Category Archives: USA & North America
Big Changes at zillow.com
We knew something was up at zillow.com when it posted a “site down temporarily” note on its blog on Monday.
The next post confirmed our suspicions: zillow.com was adding the option to list rental properties on its US-based real estate marketplace. By the next morning, zillow.com was already touting the first ten listings to take advantage of the new option, and dealing with a wave of questioning regarding its new pricing strategy: US$9.95 for a 180 day listing.
The comments were relatively quiet on zillow.com’s own blog, but over at 1000watt blog and agentgenius.com things were different, prompting zillow.com’s spokespeople to respond.
NAR’s Game Changers Announced
The US National Association of Realtors (NAR) has announced the 14 winners of its Game Changer Challenge, all of which will be fully funded by the NAR and guided by a panel of consultants.
Social media platform Front Porch, resume standardisation tool Realtor Resume, and Realtor rating tool Realtor Finder were among the ideas chosen for NAR backing.
Google Real Estate – Should Agents Bank On It?
The news just over a week ago that Google was “entering” the UK/European market has sent the share prices of Rightmove and Seloger into a tailspin. Seloger dropped by 9% while Rightmove has plummeted a whopping 17%. Seloger has since recovered to its pre-news price while Rightmove continues to be significantly down.
So let’s look at what happened, will the property portal landscape change and is this impact on the share prices is justified.
An article by the Financial Times (Dec 2 titled “Google set to enter UK property market”) seems to have set the cat amongst the pigeons. The article stated that Google is in talks with British estate agents and that “experts” say that an entry by them to the market could pose a serious threat to existing property websites. The article didn’t talk about what Google was going to do and Google didn’t comment. So there is really not much to go on. So the only guide we really have as to what Google may do in the UK and Europe is what they have done in Australia.
Google’s Latest Releases Part 3: New Maps Perspective
With so many new releases from Google over the past week, you could be forgiven for feeling a little over-saturated. As we’ve already discussed, Google’s new real-time search and personalised results raise some questions in terms of online advertising for agents. Thankfully, Google’s latest release looks positive for the world of online real estate advertising.
NAR: Buyers Relying on Referrals
The US National Association of Realtors recently released its 2009 Profile of Homebuyers and Sellers and the results show an even heavier reliance on the Internet to find homes than in 2008.
The often-quoted statistic from the 2008 NAR report had 87 percent of US home buyers looking online for their next home. According to figures posted by Sara Bonert, zillow.com’s director of broker relations, that figure has now risen to 90 percent.
Bonert’s blog post also shows that looking online for properties was the first step taken by both first time and repeat buyers, rather than contacting an agent. Buyers spent an average of two weeks on this initial property search before they decided to find an agent to help them with the buying process.
fizber.com, realtybid.com Offer Deals
US property search engine fizber.com is offering free registration to real estate agents and brokers who sign up before the end of December.
US online auctions website realtybid.com also has a Christmas offer for agents, discounting its US$150 listing fee to $25 until 31 December.
New Premium Ads and Listing Tips at trulia.com
US property search engine trulia.com has released a new paid listings package for companies that it says will make it easier for consumers to connect with brokers and agents.
According to the trulia.com blog, these premium listings place advertisements at the top of search results and include an optimised and company branded home buyer contact form along with detailed listing and lead reporting.
New Ad Options from realestatebook.com
Network Communications Inc property portal realestatebook.com has recently launched new advertising options for its users through a partnership with display advertising provider iPromote.
realestatebook.com users can now create rich media display advertisements through iPromote’s One-Click Advertising technology that will run across a network of websites such as MSN, Yahoo! and Facebook. iPromote says the advertisements will reach an audience of over 40 million unique users per month.
NAR Approves Search Engine Indexing
After sparking controversy earlier this year with its search engine indexing policy, the US National Association of Realtors (NAR) has clarified its stance, saying agents can allow search engines such as Google to index their listings.
The NAR postponed their vote on the issue back in May, leaving a policy in place that allowed member boards to force their agents to block search engines from indexing listings shared between agent websites via Internet Data Exchange (IDX) agreements.
RPR Madness! NAR unleashes national property database with Cyberhomes
propertyadguru.com welcomes this guest post by Brian Boero from 1000wattconsulting.com examining the US National Association of Realtors’ upcoming national property database, the Realtors Property Resource.
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