Best Consumer Real Estate Sites
As you can tell by the absence of posts lately, we've been pretty busy. One of our clients is going to be featured in a major metro newspaper late next week and I've been working with the journalist that is developing the article. They are looking for some more content regarding real estate and the web and asked my help in developing a list of the best consumer sites for real estate. I sent a few suggestions. I thought I would appeal to my blogging community friends to give me their opinions of what the "best of breed" sites are these days. Rather than do a poll, I'd like to see comments on which nationally focused sites you think provide the best overall experience for a real estate consumer. The article runs next Friday, so get your comments in as soon as you can. Thanks! ~MP
Technorati Tags: Real Estate Web Sites, RE/MAX, Yahoo Real Estate,Web 2.0ZillowHousing MapsCraigs List
Technorati Tags: Real Estate Web Sites, RE/MAX, Yahoo Real Estate,Web 2.0ZillowHousing MapsCraigs List
posted by Mike Price at 3:32 PM
29 Comments:
Certainly on the real estate search side I see Trulia.com leading the way, with the most national coverage and lots of great advanced features. RSS feeds and Google Earth KML feeds of your search results is especially cool. They are currently live in all 50 states, though their overall inventory may be limited in particular markets. Their heat maps really help visualize pricing trends as well.
Of course Zillow.com has the highest profile of all the current crop of new real estate sites. But I think Zillow still suffers from a lack of overall 'stickiness'. By that I mean, once the thrill of finding what your home is worth wears off, there's not much reason to visit the site.
Rentometer.com is a really neat site with a fun interface. Especially useful for people moving to a new city or neighborhood.
First, I think the Emperor is Naked, by which I mean that there are no nationally-important real estate sites. The new kids on the block, while they might be impressive from a gee-whiz point of view, are not even close to being useful in real life.
Two older sites -- Realtor.com and realestate.yahoo.com -- are moderately useful in real life, but only moderately. Across the board, national real estate sites throw away too much detail to offer more than an exploratory glimpse into the MLS systems they draw upon.
What do I mean? Is the roof asphalt shingle, foam, tile or slate? Is that pool I can see dimly in the gee-whiz satellite photo in-ground or above-ground? The listing says "Townhouse" -- so who owns the land beneath it, the buyer or the Homeowner's Association?
To be honest, I don't even like locally-available consumer-level MLS access -- not even our own. Some IDX systems provide more detail than others, but there is nothing like the kind of control that comes from having full access to hundreds of unique data fields. If you can't search to a very short list of high-probability candidates, one of which is the home you will end up buying, what you have is not home search but a wish book -- a wheel-spinning toy useful for no purpose except wasting your time.
I completely agree with Swann. No surprise here. On the national level, there is a ton of entertainment and yet very little 'above the crowd' usefulness. Databases of what exists on anyparticular MLS are abundant, so there is no real benefit of one tool over the other with the exception of ease of use or fancy design. And, as Greg points out these options still leave visitors with too many unanswered questions.
So - back to the question - Which site(s) provide the best overall experience for the real estate consumer? It depends on what type of experience one has already had or rather what type of experience they are expecting. If I was looking to have the experience of finding some FSBO's I would say that HousingMaps/Craigslist/GoogleBase would be a good place to waste some time. Not so much 'best of breed,' but certainly a ton of postings/listings that one wouldn't find on their local IDX. So this could be useful. As a seller... I can, for free, add my home to the list as well. It's easy... and heck, everybody's doin' it.
Gosh, I've yet had a client come to me and say they had a great overall experience on the web for real estate needs. Mostly they just hand me print outs from REALTOR.com and say they want to see these properties.
I think there are major challenges for a nationally focused web site as this industry isn't nearly as cookie cutter as many critics seem to think it is.
Nationally though my best guess would be to say that REALTOR.com is still the king but they need a challenger and I expect that challenge to come from a big name like Google, eBay, Yahoo, etc.
Start ups like Trulia.com have potential but they have to have more listings.
I think the best bet is still going to be a local solution. For now my favorite site is BlueRoof.com. That simply is the platform that I would love to use myself and would be thrilled to market to the masses.
We are seeing more evidence that buyers are looking high and low at more and more sites for information. I think that real estate weblogs will be a great platform for consumer information going forward. Consumers are going to get inside information from sources to use when they negotiate with professionals and will likely feel plenty more empowered about the property buying process.
The industry is starting to change right before our eyes. It is obvious that someone will put together a web experience that the consumer will find much more useful than what is available now in the not too far off future.
Maybe I'm a bit biased ;-) but in the UK clearly the easiest way to find property is Nestoria http://www.nestoria.co.uk
In terms of pure listings volume Realtor.com & RE/MAX would get my vote.
For user interface I like StreetEasy & BlueRoof
For pure data: Property Shark & Zillow
For the grand idea that is yet to be a workable reality: Google Base.
3 major issues making the consumer online experience unpleasant are:
(1) "needle in the haystack" search. Realtor has 3 million listings & 4 search categories -- that's a lot of search results to wade through
(2) lead capture extortion--having to reveal personal information to get access to critical listing data (the lead capture mechanism is fatally flawed anyway) &
(3)no centralized site for every type of real estate. This requires consumers to search for rentals here, sales here, vacation property here, office space here--each site requiring you to learn the peculiarites of that niche site.
What is lacking is the understanding that people have many different real estate needs at any given time.
(I also agree with Joel that RSS feeds provide a great mechanism for getting updates if only more people understood it.)
So in essence, I would agree with Greg that there is no national site that does it all for consumers. And perhaps that's not the golden apple. A site where consumers can access the professionals that can access the data is perhaps what consumers really need.
http://www.propsmart.com/
I love propsmart. I'm kind of tired of Trulia and Zillow, I love to see new faces in our small web 2.0 mashups club, so I am routing for Propsmart.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
I don't think it is controversial to say that real estate is a local business by its very nature. Attempts to provide national solutions will always be able to provide only high level data.
There might be some wiz-bang user interfaces on national sites, but the real data is with the local agents. I'm more interested in what PLATFORMS are available to local agents to make this data accessible to people buying and selling in that market.
My belief is that there is a lot of data (IDX for better or worse) available for individual homes for sale...what is missing is data on the neighborhoods that are home to those houses. Buyers would like to search by neighborhood as well as for a certain type of home. This is the sort of solution that i've embarked on building on my own real estate website at www.LiveInAlpharetta.com/neighborhoods.php. But the work of collecting the metadata is painfully tedious.
Kevin,
Well said. The business is, and will always remain, local and relationship based. I could come up with a list of dozens of sites that I think do a much better job of providing a good consumer experience at a local level than any national site. I the winners are going to be people like you, Greg Swann and others that have a strong business acumen, intimate local knowledge and flexible, creative solutions to consumer needs.
I too am looking for good blogs and websites for consumers. I see a lot of sites from realtors that are very promotional. I've also seen some real good investor sites, but they're not really good for first time home buyers or non-investor buyers and they're certainly not national in scope.
Salt Lake Real Estate Blog
I happen to love what John L. Scott is doing, he is applying mapping technology in a very aggressive way. Trulia.com provides very sticky content and good data, realtor.com does very well in the search engine game, Intero has an excellent site as does zephyr real estate....
I think the local markets have way more interesting things going on then the national sites.
However Trulia stands out for me.
Mike, I know you've already heard an earful and have received comments about realtor.com, but have you checked out Move.com? I'm partial because I do work for the company, but with apologies to Greg, Move is that "national" site that "does it all" for consumers.
Also, did you know Move is blogging? You can see all the blogs at http://blogs.move.com . The bloggers include regular citizens and others interested in the various topics like renting, renovation, etc. Anyway, thanks for letting me add my two cents!
Gary,
Thanks for posting a comment it is certainly welcome. How does Move.Com improve the overall experience of the average home seeking consumer? I know Realtor.Com is a component of the former Homestore.Com, however, is there something new about Move.Com that has improved or is a new feature of Realtor.Com and their overall residential resale portal effort?
ziprealty.com is one of the best.
Joel mentioned Trulia with RSS and Google KML feeds, googlem mash-up here is a fsbo site that was the first to have all of that http://www.forsalebyownercenter.com and google maps.
I have to agree that real estate is local and a national real estate site is not needed and is too large to be helpful. Realtor.com exists not for the buyer, but for the agent. Real estate agents are their true clients, not the general public, and the site is so full of pop-ups and ads and banners as to be useless. Perhaps it's the only resource available in some parts of the country, but in the Pacific Northwest we have excellent local searches without any advertising that make Realtor.com obsolete.
I am a Trulia fan. I can hardly find my own listings on most of the other sites and I know the addresses. Not all of the sites carry Minnesota listings and most of the sites don't have all of the listings. Mine show up on Trulia and other agents listings do not. I kind of wonder, in the end if consumers won't go for the local sites, what with real estate being a local business and all, or worse yet they will call a REALTOR so they can be sure they are not missing anything. Nice to have all the bells and whistles but having all the listings would really be a break through.
Mike -- by unifying realtor and its other properties, Move is now a "one-stop shop" for consumers (we call it "the place for before, during and after your move.") Sure there is the basic homefinding information, tools and facts, but there is also professional connections, as well as the ability to connect with neighbors and neighborhoods once you move in (e.g., Welcome Wagon and the local blogs). There are some new things coming online soon, from networking to mapping technology, that will make the site that much more indespensible for consumers.
Okay, end of corporate rant ;-) If you want to drill further please contact me at Gary.Goldhammer{at}move.com. Thanks!
BlueRoof.com now allows people to save a search and get notifications twice/day of any new listing that comes on the market (Listed OR FSBO)- and they can get this notification via email or text message sent to their mobile phone.
I suspect all these national sites will improve significantly over time. Let's remember that most of them are very new and it takes time and iteration for a good site to mature.
The advantage that a national site has over someone who is local is customer acquisition. If you can purchase traffic nationally and in volume, you're at an advantage over someone who is only able to buy traffic in one market.
This is a big, big market. Probably room for several players at the national and each local level.
But who will be number 1 in the average customer's mind? That's an interesting question...perhaps none of these....
Yahoo! Real Estate just launched a redesigned site last month which I find to be very useful. They turned the national portal into a very local experience with mapping technology (including satellite imagery) and information/reviews from Yahoo! Local on surrounding neighborhoods (schools, restaurants, parks, etc). Their partnership with Zillow allows them to incorporate great market valuation trending info, as well as specific home values. They also have over 3 million listings including MLS, foreclosures, classifieds and other types.
The new site has been very well received and is a big step in the right direction for the national portals:
http://gesterling.wordpress.com/2006/08/29/yahoo-makes-real-estate-more-local/
http://www.futureofrealestatemarketing.com/yahoo-real-estate-delivers-a-better-search-experience/
http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2006/08/yahoo-real-estate-its-creeping-into.html
It really depends on what type of real estate you're looking for. I am constantly reviewing a few different ones depending on the type of property. Sure Realtor.com and Trulia are running for the residential space (which I'm sure realtor.com brings 99.99999% more sales), but I also shop for commercial at loopnet.com, lake houses at Lakehouse.com and land listings at landsofamerica.com. I believe the leaders of the "real estate pack" will be a few niche sites rather then just a site that has every listing you've ever dreamed about. Think about how difficult it will be to find the property you're looking for if it's burried in a million search results.
On the local level, Brownstoner.com is an informative and very lively blog that keeps a strong community of RE nuts happy.
Update: The article ran on the front page of the Chicago Sun Times Real Estate Section last Friday, I haven't received a copy of the paper, so I don't know if they used any of the content from the comments for the filler articles they were looking for. I'll let you know as soon as I get it in the mail. Here's a link to the article
http://www.suntimes.com/classifieds/homes/homelife/103767,HOF-News-vidcast20.article
Mike, these are all great suggestions for different RE sites. I do have a question though.... Are you going to summarize the list for your readers? I would love to see which sites you feel are the best for real estate.
Regards,
BN
4MySales.com
Let m add http://www.gootube.net on the list. It is a video portal dedicated to Real Estate.
http://www.Trulia.com
http://www.Zillow.com
http://www.Redfin.com
http://www.Mortgagesum.com
http://www.Craigslist.com
http://Realestate.yahoo.com
good gracious!thanks for this informative information.keep it up,goahead.
http://www.johnbeckland.com
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home