WebHomeUSABlog: Realogy And There's Nothing New In Real Estate

When I started in Real Estate at the dawn of the Internet Age, a very successful Realtor told me,"There's nothing new in Real Estate".

There may be "Nothing new in Real Estate", but the changes in Real Estate Marketing have been nothing short of phenomenal. From almost no one using the Internet to search for a home in 1997, to over 80% of home buyers using the Internet to find a home, like it or not, the face of Real Estate marketing has changed forever.

1997 was pre-Google.com, pre-Trulia.com, pre-Redfin.com, pre-Zillow.com and pre-Blog Carnival of Real Estate. How did we ever sell a home without them?

Our Perfect Storm Song should be: "The Night The Internet Broke Down, And all the Agents were screaming..." (Sung to "The Night They Drove Ole' Dixie Down.")

In my New Agent Orientation the few ads my Broker put in the newspaper were justified by: "No one in their right mind ever bought a house from a 1"x2" newspaper picture". The top agents in the office all had their weekly ad sections in the paper, though. "Do as I say; Not as I do."

Interesting news this week came from Realogy (A name made up for a ".com" after it. Who would have know? Maybe because the DOJ was after Cendant, their old name), the largest Real Estate brokerage company and franchiser. Realogy will shrink their branding budget for newspapers by as much as 2/3's from 2006 to 2008. These ad dollars aren't going away. These ad dollars are going to online.

It must be Realogy, the NAR, Move.com, Realtor.com and the rest of "Big Real Estate" are finally reading the virtual tea leaves, Borrell Associates Reports and their own home buyer surveys saying over 3/4's of the home searchers start their home search online and over 80% use the Internet in their search.

Borrell, a media research company specializing in Real Estate, notes online Real Estate advertising grew from a $1.2 billion market in 2004 to a $1.7 billion market in 2005. This increased the share of online spending from 10.3% to 14.7%. Projected for 2010 is $3.1 billion in online Real Estate ad spending.

If the music and movie industries have embraced the Internet Century, can the Real Estate industry be far behind? Is a Google-Like Ad-Funded Free National MLS in our future?

Google, Yahoo, MSN, Zillow, Trulia and Redfin may have different answers to all the questions generated by: "There's nothing new in Real Estate." In fact, they might not even wait for us to finish the questions.

Adapt Or Die! Happy Searching.

WebHomeUSAblog; The Blog of Real Estate Search Marketing