Listing study by Roost hits TechCrunch and…
..brings out a who’s who of online real estate companies. Don’t miss out on the comments!
Tagged: MLS RSS
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Dustin
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Dustin
LA Times Examines Local Home Search Options
The results:
- Zillow: 168 homes*
- HomeGain: 142, 48 homes (depending on day)
- ZipRealty: 126 homes
- Yahoo Real Estate: 107 homes
- Realtor.com: 103 homes
- MSN Real Estate: 103 homes
- RE/Max: 91 homes
- Trulia: 77 homes
- Coldwell Banker: 29, 96 (depending on site)
- AOL Real Estate: 49 listings
These numbers are always in flux, but from what I’m seeing I think there are between 90 and 100 MLS listings on the market and around 45 to 50 foreclosure listings.
Finally, it’s kind of a waste to do this kind of research unless you’re willing to do a quality analysis. My experience has been that the sites that do not have direct access to MLS info tend to have more listings that are out-of-date and/or listed with outdated prices.
* It’s worth noting that I’m pretty sure the reporters messed up with their Zillow numbers… When I just did a search that limits the results to 3+ bedrooms in Santa Monica, then there’s a little graphic that says there are 166 listings for sale, but those are for ALL homes for sale and only 64 of the homes match my criteria. The Zillow results should probably have been closer to 64 listings which would put them slightly below Trulia.
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Linda Slocum - Santa Clarita Realtor
The non-MLS sites do indeed have more out-of-date listings. Many of these originate with manually entered listings on various sites, and when sold, these often don’t get updated. I had a client who wanted to see a home that seemed too low-priced to be for real, and when I finally located what he was looking at online, it turned out that it had been listed and sold years ago.
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Shell Smith
That is a very interesting experiment! Thanks for that idea – and for sharing the results. I agree that non-mls sites require some serious work on the part of the searcher. If they are willing to do that they might find what they are looking for – but why go through the hassle? I usually recommend the site PropertyMaps which has a google maps/mls tool. This one is pretty user friendly too. Thanks again for the input.
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retrove
Hello Dustin,
I also agree. Data intergrity is very difficult… even for the MLS themselves. The issue is trying to update millions of records from all of the individual sources on a daily basis is even more difficult for the listing aggregators, hence the reason why were are addressing the issue from a different angle than all other real estate search sites by directing consumers directly to the listing sources.
The second issue not addressed in the LA times article is that even with the MLS listings it still represents only about 65%-70% of the homes for sale in an area. So based on the search there maybe as much as another 30 – 40 homes for sale that buyers would never find using the aforementioned sources.
Lastly the issue regarding data… as there is more syndication this issue of data integrity will only be compounded.
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Leavenworth Real Estate - Geordie Romer
I wrote about this on my blog a while back with a slightly different take.
http://www.myleavenworth.com/2008/03/leavenworth-fsbo-for-sale-by-owner.html
I think we should admit that no site will ever have ALL the listings. Websites are fine for browsing, but for a serious buyer who wants all the options they should work with a local real estate professional who knows the market.
There are lots of reasons why a home is for sale, but not online. Some of them are good, some are horrible.
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Dustin
4realz Exclusive: Realtor.com unleashes the Zillow killer and you…
…didn’t even notice:
- Introducing: Realtor.com Home Values
Apparently, Realtor.com launched their answer to Zillow recently without much fanfare!
The first thing to note is that the new tool mixes estimates for home values along side listings from the Realtor.com database. This would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, but even with an announcement from NAR, the blog world has been silent. (And I’m told by someone-in-the-know that it has been live with a link from Realtor.com for a few weeks already!)
The part that seems to be missing is accuracy of the listings.
For example, the VERY first comparable I tried shows a home value estimate that is clearly way off base… The home at 26227 Adamor Road in Calabasas, CA which recently sold for $575K is listed on Realtor.com with an estimated value of $925,399 and Zillow with a zestimate of $564,000.
OUCH! If I was a REALTOR trying to sell a home on Adamor Road, I sure would be pissed if REALTOR.com was estimating homes were selling in the million dollar range, but actual sales were closer to the $600K range! A “beta” label only goes so far!
The second example I tried (by simply typing in Seattle, WA and then zooming in randomly until I could see a listing) was the home at 7352 26th Ave in Seattle, WA showed a recently sold price of $880K, the Realtor.com home value is $690,000, while the zestimate is $900,500.
For the third example, I decided to head further east to Chicago (no real reason other than NAR is located in that area). I randomly landed at 1729 N Melvina Ave in Chicago, IL which recently sold for $225K. the Realtor.com home value is $218,183, while the zestimate is $247K.
Results:
- 26227 Adamor Road. Realtor.com: +61%, Zillow: -2%
- 7352 26th Ave. Realtor.com: -22%, Zillow: +2%
- 1729 N Melvina Ave. Realtor.com: -3%, Zillow: +10%
Two horrible estimates and one decent estimate out of three tries. It makes sense that the realtor.com team has not made a PR push around this feature yet!
On a related note: Things get even more interesting when you think that NAR took on a similar project (was called “Gateway”, now called “Real Estate Channel”) to aggregate home information across the country. These types of projects are not cheap… so why create duplicate efforts?
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Chris Shouse
Dustin, this does not surprise me at all. I had a seller once use Zillow to tell me how much he wanted to list his home for. When I refused he went on to another salesperson. His home just sold. It had been on the market for a year and a half:) The other salesperson advertised in the paper every week and I am sure most of what commission he got went to that budget. Oh btw the house sold for juast under what I wanted to list it for and the difference was 75K.
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Irina Netchaev
Dustin, interesting… I didn’t notice the value estimator and I was just playing with Realtor.com. All we need is another untested value tool. Ouch is right! Now everyone listen up, let’s leave the home value analysis to the professionals!
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Dustin
Chris: It’s an interesting observation you made… and I can’t say I’m surprised. Compared to a few years ago when buyers were a dime a dozen and everyone wanted sellers, nowadays sellers with unrealistic expectations are way too common… and well qualified buyers are in high demand!
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Dustin
Irina: I think it will be really interesting to see how this product plays out. You can assume that 1000s of engineering hours and countless executive conversations went into this product, so at some point, the realtor.com team is likely to try to make a splash with it… accurate valuations or not.
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Jim Duncan
RE: The Gateway/Channel/Thing – It is not intended (nor can it be due to the Realtor.com/NAR contract) to be a public-facing site – it’s purely for the Realtors’ use.
And – RDC has a lot of work yet to do on their valuations. One would hope they’d try to do it right the first time …
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Dustin
Jim: You’re totally right that the Gateway project was not meant to be public facing (although it does have a potential audience of over 1M realtors… so it’s not exactly a private site either!). Nonetheless, you can imagine that a lot of the work that went into aggregating parcel information, building the mapping technology, organizing the (sizeable) contracts with vendors… and all of this work (and costs) could have been shared between Move and NAR if the will was there.
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John Lockwood
I wouldn’t use Zillow as the gold standard for accuracy here. One of my first encounters with it was when it picked a 3 bedroom 2 bath 1600 square foot single family home as a comp for a 2 bedroom 1 bath 800 square foot condo, and priced the condo accordingly. Later trials didn’t fare much better.
What galls me is that you don’t need thousands of engineering hours, at least not for the algorithm. It’s not hard like an operating system or a search engine — it’s really just extremely simple application level coding once you specify it correctly.
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Danilo Bogdanovic
We already have to argue with buyers and sellers about property values thanks to Zillow and other AVMs. Now we have to argue even more thanks to Realtor.com?
Why does the very organization that is supposed to further our best interests that we pay dues to as Realtors create something that even further impedes our ability to do our jobs?
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Mike Hale
It has an “Alpha” tag, not even Beta.. Maybe they’ll only be off by 15% once they reach Beta!
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Drew Meyers from Zillow
John-
Comps on zillow are an output, not an input to Zestimate values — so, the fact that an inaccurate comp is listed on the comps page is not skewing your zestimate. More details here. -
BawldGuy Talking
The underlying lesson for all of us, possibly, is Realtor.com not being able to generate at least a semi-reliable number. Think from a big picture lens. If they can’t do something so fundamental to the business, what else aren’t they doing?
Yet another institutional embarrassment. Geez
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John Lockwood
Drew,
Well, fair enough, the comp was an output. The problem is, the numbers for the Zestimate for that condo were dead wrong, too. Whether the given comp displayed was an input to the Zestimate begs two questions: 1) whether a seller (or other interested party) should be shown comps that aren’t comps in a context when running comps is clearly their intent, and 2) if the comp that wasn’t a comp wasn’t used, what mechanism did Zillow use to come up with such a broken value?
I don’t really see more than a hair’s breadth between whether the algorithm used the broken comps to come up with the broken value, or whether it found the broken value first then displayed a broken comp to support it. Either way it was completely wrong on a set of comps that a human being could have gotten right trivially.
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John Lockwood
Good point, Jeff. My point is not to defend NAR or Realtor.com (though I do think most of the RE.net does a better job of bashing them than providing alternatives).
My point is simply that in our haste to bash NAR* we shouldn’t neglect to swing our arms at other AVMs that need to be bashed, much as we might like Drew Meyers personally.
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*because if we weren’t Realtors(r) we’d be bashing Realtors(r), but since we are, NAR is all we have left. -
Dustin
John (in reference to comment #8):
A while back Robbie attempted to do a very similar task to what you’re saying to get at compatible values of homes… and actually published it on my wife’s home search site. As you would expect, the estimates are close much of the time, but spectacularly off at other times.
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John Lockwood
I can imagine.
Part of the problem is that the actual sold values you would use to test the comps are naturally distributed, while even if they’re done correctly, the comps are always an average. So if you run the comps on a given home and come up with an average, any given data point is going to be where it is, and may vary considerably. The average adult male may still be 5′10″ (or whatever it is these days) — but any given basketball star / jockey are going to throw the whole thing to hell.
My problem with the case that I cited was that there were several really good comparables in the same subdivision that would have given the correct answer, and to use the metaphor above, the wrong answer was something like fifteen feet seven inches.
It just didn’t make any sense. 6′4″ instead of 5′ 10″, ok, maybe, but not fifteen feet seven. -
Paul Francis, CRS
None of the attempts to value homes online are anything new. The real value is attempting to determine if these methods are just good for hits (charge more for advertising) or generating leads and how much they are worth selling.
I’ve never seen two homes exactly the same, with the exact same features on the exact same piece of land. Online valuations are dangerous — just ask the various lenders that relied on these during the boom where speed was more of a concern then accuracy as they rubber stamped loans.
Let’s not even get into what creative minds can come up with…
Hmmm… Mr and Mrs Potential Buyer, this well known service says my home is worth $925,399 but I’ll sell it to you for $575,000… Sign here.
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Bill Lublin
Dustin – Great comparison, but I think all of the AVMs are terrible. If an experienced real estate broker can be off doing a drive by Broker Price Opinion, then how can we pander to the public’s desire for a quick fix and support an inaccurate estimate of their largest asset?
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Drew Meyers from Zillow
John-
If you provide me the address of the condo you referenced, we can look into the comps issue for you. If you want to e-mail it to me – it’s Drewm at zillow dot com -
retrove
I think another important note is the value of a home and what a home will sell for is usually two different numbers… especially in a market like today.
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Dustin
Bill,
I agree that there is a bit of pandering going on… but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the demand is certainly there. If realtors don’t provide the service in an online anonymous fashion, then consumers will obviously seek it out elsewhere.
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Kevin Tomlinson
I’m in agreement with comment #24 (even tho it’s a pingback)
Does anyone really care about REaltor.com? It’s so not relevant anymore—and I helped pay for that cr*p.
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John Rowles
Instead of whining about the estimates, use them to your advantage, accurate or not.
No one expects to pay exactly what the Blue Book says a used car is worth. Its up to you to show buyers and sellers that their mileage may vary.
On our IDX sites, we use the Zillow API to show Zestimates and when Agents complain about a bad Zestimate we ask them why they think its off.
The answers range from bad comps as cited above to something like “Well, Zillow doesn’t know this place was remodeled with solid gold bathroom fixtures and their stupid software didn’t bother to ask. Those bastards!”
The remedy is simple: We tell agents to address the disparity in the property description on our Web site. Pretending its not there on the page isn’t going to make it go away or prevent users from seeing it, so just say, “The asking is $40k over the Zestimate b/c Zillow doesn’t know about the remodel with solid gold bathroom fixtures.”
Now the buyer knows that Zillow can be wrong AND you are DEMONSTRATING the value a real estate agent can bring by providing clarity.
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Matthew Ferrara
Hi Dustin:
Just a thought: Instead of just copying everyone else, maybe REALTOR.COM (and by extension, NAR) could make some decisions based upon market realities. And the reality is that Zillow (and other similar tools) are really inaccurate because the “conditions” on the ground are always so fluid that “estimates” based upon “market data” which is always stale because of “time” are really bad education for consumers. REALTORS should know better. Many consumers buy homes “regardless” of their estimated market comparable – and many sellers are able to sell for higher (or can’t sell nearly the same as a computerized estimate) because of all sorts of NON estimated items – like poorly performing schools, local tax changes, crime, etc – NONE of which can be accurately reflected by a computer. Only by REALTORS who keep up with “the full marketplace” of issues that impact homes.How silly. Once again.,..
- Matthew Ferrara
http://www.matthewferrara.com -
Colorado Real Estate Listings
Unfortunately all computer generated valuation models still have to work out all the kinks. I from the tests I ran on Realtor.com, they are way behind Zillow on valuations. It should be interesting to see how quickly they catch up or if they implement some other features.
Shell Smith and one other person are discussing. 
Dustin
A fascinating conversation about NAR/DOJ…
I really want to thank the industry titans who participated in today’s podcast:
- Michael Wurzer of FBS Data Systems & FlexMLS blog
- Bill Lublin of Move Philly
- Jeff Turner of Real Estate Shows
- Mike Price: MLBroadcast
As well as all the people who listened in and provided wonderful chat commentary throughout the podcast. There were so many great names that showed up that I can’t wait to get many of you on future podcasts!
I thought if I gave us a half-hour we’d be able to cover the subject completely… but with the crew above, we were flying along after an about an hour when I decided to pull the plug in order to save some energy for next week! 
And if you missed the live call, don’t worry, you can still catch all the recored action here:
[audio http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-20339/TS-120706.mp3
That was so much fun, I know we’ll do that again… Hopefully soon!
Jay Thompson
That was fabulous. Thanks for “hosting” Dustin, and thanks to Mike, Michael, Bill and Jeff.
I can probably count on the number of 51 minute podcasts I’ve listened to on one hand. I listened to every word of this one.
Dustin
So glad to hear you enjoyed it Jay! I learned a ton myself!
jf.sellsius
Great podcast Dustin. A really interesting conversation. I look forward to the next one.
I would add to the discussion about the settlement and my post tying in to Zillow.
http://tinyurl.com/3v6p3x
The settlement does not apply to Zillow since it is not a VOW. My point was, from a legal standpoint, that there are certain seller rights with respect to display and advertising of their home for sale on the internet. Some were specifically mentioned in the settlement –the seller right to hide home address, disable AVM (and link) and disable comments, and the withholding a listing completely from the internet. I call it the right not to participate in the participatory web– a web 2.opt-out
IMO, this clear language provides a legal basis for a homeowner to challenge Zillow allowing 3rd parties to list a home for sale post a price & allow comments about a home without the owner’s knowledge or permission (and not requiring an owner to “claim” a home to prevent it).
There have been rumblings in the Z discussion forum where homeowners have wanted an opt-out of misleading zestimates & the home listed on zillow. I think we are close to seeing a lawsuit to make clear just how far an internet website can go without homeowner consent. (I am not talking about public data)
As you know, I have long argued for homeowner rights and Zillow’s failure to acknowledge them.
Keep up your contributions to the industry, Dustin.
Brian Requarth
It is a good idea to put those four guys together to discuss this topic. I read several articles in major newspapers about the agreement, but I became more confused after each article. This conversation did a good job of clearing things up and also provided good commentary on other related topics. These guys know what they are talking about. Dustin, thanks for getting the conversation together. I hope you will do more podcasts soon.
Dustin
Thanks Brian! I think I jotted myself about 10 different ideas for topics yesterday, so it should be long before I get another one going! It was too much fun!
Dustin
Live Podcast: What does the DOJ/NAR Settlement mean to REALTORS?
I’m totally excited about the live podcast that is set to go live in a few hours!
Earlier today, I was at an caravan event with a large group of REALTORS… When the agents found out I was an internet guy, many of them kept asking me for insight into the settlement between the DOJ and NAR and how it was going to affect their online business. However, like many of the agents, I have more questions than answers, so I decided to use this opportunity to put together a podcast where some great guests can talk through the implications of the settlement.
With that background, I’m extremely excited that the following three guests have agreed to take part in a 1/2 hour roundtable discussion at 4pm (PST) today:
- Michael Wurzer of FBS Data Systems & FlexMLS blog
- Bill Lublin of Move Philly
- Jeff Turner of Real Estate Shows
The podcast will be streaming live at TalkShoe and I encourage you to join in the conversation live!
Initially, I’m only going to have the mics turned on for the guests to cover the basics, but assuming that we have some time beyond that, I’m looking forward to opening up the mic to others on the line (That means you!).
And if you have some specific questions you want to be sure get addressed, leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to work it into the agenda! Hope to hear from you at 4pm!
UPDATE:
- You can hear the entire podcast here: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/20339
Eli and one other person are discussing. -
Kathy Drewien
Umm, I’m guessing this would be PST?
Dustin
Kathy: Yes! 4pm PST!
Eli
I’d love to see some discussion of the implications of this ruling for Move.com
Dustin
Good call, Eli… I’d like to know that too!
Dustin
Estately Expands to Portland
Galen makes his first move since his new found riches… Congrats to the Estately team.
Dustin
Dustin
Redfin releases a genuinely interesting update!
According to their press release, they are now commingling MLS, FSBO and Foreclosure listings on one map… and this has me scratching my head!
Are they allowed to do this? Isn’t this type of commingling of listings against MLS rules?
Notice the purple and pink icons… Those are REO (foreclosures) and FSBOs, respectively (green icons are MLS listings).
I have four ideas about how they are able to get away with this:
- They found a loophole in MLS agreements that let’s them commingle listings (but I would find this hard to believe).
- They got buy-off from all their local MLS organizations (but I would find this hard to believe)
- They have reason to believe they can win this battle in the courts… (maybe a DOJ brief in support of this or something similar?)
- They just don’t care about the rules and believe that consumer support for this feature will be so great that they’ll risk MLS fines.
None of these scenarios seem likely to me. What am I missing?
With that said, I REALLY like how they are approaching the foreclosure data. I’ve received a few press releases recently from real estate search sites that “announce” they are now publishing foreclosures on their site. However, inevitably, when I tested out the feature, the sites were just regurgitating RealtyTrac data that required consumers to pay a fee to get the actual address of the property. Redfin is providing the address.
Also interesting, someone from Redfin let me know that they are going to phase in a flat-fee buying option in order to accommodate these new listings types.
I want to send my congrats out to the Redfin team for pushing the boundaries yet again. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re working pretty darn hard to deliver features and tools that they think will do a better job serving their customers.
UPDATE:
There’s some debate in the comments about whether there are local MLS rules against commingling of data, with some people claiming it’s just a misunderstanding that the data can’t be commingled. However, someone (who wished to remain anonymous) send me the following email which demonstrates that for at least one MLS where Redfin is commingling data, the rules are pretty clear:
Check it out: http://www.imrmls.com/centsite/idx_policy.htm
“4.13. Listings obtained through IDX must be displayed separately from listings obtained from other sources, not including information provided by other MLSs.”
What that says to ME (having experience with MLS rules) is that MRMLS doesn’t allow FSBO properties side-by-side with MLS listings.
Richard Dale-Mesaros
Congrats to RedFin for pushing the envelope! I guess their challenge will be to make this available nationwide as fast as possible. We’re looking for this kind of service to add to our member offerings, but even with RealtyTrac, their coverage is spotty in certain areas (eg: New Hampshire).
The next big goal for RedFin will undoubtedly be free access to MLS comparables for the general public. The NAR is clinging onto this data by their fingernails…. I wonder how soon they’ll loose their grip on this, too?!
Yours with boundless enthusiasm,
Richard
Chief Deal Weaver
http://www.BlackWidowNetwork.com
Jan
Actually windermere.com has been “commingling” listings for years. Go look for listings in Long Beach, WA, to see both NWMLS and RMLS.
Ellie at Redfin
Glad you like the release, Dustin! As to your question about co-mingling listings, we researched that one pretty hard. We found that what the rules actually require is that we clearly mark the source of a listing, such as with different color icons for non-MLS listings and clear messaging on the listing itself. We’ve done that, because we don’t want to misrepresent a listing as an MLS listing if it isn’t.
Also, if a listing is both a for-sale-by-owner home and is in the MLS (perhaps it’s an old FSBO listing, or the seller is trying both approaches), we show the MLS listing first by default.
And finally, thanks for noticing that you get the address with foreclosures. We looked at a few ways of doing this and really didn’t like the idea of teasing searchers with a foreclosure, only to send them off to a fee-based site to get the address.
Jon
What we’ve found is most MLSs specifically note “This MLS’ Listings may ONLY be commingled with other MLS’ listings.”
However after reviewing NWMLS rules, I don’t see anything of that sort. Seems (for now) redfin is in the clear. UNLESS other rules implicitly apply to data in a Member’s (Broker) site in general (ie. Framing rules).
Anthony Longo
We launched this on our site back in January. Not quite as detailed however we did a deal with Foreclosure.com and Forsalebyowner.com and have those listings fed to our site daily.
We were unsure of the commingling issue so we dont pull onto the same page/map…rather you have to perform separate searches.
Check it out at http://Boston.CondoDomain.com click on search and you can see you can search for: New Developments, Exisiting Buildings, Full MLS, Foreclosure, FSBO and even Auction.
For Sale by Owner Center
We caught wind that our FSBO listings were appearing on Redfin searches via the Redfin press release and with further research found one of our Long Beach CA listings included ( http://www.redfin.com/CA/LONG-BEACH/307-LOMA-AVE-90814/home/7602890 )
I personally think it’s great for the consumer but part of the reasoning to move forward is for the PR attention they may get from a possible MLS that file complaints which would make Redfin appear even more pro-consumer.
Jessie B
This is from the Redfin press release…
“Consumers’ first question of any real estate site is whether it shows all the homes for sale,” said Redfin Chief Technology Officer Michael Young.
I 100% agree with the above statement and it’s exactly what is driving the development of our beta site.
Although other sites have claimed to do this… I think it will be very interesting to watch how the re.net will react to this.
Andrew
there is no rules against this whatsoever. the only site that cannot mix fsbos is realtor.com. they have an agreement with NAR that does not allow this. Google tride to strike a deal with NAR but since they were not allowed to mix listings Google said forget it.
Joseph Bridges
I think providing customers with the latest data is extremely important and real estate professionals and MLS organizations should take note and make sure that they give the customers what they want. MLS’s that give the consumers all the data first will provide more value to their real estate agents who pay them dues. After all it is in the best interest of the consumer and the agent that they get to see ALL properties that meet the buyers criteria. While the rest of the redfin model may be up for debate their committment to data to the consumer is great.
property bulgaria
What we’ve found is most MLSs specifically note “This MLS’ Listings may ONLY be commingled with other MLS’ listings.”
However after reviewing NWMLS rules, I don’t see anything of that sort. Seems (for now) redfin is in the clear. UNLESS other rules implicitly apply to data in a Member’s (Broker) site in general (ie. Framing rules).
Dustin
It’s great to see so much progress being made on…
…the listing standards front. While it will definitely help the big boys lower their aggregation costs, it should also help make the online listing search space even more competitive as I think (hope?) it will help lower the bar to creating a viable national presence for new startups.
Dustin
Free IDX solution?
I met the guys from softRealty in Atlanta last week and they convinced me the have a pretty good thing going. Their plan is to offer a free IDX solution to agents that is ad supported. (They also offer a $30/month solution that is ad-free).
They’ve got two* one thing working against them:
- My guess is that most agents will stay away from any solution that puts ads on their website
Like most IDX solutions, they’ve built the backend so that it can be framed into other agent sites. I’m not a fan of framed solutions, but the price is right, so it will be interesting to see if they get buzz as they roll out into markets beyond the Atlanta area…
* whoops!
[Update: I notice I get a lot of traffic from folks looking for technology solutions to this post. If you're one of them, head over to my real estate technology tool shed where I've got lots of information that can get you up to speed quickly]
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Ed Kohler
I can’t imagine many agents would be willing to risk losing visitors from their site over $30/mo. And I can’t imagine many agent’s sites would be able to generate enough traffic to generate close to $30/mo in advertising for softRealty.
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Dustin
Ed,
You hit on two points that mentioned to David in our conversation…
He seemed to think that agents would get over the ads once they saw that they were all “non-competing” ads, but I wasn’t convinced… and I told them explicitly that there was no way there were going to make enough money off of ads to support a viable company. I know exactly how much big companies (the “home depots” of the world) are willing to pay per ad impression and there just isn’t enough viewers on agent IDX sites to make up the difference.
Nonetheless, I like the guys and they seem technically sharp, so my guess is they’ll adjust things as they get more exposure in the marketplace.
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Blake
Full disclosure, I am affiliated with softRealty.com.
Let me first say that the number of advertising impressions will support a “viable company” based upon very realistic numbers (a single search can yield multiple impressions).
Second, it is our belief that end user acceptance is based upon a number of factors other than the presence or absence of ads. The quality of search results, intuitive interface, and ability to modify search results without a page reload or navigation all contribute to a positive user experience.
Finally, the key to successful Internet advertising is to place ads that are both relevant and unobtrusive. If the user experience is good and the ads are on target then it will be accepted in this market as it has in many others.
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Dustin
Thanks Blake for reaching out. Obviously our chatter here on 4realz only carries so much weight.
If you guys are able to deliver the product and continuing growing the business, that’s all the proof that most of us need that you’ve found a great niche. -
David Carroll
Dustin,
It was great meeting you at the conference last week. Since then, our April Fools’ Day Beta Launch was met with an overwhelmingly positive response in the Atlanta real estate community. We know that there is much to be understood with our revenue model and it will take some time to demonstrate its viability. It certainly does not make sense for us to prove that model now, in order to maintain our competitive strategy, legitimate or otherwise. We are confident that this model will best serve the interests of brokers, agents, MLSs, and consumers. Additionally, we are working on publishing an online community where agents and brokers can come together and collaborate on the design of our service. Ultimately, this is about bringing ownership of this design to the very users it will benefit. The requests we’ve already received include a “non framed” interface, Word Press Search Widgets, Search and Comments via RSS, and so much more. We are in the process of rolling our CRM back office piece called Client Connect. I look forward to continuing this conversation in the months to come and see your position shift from that of a skeptic to a full-fledged supporter.
Regards,
David Carroll
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Dustin
David: I definitely look forward to it!
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Lane Bailey
I’m looking forward to it as well. I am one of the many agents that jumped at the opportunity. I also met the guys at RETS.
I’ll be sure to write my impressions when the product is rolled out…
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Justin Zimmerman
My opinion is that starting an IDX company (old shool) mashed up an ad server (new school) is not a good long term bet.
Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should. Thats my 2 cents.Peace!
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Rob Lawrence
I think anything that adds a competitive spin to the current MLS and realtor.com monopoly is good news for the industry. Costs are skyrocketing and other revenue models need to be pursued further.
Rob Lawrence
http://www.battlecall.com -
Jay Valento - Long Beach CA real estate
I’m not impressed with softrealty. I tested their product.
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Russell
I must say that in the research that I have done I think SoftRealty is not only one of the most visually attractive interfaces, but also from a programmers perspective it looks like they are doing very advanced stuff on their platform, and I am excited to see what comes next.
At http://hotretech.com we provide free websites to agents, and we chose to add the IDX Search provided by SoftRealty to strengthen our offer.
Comments are right though about the advertisements being a sticking point with some agents, however the vast majority of the ones I have spoken to are comfortable with it.
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Glenn Sanford
I’m seeing comments about the idea that agents wouldn’t want a site that has advertising on it compared to the $30/month that they would pay. Surfing through literally 1000’s of real estate agent websites there are numerous examples of agents who will put Google AdSense on their websites to derive a modest $10, 20, $30 or more while providing listings and advertising their competition, so the idea that an agent would save the $30 and get a Free IDX feed isn’t that out there.
Keep in mind that free is effectively the puppy dog close. Get your clients used to using the tools and then change the rules a year or two down the road. Now your client can’t leave you because he/she has too much of an investment in your platform.
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Mash
We just launched a free graphical idx search that is ad free – http://www.realestatemash.com/search/signup.html.
Christian Sterner 12:06 pm on August 22, 2008 Permalink |
Hah…Boer stole the show in the comments. Hilarious!
Drew Izzo 12:26 pm on August 22, 2008 Permalink |
Thanks for the post Dustin. It’s definitely the beginning of an interesting and ongoing conversation.
Dustin 12:40 pm on August 22, 2008 Permalink |
No doubt about it Drew… You guys are definitely doing something interesting by tapping directly into the MLS system.