October 30, 2009

Google Tests Mortgage Comparison Ads, Updates Real Estate Search in Maps

Google is vamping up its real estate search offerings with two new announcements. First up, AdWords is testing comparison ads in the mortgage/refinance vertical. The idea behind comparison ads is to help searchers filter what they're really searching for when they type in something like "mortgage." Check out this screen shot of a comparison ad, per the Inside AdWords blog (click for a larger view):

When you click the ad, you get taken to a chart that lists various rates and lenders.

The second real estate announcement is for Google Maps. There are new ways to help searchers find real estate using the mapping service.

The first one involves the "More" menu that's directly on the map (not the one in the sidebar results). When you click on that, you'll see a real estate option. The second one is the ability to search rentals.

What do you think of Google's pursuit of real estate? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 23, 2009

Zillow Adds Mortgage Cost Comparison Feature

Real estate search engine Zillow has added a new feature to help consumers with the process of buying a home. 'True Cost' is a price comparison tool that allows borrowers to search anonymously for loans.

"Truly shopping for a loan and comparing terms and costs on an apples-to-apples basis is excruciatingly difficult for the average consumer to do. This is why so many consumers find themselves in loans they don't understand," said Lloyd Frink, Zillow president.

True Cost takes into consideration the down payment as well as interest and mortgage payments for potential buyers over the course of time they plan to live in the home.

"With True Cost, we've taken this comparison shopping a step further, and calculate for consumers not just what they're paying up front or every month, but the true cost over the timeframe they plan to live in a house. This level of transparency has never before been available in mortgage shopping, online or off," added Frink.

Transparency is crucial in the aftermath of the subprime lending crisis. A tool like this can help consumers avoid getting into mortgages they can't afford down the road.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 8, 2009

Google Goes After Real Estate, But Has a Long Way to Go

I don't know what's up with Google lately, but there have been a couple of big launches that aren't quite ready for prime time. Google Squared was released, pretty much as an answer to Wolfram Alpha, but it needs a ton of work.

Now, they've launched real estate search in Google Maps, but it's mostly a big dud. Realtor.com, Zillow.com, and Trulia.com are still way better and I absolutely wouldn't recommend ditching them to make Google your primary real estate search.

Of course, we can't discount Google either. They obviously rock the house on so many other products. But I guess because of this I expect a lot more from them.

I entered the search just the way they said you should: "homes for sale in Columbus, OH."

When the results come up, you have to click again to get the real estate search. That should come up right away. Kill the extra click.

Notice that when I refine my search, I see no searches from any of the top 5 real estate sites. According to Hitwise, they are:

Realtor.com
Zillow
Yahoo! Real Estate
Zip Realty
Trulia

Also, for Google's real estate search, I'd like to see the option of displaying more than 10 results before having to click to the next page of results. I think when it comes to real estate search, possibly more than other searches, users are going to be considering many more options because the investment is so large and the factors to consider in the purchase decision are so many.

But hey, that's just my opinion. Disagree? Think Google real estate search rocks? Leave a comment and tell me how it is.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 2, 2009

Real Estate Search Sites See Big Growth in the First Half of 2009

Real estate search sites Zillow and Trulia are seeing big growth in traffic, despite the economy and its housing woes. Zillow saw a 67% increase in unique visitors while Trulia saw a 40% increase in uniques.

Zillow averaged 8.3 million unique visitors per month so far in 2009. They're experiencing 35% more listings with a current total of 3.6 million listings. Customers submitted 265,000 loan requests which returned 3.5 million custom loan quotes during this time. Zillow is also experiencing great success with its iPhone app, which has has seen 535,000 downloads.

Trulia saw 30 million unique visitors across the six month period. Contributions to the Trulia Voices Community grew by 85% and has achieved the 5th spot in both Hitwise and comScore's real estate matrices.

These numbers are coming during an uncertain time in the economy, fueled by crises in the credit and housing markets. Taking all of that into consideration, congratulations are in order for these achievements made by Zillow and Trulia.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

May 28, 2009

Home Buyers More Likely to Search Online than Newspapers for Open House Listings

Trulia is releasing home buying search data from a Harris Interactive-commissioned survey. When looking for open house information, home buyers search:

62% online
53% info from real estate agents
36% neighborhood signs
31% newspapers and local flyers

"The real estate section of the weekend newspaper is no longer the go-to resource for open houses," said Sami Inkinen, co-founder and COO of Trulia. "Home buyers are increasingly going online to not only search for the most up to date listings but also to obtain rich information about the neighborhood, schools, and local shops. Both the Trulia.com site and our iPhone application allow home buyers to search for open houses in neighborhoods that interest them, plus they can sign up for email alerts on our website letting them know when new open houses are listed. The print newspaper can't offer that type of experience."

91% of home buyers plan to attend an open house during the purchasing process.

What do you think of this data? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

April 29, 2009

Zillow Release iPhone Real Estate Search App

Zillow has released an iPhone app for real estate searching on-the-go. All of the same data available on Zillow is available on the app. Zillow uses Microsoft virtual earth for its mapping.

"Researching homes and house-hunting is inherently a mobile experience," said Rich Barton, Zillow co-founder and CEO. "The GPS-enabled iPhone untethers our Zillow users from their computers and puts the power of our database of 88 million homes in their hands when they need it most - while they are looking at homes."

Here are screenshots of the app:

(Listing for my dream house here in Raleigh.)

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 7, 2009

Apartment Finder Partners with Online Real Estate Classifieds Network, OLX.com

Real estate search site ApartmentFinder.com has announced a new partnership with online real estate classifieds network, OLX.com. Through the agreement, OLX.com will publish thousands of apartment listings on their network which reaches 84 countries and in 36 languages. OLX becomes the third company to engage in such a partnership with Apartment Finder. The other two are Vast.com and AJCHomeFinder.com.

"We understand how vitally important it is for consumers to interact with our advertisers' listings when they are shopping for an apartment," says Marcia Bollinger, president, Apartment Finder. "That is why we look for every opportunity to help make that connection, especially on the web. Our partnership with OLX.com allows us to offer our advertisers exposure to millions of additional apartment renters while enhancing the online search experience for home shoppers."

OLX.com was founded in March 2006 by Fabrice Grinda and Alec Oxenford and is based out of New York, NY and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

ApartmentFinder.com is owned by parent company Network Communications, Inc.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 3, 2009

Trulia Sees Strong Traffic Growth in Q1 2009

Recently, Trulia announced that they experienced record growth in February 2009. That success was a sign of a good first quarter in terms of traffic for the real estate search site.

Compared to the first quarter of 2008...

Visits increased by 40%
Property views increased by 50%
Page views increased by 63% across home listings, stats & trends and Trulia Voices
Trulia Voices community site membership increased by 61%
Questions asked increased by 160%

"This was by far our best quarter to date," said Pete Flint, Trulia CEO and co-founder. "Consumers were more engaged than ever and we believe there is pent up demand as prices have reached new lows. Everyone at Trulia is committed to providing consumers with innovative products and access to data and resources to help find the home of their dreams and to better understand the real estate values in their ideal neighborhoods as we spring into the open house season."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 7:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Zillow Partners with 180 Newspapers for Co-Branded Real Estate Sites

Last September, real estate search site Zillow announced a newspaper consortium. This week Zillow is partnering with 180 newspapers to create co-branded real estate sites. The Tampa Tribune and 100 papers with Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. have launched. Papers such as the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Winston-Salem Journal are among those that will launch in the coming months.

"This next step of the Zillow Newspaper Consortium brings Zillow's unique local content and data to millions of online newspaper visitors searching for real estate information," said Lloyd Frink, Zillow president. "As our newspaper partners evolve and build out online content, we're excited to be a key part of the process."

Zillow has content for over 88 million homes in the United States, 3.3 million of which are for sale.

"The combination of Zillow's cutting-edge real estate technology with CNHI's deep community relationships will help us serve local readers and businesses in exciting new ways," said Donna Barrett, CEO of Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. "This relationship with Zillow will help cement our status as the deepest, richest source of local information in our markets." Related Reading: Zillow Launches Answers Feature Zillow Unveils Automated Quote API Zillow Launches Free Professional Directory

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 6:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 3, 2009

Trulia Experiences Record Growth for Community Feature in February 2009

Real estate search site Trulia experienced record growth for its community-based feature, Trulia Voices, last month. The topics showing the most growth were:

Foreclosure
Stimulus
Financing
8000 Tax Credit
Home Inspection

Here are the stats:

Visits to Trulia Voices increased 146% year-over-year
The volume of Question and Answer activity in Trulia Voices Q&A increased 114% year-over-year
Real estate professional's answer volume increased 96% year-over-year
Consumer questions increased 181% year-over-year

"Trulia Voices has been showing steady growth since its launch in 2007 and this month was a direct indication of how much consumers are looking for information related to the real estate market," said Heather Fernandez, VP of Marketing of Trulia. "President Obama's Mortgage Relief plan has created lots of confusion and consumers are trying to determine if they qualify for some relief or tax credit. Consumers are looking for guidance and education and are relying on our pool of more than 200,000 real estate professionals for advice and insight."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

January 13, 2009

Rent.com Tops Top Ten Most Popular Apartment Search Sites for Q4 2008

Rent.com topped the list of top ten most popular apartment search sites for the fourth quarter of 2008, according to Realty DataTrust. The rankings are compiled by quantifying the number of times renters checked availability online per property.

The list is as follows:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

December 16, 2008

Zillow Launches Answers Feature

It's been a popular year for answers sites as well as adding answers to existing sites and now real estate search engine Zillow is getting in on the action. Their new feature, Zillow Advice, provides a much needed answers niche for an industry going through much upheaval.

"In today's changing and unprecedented housing market, homeowners, buyers and sellers are hungry for advice and information," said Rich Barton, CEO and co-founder of Zillow.com. "This is apparent in the traffic and activity we are seeing on Zillow, with unique visitors up 44 percent over this time last year - it's clear more people than ever are searching for answers. Zillow Advice is a place where people can ask questions, find information on a very specific and local level, and connect with the real estate professionals in their area who can help. This, in addition to Zillow's updated home value and for-sale data on 80 million U.S. homes, creates an invaluable resource for consumers trying to navigate today's market."

Here's what to expect:

Localization - Users can tag questions by locality, at the state, city, or neighborhood level. Professionals and other Zillow users can then answer with information pertaining to that specific location. For example, if a user had a question about pricing their home in a specific Seattle neighborhood, a local Seattle real estate agent, or a recent seller from that neighborhood could answer with relevant information or advice.
"Local Expert" Badge - Users who ask questions can notate the "best answer" to their questions. Those whose answers are frequently voted "best answers" earn points towards a "Local Expert" Badge - a way for the Zillow community to know which experts are active and frequently commended for their helpful contributions.
Subscription - Professionals can subscribe to specific locations or topics in their area of expertise. When a question is tagged with a city, neighborhood or topic they have subscribed to, they are notified immediately via an email or RSS feed and can quickly respond with relevant information. This feature helps consumers connect quickly and easily with the local experts who can best answer their question.
Key Word Search - Users typing in a specific word or phrase, like "refinancing" are directed to all the questions that have been asked, or discussions taking place on Zillow Advice around that word or phrase.
Profile Pages - All Zillow community contributions link to a user's free Zillow Profile Page, where real estate professionals can choose to include contact information, photos and a narrative about their areas of service. Profile pages show all of an individual's contributions to Zillow.com - from active listings, to questions answered or discussion participation.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 19, 2008

Trulia Partners with Placecast for Audience Targeting and Dynamic Messaging

Real estate search site Trulia has partnered with Placecast for audience targeting and dynamic messaging. The goal is to improve the relevancy of the ads appearing on their site.

Placecast will use its proprietary targeting algorithms to generate ads based on the real estate locations in which a user expresses interest. The ads will also take into account demographic and psychographic data points.

“Turning locations into audiences is one of the biggest challenges facing advertisers today,” said Sean Black, Vice President of Sales at Trulia. “Trulia presents advertisers with multiple opportunities to serve very targeted ads based on location and consumers search behavior. Placecast is a cutting edge media company and we are excited to be working with them and their clients to build and deliver successful campaigns.”

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 20, 2008

Yahoo, Zillow to Cut Jobs

Yahoo and real estate search site are both planning to cut jobs. While Yahoo has been said to have a bloated work force, Zillow's problems are due to the mortgage crisis and a decreased need for home valuations.

A Microsoft acquisition might not have saved these Yahoo jobs. Mergers are notorious for job cuts and many would have walked away. Much was said about the differences in the cultures of the two companies as being a reason against the merger. Of course, fewer people care about corporate culture when the economy is horrible and your company's stock has plunged. Still, hindsight is 20/20.

Meanwhile, there's just no way around the matter for Zillow. No one's talking about bailing out real estate search and home valuations sites. It's clear that the housing market was a giant bubble and that businesses built around it are going to suffer or need a new business model.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 16, 2008

Zillow Unveils Automated Quote API

Real estate search site Zillow has released a new API for automated quotes. With the API, lenders can automate custom quotes to borrowers submitting loan requests. The API will be made available over the next few weeks and will have 5 initial technology partners: Leads360, Mortech, Mortgagebot, NYLX and Optimal Blue.

"We're excited to be announcing the Zillow Quote API today to enable the lenders within Zillow Mortgage Marketplace to more efficiently service a larger number of borrowers, ultimately helping them gain more business," said Lloyd Frink, President of Zillow.com. "We believe this new feature will also improve the experience for the borrowers on our site by providing a greater number of quotes, faster, as well as more options in rates and lenders to help them chose the right loan and lender for them."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 2, 2008

Zillow Launches Free Professional Directory

Real estate search engine Zillow.com has launched a free professional directory. This will allow real estate professionals to market their services to the millions of Zillow visitors for free. Pros can create a profile with photos, videos, and the like.

"This is a free opportunity for local professionals to market their services to Zillow's millions of visitors - 90 percent of whom own a home, and two-thirds who are buying or selling now or in the near future. In today's challenging market, it's a no-brainer," said Jorrit Van der Meulen, Zillow's vice president of partner relations.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 8, 2008

Zillow Launches New Ad Network with Consortium of Newspapers

Real estate search engine Zillow.com has announced a new advertising network with its consortium of 282 newspapers from 11 companies. With a reach of over 63 million unique monthly consumers, the Zillow Advertising Network is the largest online real estate advertising network.

Advertisers on both Zillow and the newspapers will have the opportunity to buy from both inventories.

"The Zillow Advertising Network gives local and national advertisers unprecedented access to the largest online audience of home buying and selling consumers available, including the loyal, engaged audiences visiting Zillow and our newspaper partners," said Greg Schwartz, vice president of advertising sales at Zillow. "This affluent and qualified audience of consumers making major home-related purchases is extremely valuable to advertisers and can now be targeted across a range of geographic considerations."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 28, 2008

Realtor.com Reveals Increase in Local Market Searches

Though the housing sector has been in turmoil for about a year now, last month showed a glimmer of hope with new home sales up 2.4% month over month in July.

Real estate search site Realtor.com is reaping the benefit of the little good news there is out there for the real estate industry. In July, Realtor.com saw increases in searches for certain local markets around the country, and they are:

Stockton-Lodi, CA 140.9%
Las Vegas, NV 93.9%
Fort Myers-Cape Coral, FL 69.5%
Detroit, MI 51.8%
Washington, DC-MD-VA-WV, VA 49.1%

As a result, traffic to the site is up 9.5% year-over-year, despite an overall industry traffic slump declining 1% year-over-year.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 25, 2008

Trulia Rolls Out Three New Interactive Features

Real estate search engine Trulia today announced three new features to assist home buyers, sellers and agents. Personalized news feeds, mobile applications, and a blogging platform are now available to those in the home buying and selling process.

The personalized news feed can be found on Trulia's homepage and includes new property listings, home prices changes, upcoming open houses, median sales price trends, recently sold properties, relevant blogs and Q&As from our Trulia Voices Community.

New mobile apps are available for iPhone and iPod touch users as well as owners BlackBerry, Blackjack, Sony Ericsson, Nokia and many more mobile phones.

The iPhone/iPod touch app can search via price, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, square footage, color photos and local open house information. The app can detect location for the 3G phones based on the location-aware technology, or other users can simply input their location.

For other mobile phone users, you can use an interactive mobile map. Search options include property details, color photos and updated open house dates and times.

Trulia has also partnered with Dash Navigation to provide real estate search via their GPS device, Dash Express. The device is Internet-connected, providing users with real time search results.

Last but not least, the new blogging platform enables agents as well as home buyers and sellers to communicate about the real estate process. From home renovations to open houses, users can blog to their hearts desire, with the opportunity to reach Trulia's 5 million users right off the bat.

What do you think about Trulia's new features? Let us know in the comments.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 22, 2008

Women More Likely Than Men to Begin Real Estate Search Online

41% of women are likely to begin their search for a new home online, compared with just 25% of men, according to a survey released by Obeo. 52.6% of women and 45% of men research 21 or more homes online at some point during the process.

95% of women said photos of a home are very helpful in searching for a home and 70% of them said 360-degree panoramas are useful.

Obeo is a provider of interactive online marketing tools for the real estate industry.

"We know that today's home buyers are more knowledgeable about the process in general and have higher expectations of information provided regarding the homes in which they are interested," said Obeo CEO Glade Jones. "What this survey provides with its in-depth demographic analysis is a map to better serving that end consumer."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 14, 2008

Real Estate Search Engine Zillow Launches Geo-targeted Ads

Zillow, a vertical search engine aimed at the real estate market, has announced the launch of Showcase Ads, geo-targeted ads for realtors and other real estate advertisers. Within a given zip code, advertisers can buy 25, 50, 75, or 100 percent of the ads, giving them the ability to target just the local areas they are interested in selling to. Showcase Ads will have a different pricing structure than Zillow's other local ad offering - EZ Ads.

"Zillow is committed to offering local professionals affordable and easy- to-use tools to get in front of our large audience of consumers interested in real estate and buying and selling homes," said Greg Schwartz, vice president of ad sales at Zillow.com. "We strongly believe that the more targeted an ad can be, both at a national and local level, the more useful the consumer will find it and the more successful the advertiser will be."

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 26, 2008

Apartment Guide Launches Mobile GPS Search Application

Apartment Guide has launched a mobile search application allowing users to find apartments via GPS. They've partnered with Mobile Accord to provide the location-based listings, available through participating carriers.

“Apartment Guide makes finding apartments easier through mobile GPS,” said Arlene Mayfield, president of Apartment Guide. “Powered by Qualcomm's BREW® Platform, the application also enables mobile phone subscribers to search for apartments anywhere in the United States, access prices, photos and property features and contact the leasing office directly.”

“According to ABI Research, North American subscriptions to ‘personal locator services' using GPS-enabled mobile phones will grow to more than 20 million by 2011,” said James Eberhard, chairman, Mobile Accord. “By enabling consumers to find apartments through GPS on their cell phones, Apartment Guide addresses a growing technological demand and meets the needs of renters ‘on the go.'”

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 28, 2008

Property of Google? No! The Google of Property

While many startups aspire to become "The Property of Google," UK-based DotHomes wants to be "the Google of property."

Just when you thought the days of aspiring Googles had ended, vertical search took on a life of its own. In real estate, Zillow, Trulia, Craigslist, Redfin and other sites have become classic disruptors in the marketplace.

In the UK, the disruptor was DotHomes.co.uk. After conquering South Africa, DotHomes (free for consumers and realtors) has crossed the pond to the U.S.

Greg Sterling of Screenwerk is all gloomy about survival prospects for 10-12 real estate search engines. He likes the Bob Tedeschi POV in his NY Times E-Commerce Report today, Despite Housing Slide, Real Estate Sites Sell . Tedeschi quotes Nielsen Online that the number of ads displayed on real estate sites are down, though the number of visitors is up.

The DotHomes press release notes in big caps that it "DOES NOT" host realtor listings on its site, only result summaries. Users are directed to the agents' original listings, from the more than 1 million broker listings aggregated.

Other Googly features: one-box search, customized for natural language queries, and the potentially dangerous “I'm Feeling Wealthy” button to view the most expensive U.S. homes on the market.

I may have found an error in the pricing of a home. See if you can find the sky-high property in a town not known for $40 million properties in the "I'm Feeling Wealthy" New York, NY listings and let me know if I'm way off base.

A couple great Web 2.0 benefits of the DotHomes site for real estate brokers:

Heat maps of local prices per square foot may not be as popular with brokers as "On-the-fly video uploads" designed to make updating DotHomes easier.

Now DotHomes and the Flip video camera may give a whole new meaning to "flipping properties."

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 3:33 PM | Permalink

November 14, 2006

New Demographic Heatmaps From HotPads

HotPads is a map-based rental housing search site. The site has launched new heatmaps that contain interesting demographic information showing such data as age, income, percentage of renters and average rent. For example, here's per capita income in Mahattan. I have some thoughts on what this means for ad targeting on my blog.

The site previously created mashups for the November U.S. elections.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 11:21 AM | Permalink

October 11, 2006

Cool New Real Estate Tools

The real estate vertical is one of the most interesting online segments for several reasons. Among them are the tools that have been developed amid intensifying competition.

Two relatively new ones are Rentometer from iiProperty, a company that helps manage real-estate investments and rental properties, and Mapvine from a company called Rentvine.

Mapvine is a free tool that enables anyone to place map-based listings (rentals, store locations, etc.) on their sites without any technical knowledge or expertise.

Rentometer allows you to compare what you're paying to average rents in your area. For example, before my wife and I moved from San Francisco, CA to where we live currently we were paying approximately $1375 a month in rent (over four years ago). Today that looks like an incredible deal.

Rentometer also shows you the highest rents by zip and by city.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:41 AM | Permalink

September 25, 2006

Real Estate Search Engine Trulia Adds New Depth, Features

As the housing market cools, the real estate vertical is heating up. Today, real estate search engine Trulia launched several new features, a week after Zillow introduced new functionality and about three weeks after Yahoo! Real Estate announced a range of new tools and a site redesign.

Trulia has now expanded and is offering nationwide coverage through a mix of crawling and listing feeds. It's also providing a range of new information on real estate price trends, comparable homes and neighborhood guides (i.e., schools, commutes and crime data). Here's are example guides for Chicago, Illinois and St. Paul, Minnesota.

Perhaps the most fun new feature/tool on the site are heat maps, which show prices per square foot by area. Here's Chicago and San Diego, California. Zillow introduced something similar last week (Here's an example for Boston, Massachusetts.) The Trulia heat maps are interactive, however, and can be used as a way to locate homes for sale. Buyers can visually identify an area with a price per square foot they can afford and then go directly from the map to listings or an area guide to learn more.

Trulia is ad supported and is showing branded listings within relevant search results. Here's an example for a neighborhood in Miami, Florida. The ads at the top will be relevant to whatever criteria the user has indicated. There's also branded advertising on the adjacent maps. Trulia also has RSS feeds and alerts so users can stay abreast of properties within their criteria without having to visit the site every day.

Trulia is just a year old and has put together one of the most feature rich, useful and user-friendly of the real estate sites on the market. It is not as heavily trafficked as some but from a usability standpoint can go head to head with any site out there.

Real estate as a vertical is a perfect kind of a laboratory for local search. It offers an obvious and valuable implementation of maps, lots of monetization opportunities and ready would-be advertisers who are aggressive and generally ahead of the small business curve when it comes to creativity and online marketing.

Because there's so much money in the sector -- the National Association of Realtors estimates that approximately $12 billion dollars is spent annually in the U.S. on real estate marketing and advertising -- there's lots of competition and innovation.

Now with a slowing market it will get even more intense.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:24 PM | Permalink

September 20, 2006

Zillow Adds 'Owner-Generated' Content

Real estate search site Zillow.com has added personalization features and the ability for homeowners to publish their own information beside Zillows home-valuation "Zestimates."

A new "My Zillow" feature allows users to track homes and save other content to a personal page. Zillow previously allowed homeowners to modify and/or correct the details, features and amenities of their homes and recalculate the estimated value. Those details and modifications can now be made public beside Zillow's own Zestimate if owners so choose.

Zillow's Zestimates have been critiqued in some quarters for being inflated or otherwise inaccurate. This capability will help add more accurate data to the content on the site.

Finally, Zillow has added cool "heat maps" to the site, showing by color the price per square foot of any area in the country.

We wrote about Zillow previously here and here.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:29 AM | Permalink

August 29, 2006

Yahoo Revamps Real Estate Portal

The Yahoo Blog announced that they have revamped Yahoo Real Estate. They have also added some more Yahoo Shortcuts that pulls data from Yahoo Real Estate, directly on Yahoo Search. For example, a search on suffern, new york mortgage rates brings back a Shortcut with a chart of rates, with more links to more detailed information. They added some more shortcuts, including a listing short cut, so if you search on chicago real estate you get links to Yahoo Real Estate, if you search on home values you get a instant home valuation tool, if you search on a specific Prudential listing ID in the syntax of Pru ID you get information on that listing. Yahoo has also added deeper integration with Yahoo Real Estate and Yahoo Maps, using the Maps API. The whole thing is greatly revamped and retooled, tons and tons of features - check out the Yahoo Blog or read the full release below.

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug 29, 2006 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Yahoo!(R) Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today announced an extensively revamped site which combines access to one of the industry's most comprehensive databases of real estate listings with a new set of tools and services that provide everything home seekers need to buy, sell or rent a home accessible through Yahoo! Real Estate (http://realestate.yahoo.com).

Yahoo! Real Estate combines access to more than 3 million homes with easy-to-use tools such as interactive maps, access to millions of instant home valuations through www.zillow.com, mortgage tools with access to local market rates and more. Tightly integrated with Yahoo!'s powerful search and maps technology, Yahoo! Real Estate gives users all the information they need to find the ideal home, and even an agent and financing -- all in one easy to navigate Web site.

"Finding a home is one of the most important -- and often most expensive -- buying decisions a person makes in life. We've found that house hunters are most interested in prices, proximity to schools and restaurants, financing options and home values," said Andrew Braccia, Vice President of Search and Marketplace, Yahoo!. "By integrating our leading maps, local and search products into Yahoo! Real Estate, we are giving home seekers fast and easy access to the comprehensive information they need to make the right buying or renting decision."

Yahoo! Real Estate has integrated maps and local community information to transform the online buying and renting experience online. With house hunters spending an average of 8 weeks(1) researching homes before making a purchasing decision, they are hungry for information about their soon-to-be surroundings. Yahoo! Real Estate has added maps with satellite imagery so house hunters can easily see where homes for sale or rentals are located and their proximity to roads and other landmarks. Integration with Yahoo! Local allows users to also see "inside information" about their potential new neighborhood such as the location of parks, schools, restaurants and read reviews written by other Yahoo! users. Users can also see a market snapshot of each community with average house prices, and historical price trends. Local mortgage interest rates and trends can be accessed on feature-rich graphs so users can make more informed financing decisions. In addition, links to Yahoo! Answers allow users to post specific questions about a neighborhood, mortgage rate or rental, and access a living repository made up of real life experience, advice and opinion.

When beginning a home search, 77 percent(2) of all home seekers use the Internet to find everything from listings, financing options and home values. To improve the search experience, Yahoo! Search has created new shortcuts that make it fast and easy to find real estate information. Examples include:

-- Listings Shortcut: Go to Yahoo! Search and type "Chicago real estate" and it will return links to Chicago listings based on 3 different price ranges.

-- Mortgage Rate Shortcut: Go to Yahoo! Search and type "Miami mortgage rates" and quickly see the latest regional mortgage rates directly in search results

-- Home Values Shortcut: Go to Yahoo! Search and type "Home Values" and users can easily enter an address for an instant home valuation.

-- Prudential Home Listing: Through an agreement with Prudential Real Estate, home seekers can even search for details on a home they see offline, by searching the "Pru ID" found on a home's for sale sign.

Yahoo! Real Estate provides a complete set of tools and access to comprehensive listings including MLS properties in partnership with Prudential Real Estate, classifieds, apartment rentals, for sale by owner, foreclosures, and new home listings. Yahoo! users can easily access this information by visiting http://realestate.yahoo.com or by utilizing Yahoo! Search or other Yahoo! properties such as Finance, HotJobs, and the Yahoo! home page.

(1) 2005 National Association of Realtors(R) Profile of Home Buyers & Sellers

(2) 2005 National Association of Realtors(R) Profile of Home Buyers & Sellers

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is the No. 1 Internet brand globally and the most trafficked Internet destination worldwide. Yahoo! provides online products and services essential to consumers' lives, and offers a full range of tools and marketing solutions for businesses to connect with Internet users around the world. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.

SOURCE: Yahoo! Inc.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:52 AM | Permalink

July 28, 2006

Trulia Distributing Its Maps To Local Realtors

As described on the Trulia Blog and The Future of Real Estate Marketing Blog, vertical real estate search site Trulia is making its maps with listings available for no cost to local brokers and realtors. The maps themselves are built on the Google Maps API and reflect local real estate listings drawn from broker feeds and crawling.

Here's what Trulia says about the new maps distribution:

"How does it work? Visit the Tools For Your Site section of Trulia and click on TruliaMap. Enter your website URL and we'll quickly tell you whether we've indexed your listings. You can then customize a TruliaMap to make it your own. Options include size (narrow or wide), colors, and even an option to have the map automatically animate through your listings."

Local realtors thus get a customized map on their sites featuring their listings. This is a smart (and natural) move because it will provide off-site distribution and branding for Trulia and encourage other local realtors and brokers to get their listings onto the site. It also makes participating local realtor sites much richer for users (The Real Estate Marketing Blog also suggests they add the Zillow API for house valuations). Trulia has essentially shunned the MLS services in favor of dealing directly with local agents.

Trulia offers one of the most feature rich and user friendly real estate sites in the market today.

Google Maps API and Google Maps have been wildly popular so, by the same token, why shouldn't a useful application built on top of Google Maps? But I wonder how Google will feel about this "re-syndication"?

Posted by Greg Sterling at 5:46 PM | Permalink

July 19, 2006

ApartmentRatings.com: 'What The Neighbors Pay'

Apartment locator ApartmentRatings.com has introduced a new service it calls "What The Neighbors Pay." As co-founder and CEO Jeremy Bencken describes it, "It's not quite 'Zillow for renters.'" Regardless, it offers helpful pricing information, benchmarking individual apartment rates vs. averages in the area.

Bencken said in email that the service "allows users to find out what renters in over 270 MSA's nationwide report paying in rent. ApartmentRatings.com has collected over 400,000 tenant responses nationwide over the past six years and made them available to search at the metro, city, and apartment community level."

Here's an example of the pricing data for a building in the Berkeley, California area.

Even more valuable are the renter reviews on the site. Here's a set of results from my area, Oakland, California. One can sort by a number of criteria, including whether the unit is "recommended," by number of reviews and by point score. The point score or ranking is a composite of several criteria: parking, maintenance, constuction, noise, grounds and safety.

There's also a helpful map-based search tool that offers similar sort/refine capabilities from pull-down menus. Map search is especially practical and valuable in a real-estate context because fundamentally people what to see where homes and apartments are located, typically before moving on to other considerations.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 2:12 PM | Permalink

Zillow Partners With Yahoo!

Zillow, the real estate wunderkind, announced a partnership with Yahoo! in which Zillow's Zestimates (home value estimates) will show up on Yahoo! search result pages as a Shortcut. Here's the result for 'home values' on Yahoo!. Zillow will also be featured in Yahoo's real estate section (under the 'what's my home worth' link).

Read the official press release, Zillow's blog post, or the Yahoo! Search blog post.

This is obviously a major coup for Zillow and continues a trend of innovative start-ups partnering with the big search engines to get to the next level. Read more at VerticalSearch.net

Posted by Brian Smith at 2:34 AM | Permalink

June 20, 2006

Zillow Announces 'Zillow Labs'

Everybody's going "Web2.0." Real estate vertical search engine and valuation site Zillow.com has launched Zillow Labs, "a sandbox where developers and others can try out new, cutting-edge projects. You can help by testing them, then sharing your suggestions, comments and even your own tools."

Right now the tools include a Firefox plug-in, a Google Toolbar button and a search box you can add to your site.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 3:30 PM | Permalink

June 16, 2006

More Real Estate Search Engines & Sites

There were many interesting responses to the Real Estate Roundups that appeared in Search Day earlier this week (part II) and last week (part I). Most of the feedback called attention to other sites or features that had not been mentioned in those two articles. Of course, there are far more real estate sites than can be discussed in 1,100 words, so I had to leave out many interesting sites. (Some were excluded because I simply was unaware of them.)

Here is a selection of the sites that readers brought to our attention:

Real Estate blog Curbed, operating in New York, San Francisco and LA also has a companion NYC restaurant site, Eater.

The month old UrbanRegistry.com covers the New York market, with an intention to expand to Boston. Also focused exclusively on New York is Natefind, which offers the ability to see results on a map or in Google Earth (right column).

Like the better known Zillow, RealEstateABC.com offers immediate valuations of homes with the capacity to adjust variables that affect the valuation of the property.

One of several sites to start using video, DNN.tv has real estate news in a "nightly news" format and offers local real estate listings paired with local community videos (a la TurnHere.com).

There's also the very "Web 2.0"-feeling propsmart, which prominently features Google Maps and is quite similar to Trulia in some respects.

This didn't come from feedback to the articles, but was featured by Microsoft's Steven Lawler in his Where2.0 presentation earlier in the week: John L. Scott Real Estate. The site integrates Virtual Earth into the presentation of listings and allows for "traditional" or map-based real estate searches.

Finally, if you didn't get enough from the two pieces we ran, there's Joel Burslem's Real Estate Marketing Blog that tracks the online trends and activities of the industry.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 5:44 AM | Permalink

June 13, 2006

Searching for a Place to Live, Part 2

SEW correspondent Greg Sterling continues his roundup of a number of the most popular new real estate search verticals in today's SearchDay article, A Real Estate Vertical Search Roundup.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:24 AM | Permalink

June 7, 2006

Searching for a Place to Live

Real estate search services are some of the hottest new properties on the web, and no wonder—the National Association of Realtors estimates that more than 77% of home buyers used the internet in their search for housing. And just as different neighborhoods have a unique appeal, the current generation of real estate verticals take widely differing approaches to finding real estate information. SEW correspondent Greg Sterling has a great roundup of a number of the most popular new real estate search verticals in today's SearchDay article, A Real Estate Vertical Search Roundup.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:48 PM | Permalink

May 26, 2006

Homestore Rebrands As Move.com

Earlier this month, Homestore and much of its network of sites have rebranded under the banner of a new URL, Move.com. The new site is being positioned as a real-estate vertical "search engine" for all things related to buying, renting and relocation.

Homestore has had a number of past legal problems, which the company has apparently now put behind itself. The rebranding should help with that as well.

In addition to the Move site, Homestore operates a range of websites, including Realtor.com, Welcome Wagon, Moving.com, SeniorHousingNet, and Homeplans.com. Those URLs will remain active, while the Move.com site replaces Homestore.com, HomeBuilder.com, Factorybuilthousing.com and RentNet.com.

According to comScore, traffic to real estate sites grew 23% vs. a year ago. The Move/Homestore Network aggregated the most users in the category.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 4:33 PM | Permalink

May 11, 2006

"Online Seller Advantage Program" Taps Yahoo for Buyer, Seller Data

Prudential Real Estate is offering a new program as part of its existing marketing relationship with Yahoo Real Estate called the "Online Seller Advantage program" (OSA). It"s designed to let sellers" agents convey market information to their clients ("real-time updates") via email. Sellers will be able to receive a range of consumer-related and competitive market data.

Those data include the following:

How often their property showed up on research results
How often their property was viewed in detailed format
How many viewers have saved their property in their portfolio
New listings and photos in the seller's immediate neighborhood
Price changes of homes in the seller's immediate neighborhood
Status changes (sold, pending, price reductions) of competitive properties in the seller's local area

From a buyer perspective, homes for sale will be equipped with a branded 'sign rider' featuring a unique ID number. Buyers can plug that number into Yahoo search and immediately be taken to details about the specific property. This is the most interesting aspect of the announcement from my point of view because it helps connect the online and offline worlds in a very direct way. It's not clear from the available information whether there's a mobile dimension to this, although presumably the information could equally be obtained through a browser on a mobile phone. Interestingly, the seller tools and data seem to be about enabling agents to manage expectations in a cooling marketplace. As evidence, here's a quote from the press release:

"This is a time when pricing a home right can really make a difference," said Aaron Lewis, a sales professional with Prudential California Realty in Turlock, Calif. "But sometimes, the sellers' perspective of their property's value is different from what the market will bear. The OSA emails they receive daily provide hard evidence to support my recommendations on staying competitive. The OSA keeps my sellers realistic, which helps me help them."

The OSA is going to be available in 47 states and Washington, D.C. The missing three are Arkansas, South Dakota and West Virginia. But the program will be expanded in the near term to encompass those states as well.

Here's a commercial (via YouTube) for Yahoo and Prudential's marketing partnership, though not specifically this offering.

Other sites, such as Zillow offer valuation information and other market data.

The percent of U.S. homebuyers using the Internet as part of their housing search process went from roughly 2% in 1995 to 77% in 2005 according to the National Association of Realtors. The Internet is now the number one consumer resource in the home-buying process.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:20 PM | Permalink

April 13, 2006

Zillow Adds Birds-Eye Imagery

Zillow, the real estate portal I wrote about several weeks ago, has added birds-eye aerial photography from Microsoft's Virtual Earth to complement its maps and own satellite images of U.S. neighborhoods (here's an example). The images are available for a few dozen cities with more to come.

From the Zillow blog:

It's easy to imagine the clarity these images add for a home buyer curious about a property's architecture, yard or neighboring homes. Personally I like looking at my neighborhood the most. Not only is this a perspective I've never seen (even though I've lived in the same neighborhood my whole life), it allows me to do "Sunday afternoon strolls" looking at nearby houses whenever I want. In the side-by-side view, I get the Zestimate and home details on the traditional Zillow satellite map right next to the bird's eye view.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:59 PM | Permalink

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