Seventy-five percent of home buyers start their home search on the Internet. Over eighty percent of home buyers use the Internet extensively in their home search. Why? Convienience, 24/7, almost 100% of the home inventory, and it's where we all go to search for everything else; why not homes?
Thirty-nine percent of Realtors advertise on the Internet (Borrell Associates, 9/06). Why? Because Realtor ads there are convenient, readily available (24/7/365), inexpensive, measurable and targetable. And besides; over 80% of our customers are already there. Soon over 40% of Realtors may be advertising online.
Google has set the standard and level of expectations for all search and for search marketing too. Searchers demand Googe-Like Search: relevant results, immediately, free, without giving up any information. Don't give them this, and they're gone in a click; and they won't be back.
Can subscription or membership models deliver Google-like Search? Can you think of one example? Subscription Financed Search (Realtor.com, HouseValues.com, JustListed.com, etc) doesn't have the money, expertise or business model to provide customers with the Google-Like Search they demand.
We Realtors can hide our home data for only so long. (Google and other Search Engines call this "The Hidden Web") Already, in Rochester, NY, our largest local Realtor, Nothnagle, with a side in over 50% of local transactions, pushes their listings out to Google Base. How much more effective would their Internet Search strategy be if their listings were searchable on all the Search Engines (Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask.com, etc), not just Google? And how much do they pay for all this Google exposure: zero, zilch, nada.
Google is a media company, making over 95% of its money from selling advertising. Since Google sells its traffic (click stream) to advertisers, it is highly motivated to provide all sorts of helpful, fun and sticky services to its users. Think Gmail, Froogle, Google Earth, Google Maps and Google Base among many others. Other Search Engines in both horizontal and vertical sectors are offering similar free features to keep their searchers coming back more often and staying longer.
The closest thing to Google in the Real Estate Search space is Zillow. Google provides search results: the most relevent, in seconds, for free and with no personal information required; and pays for all this by selling online ads. Google is a strong number one in the keyword-relevant search space. And Google has only been around since 1998. Zillow provides Real Estate Search results: very relevant, in seconds,for free and with no personal informaton required; and pays for all this (Venture Capital cash for now) by selling online ads. Zillow is the current front runner for the title of Google of Real Estate Search.
Ideal Real Estate Search Engine would have informaton on all homes, not just the ones for sale. Ideal Search would have all homes for sale, not just agent listed properties. For starters, all home buyers would be able to get all the public information on a house, and a rough idea of what that house is worth. Like a Kelly's Blue Book for Homes. Home buyers would not just get the home's value, but they would also get all recent sales and the relative values of all the homes in the neighborhood. (Think Zillow's Heat Map)
How could Real Estate Search get better?
What If Real Estate Search was Google-Like, Would it have:
- All homes searchable, for all publicly available infomation?
- All homes with their own Webpage/Website?
- All Information on all homes for sale, searchable on all general Search Engines?
- All homes for sale searchable by their street address, any part of their street address and by neighborhood, Zip Code, city, town and village?
- All homes for sale in an area easily searchable by price, location or any other feature?
- All home information available immediately, easily, for free and without providing any personal or contact information?
- All these services financed by the advertising dollars of Real Estate Agents and other home-sale related businesses, Google-Like Advertising?
- Most home related advertisers problems will be solved and prayers will be answered by Google-Like Real Estate Search; with Search's unparalleled abilities to measure customer response and to target customer segments; down to the individual home.
The NAR and their affiliated Website/Search Engine, Reator.com, has no motivation to provide home buyers and sellers with all they need, want and demand. The NAR actvely fights most moves to open up all home information to all buyers. Why doesn't NAR have a policy, fueled by our professional duties under Client Agency and due diligence, to deliver our data to the most buyers through the most venues, particularly when it's free? How is this not in our own best interest, let alone our ethical obligation?
Zillow.com currently delivers the most Google-Like Real Estate Search. But Zillow is far from perfect, even beta perfect. At WebHomeUSA we have a patent pending business method which could solve many of these problems.
See you on the Web.
WebHomeUSAblog.com, The Blog of Real Estate Search Marketing.
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