete national search site?

The recent TechCrunch post regarding listing accuracy of  online real estate sites generated some interesting chatter, some which were quite salient and spot on:  namely that substantial lack of coverage by the national sites such as Trulia and Zillow. I don’t believe this was shocking news to anyone and certainly no denying the fact.

Missing from the discussion, however, is the observation that all of these sites MAY play an entirely useful role in the search for a home.  Indeed, there is nothing wrong with a consumer starting her search at Zillow, et al. and eventually winding up with a local agent who ultimately helps her fulfill the dream of finding a home.  The point that the attacks on these sites fail to address is that in the end, all paths lead to Rome:  the Realtor and local Broker.  These are the people who ultimately provide the search, the experience and the local, nuanced knowledge to get the job done.  I know that, you know that, and millions of people who acquire the services of these professionals know that.

These various so-called national sites are just opening acts for the main event. And they always will be.

So, what should Realtors and Brokers do? 

• Don’t fret if you aren’t the first site consumer’s visit. Remember, people surf the web. They visit lots of sites. Just make sure yours clearly promotes the fact that you have ALL THE LISTINGS in your market.
• Make sure that your listings can be found easily on your site. Make Home Search the most prominent element on the homepage.
• Let users now how often your listings are updated. If its twice a day from MLS – promote it.
• Post many pictures. Not 6 or 8. Items on eBay often have more pics.
• Create blogs around your listings. Feed it with insight only you know about the home and the neighborhood. While the other sites pull MLS data, they can’t take that core intelligence you have locked away in your brain. Use what you know to differentiate and make your site more valuable.

Remember, these national site and fun to use but they do not specialize in hyper local anything. You do. Harp on that. Promote around that. Build a web presence that promotes you and your brand and a search experience that provides the largest number of listings in your local area.  Not to mention great, prompt customer service.

Let Zillow, Trulia and the others argue for who is the best incomplete national site.

Real estate search has no meaning

Today, all online real estate searches start with a 30,000-foot view of the earth, then pull you into states and cities. If you’re lucky, you get neighborhoods that you can understand in the terms that you have in mind. After this, you must draw parameters around your preference for number of bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage.

But when is the last time that a buyer stepped into a real estate agent’s car and laid out their desires like this? When seeking our next home, we tend to think more about our lifestyle. We want to be able to walk our kids to elementary school and not have to go more than five blocks to get basic grocery items, as an example. A park would be nice.

This is the way we think about buying our next home. This is the way we think about where we want to live. Yet, no MLS systems or real estate search sites capture information this way, let alone enable agents and consumers to search in this manner. Agents include descriptions next to listings, but people rarely pay attention to those due to the twisted meaning of phrases like “cozy and comfortable,” which means small and cramped, or “urban and hip,” which often means crime-ridden and grungy.

What’s missing from real estate is a system that helps push matches to consumers based on their lifestyle choices, their demographic. These systems exist within other verticals. Just look at Amazon, where you can search for a book and be led down a path that offers other books you may be interested in based on what other people who looked at this book also looked at or purchased.

Everyone in real estate has the same product with no different ways of presenting it.

One way to solve this problem is to build systems that capture this information, systems that capture and quantify what defines a livable neighborhood based on buyers’ real preferences. This system needs to capture what the buyer tells an agent when they first meet. “We want a nice, quiet neighborhood where people are friendly and kids have a place to play together. We want a house that fits our family of four, with room for grandma when she visits.” This, rather than “2,000-square-foot rancher with four bedrooms on a quiet street.” See the difference?

It is critical that real estate search systems begin to capture information about what is just down the street or three blocks away, what a school that’s rated a “four” really means, what a buyer is really looking for when considering their next move.

Maybe it’s a wiki that captures this lifestyle information. Maybe it’s agents taking note and quantifying the livable aspects of neighborhoods. Or maybe it’s deeper integration of various data into real estate search. Whatever the technological answer, it needs to infuse meaning into real estate search. If Amazon can do this for books, it can be done for homes and lifestyle.