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A Real Estate Buyer Search Engine?

Published by Joseph Ferrara (2) June 25th, 2009 in Marketing tips. Comments

hiouse-wanted

I’ve been in the Hamptons the last few days working on a new real estate venture with Scott Forcino, Esq.– a real estate advocate brokerage paying 100%  of the commission to real estate agents  (more on that another time.)  While in town, we decided to have dinner with Michael Daly, Redfin Marketing Manager for Long Island. Mike’s an old friend and a seasoned real estate veteran (and blogger) in the Hamptons.

We were discussing Redfin’s real estate search engine (if Truliar is one, so is Redfin and every mom and pop broker website with a search box).   Between sliders, I wondered out loud (sorry Mike, did I get some beef on ya?)— “Why do all the real estate websites only focus on house listings (hoping to attract buyers)?

Why don’t real estate websites list buyers looking for homes? Perhaps then we’d have a buyers’ search engine.

Seems to me buyers are as valuable (if not more so) to the real estate transaction as house listings and their aggregation is as valuable  (if not more so) than house listings.

Sure, there are Real Estate Wanted sections in classifieds, but no such animal really exists on the real estate “media” sites to encourage buyers to list their real estate “wants”.

Michael thought he’d try it and list his buyers on his blog.  Why not?

Just a thought.

What do you think?

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  • The RE agent drop in income story has other facets.Agents
    incomes are way down. The figures calculated are probably
    directionally correct overall. What makes things worse for the
    agents is that they're not doing 54% less work, or incurring 54%
    less out of pocket costs. Many pay for system access and certain
    RE related services out of pocket. With income reduced but
    expenses holding steady, the reduction in their net income is
    more pronounced. Many of these agents are also spending
    significant amounts of time and energy working on short sales.
    Few of these transactions end up closing and yielding
    commission $ as many banks are dragging their feet on dealing
    with problems. The only people who seem to have it worse are
    the spec builders. Many are being boiled alive as the problems
    they put off in 2008 by renting out unsold inventory are now
    snowballing into massive losses.
  • Interesting comments...
    Will - I agree buyers are finicky but pre-approved buyers with agents are more serious.
    Lani - Thanks!
    JF - It is key to NationalBLS to use agents. I don't think FSBO is a mass market solution as the process is still too complex. Getting the balance right for consumers and agents is what we are working on.
    Bill - I will be at RE Barcamp in SF this summer.
    I welcome all your feedback, Duncan.
  • Thanks for stopping by, Duncan
  • ALex
    www.MyPocketDeals.com does just that. They have listings from both sides buyers can post their wants and sellers can list properties.
  • mfdaly1
    Wealth of info here, Joe!
    Dwellgo and BLS are great ideas! Thanks Lani!
  • I am not sure that would work. There is just something to be said for the special relationship that a buyer has when they have a good agent. I am not sure that is something that could ever get replaced, no matter how good the web software gets. Enhanced yes, replace no.
  • Joe,

    You may remember that we spoke about an MLS of buyers at the REBarCamp NYC in January 2009, see blog post / video below:

    Got rebate? Want menu of services & fees? Watch video / answer Q's
    http://tr.im/BuyerMLS

    Would gladly add members of our 1,000 Click Club to any experimental buyer databases. We're already using Twitter to introduce home buyers to FSBOs:
    http://tr.im/TwitterBuyerProfiles

    And also placed ads on Zillow.
  • Yes, indeed. Bill Wendel, you are a man ahead of your time... and you have
    been for a long time.

    Thanks for sharing.
  • It would also allow the listing site to provide more thorough demographic data to their advertisers. Right now, advertisers don't really know what kind of demographics their paying for. But, if there was a buyer listing section, advertisers would know the average age, income and even credit score of the viewers.

    Of course, this could always backfire if you end up getting bad demographics.
  • **note: most people know me as a gregarious, approachable person and hate criticizing anything, but here are my raw thoughts:**


    It's tough because buyers want instant gratification in my opinion but there are some models out there that seem to be doing well:

    (1) Dwellgo.com matches investors with properties, it's a tight niche but a model to look at.

    (2) NationalBLS.com (National Buyer Listing Service) is in beta right now and is gaining ground.

    I don't know that it will ever be the top business model because it's kind of like the "missed connections" section of Craigslist as opposed to match.com or the like. It's possible but I don't know that I've seen anyone who has really nailed down the mechanics of it yet and it can't ever be as populated as a listing engine.
  • I'll have to check out NationalBLS. It's what I'm thinking about.

    For media sites like TruZilla, wouldn't a Buyer listing section drive more
    traffic to the site, so they could charge advertisers more money?
  • Tried it years ago and it failed. Why? Because buyer's are finicky. They want a home. Prices can change. Specs can change. Location can change. Whims change.

    Sellers, on the other hand, have a definitive product to sell and the only thing you can really change is the price your asking (and even that isn't that important)... a buyer can offer whatever they like, I mean.

    Oh yeah, and buyers are just as quick to buy as they are to completely lose interest in the process. Many people HAVE to sell... no one has to buy.
  • Pretty good points stated here but I have notived that one from charles, the developer of the search engine which is most likely a realtor or someone employed by a realtor should expect that employing such method would not directly yield them serious clients but will at least market or make their products known world wide. Anyhow they should consider looking unto whether or not realtors should be dependent on this, which is probably a yes for me, digital age ring a bell?
  • Charles Black
    Determining weather or not a buyer is serious has always been a problem. And, it will always be a problem. I don't think that this kind of situation would make the problem worse. If anything it might make it easier to weed out serious buyers based on the profile that they create.
  • I never thought of that, Charles. Good point.
  • Let's say a buyer listed in a I Want to Buy website and a seller saw it and
    thought he or she had listings that fit the bill and emailed them to the
    buyer. Any harm done?
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