Marketing SEO Blog

Realtor Survival Guide for 2010

Create Content or Die

The lesson in this post is about the need for creating content if you plan to survive online in 2010 and beyond. In order to understand this new market driver, we need to take a peek into market trends and history.

MLS.Google.com

Google has made Google real estate part of Google maps.  This has happened just while NAR was announcing their intent on building out their own national database. Snooze you lose I guess.

What is most interesting is that while NAR moves at a snails pace. Ironically, Google gets their data spoon fed from Realtor sources nearly in real time.  In other words, if the Realtors stopped giving them listings, then Google would not be able to provide this new feature other than fsbos.

Of course, neither would real estate verticals like Trulia survive. But of course the nature of taking a listing is to sell the listing. So it has always seemed counter intuitive if not downright non fiduciary to hold onto a listing with such tight fists.

Givin' Away the Farm

MLS syndication has been a source of controversy since the beginning. To the best of my knowledge I was the first to write about the ultimate demise of the  MLS system as far back as January 2005. Since the start of this blog I have pontificated about the MLS system, and the giving away of Realtor data. 

MLS.Trulia.com

All hail the new MLS.Trulia......

What happens to free?

Its worthless, maybe partially valuable, or eventually after hooking users like a drug, it charges a fee.

As a for instance, Active Rain is trying several revenue models that include various advertising and paid blogs. Trulia who took a battering last month is opening up its Trulia Pro:

What this company has done has been remarkable. It has out Realtored, Realtor.com by becoming THE online source for Listings without actually being a Realtor. It has become the online spot for listings by dominating the engines without being a Realtor. While NAR's members has handed them their proprietary content and even their mindshare (Trulia Voices).

This is what all the whining was about at BloodHound. But it is too late. Game over. But it was inevitable when the industry could not effectively manage its own listings.The only Gorilla in Trulias way now is Google.

Welcome to the beginning of the new real estate business. Congrats to Pete Flint and the Management team for a flawless strategy.

The industry has literally handed over its protected content to an outsider for no other reason than its members lust for better marketing than its leaders could provide them. Certainly Trulia must feel that it has reached a high enough "addiction" rate that it would be tough for agents to stop using the listings portal. Thus it is safe now to start demanding, I mean asking for a fee. Brilliant!

More Trulia and MLS Related Links:

• Trulia Battering (I link here for the Trulia controversy. I do not support the uninformed postulating on SEO which is a conglomeration of ideas that are for the most part poorly formed opinions by many-not all- who simply do not not know a page rank from a link, from a nofollow to a dofollow and their purposes. This bullet falls under my category above called partially valuable. But the problem with that is the poor blokes who will base their whole online marketing strategy on some BS that somebody wrote who wants to sound smart because they got a mildly competitive word ranked. Word of advice: do not base your marketing on something you got off a comment or even a blog post or article. This falls under the whole notion of free advice. If you do not pay someone, then there is no accountability, thus it is worth what you paid for it, NOTHING. And a low budget is no excuse for the delusions of grandeur caused by an orgy of free information available on the internet.Can you tell I am a tad annoyed by all the bad advice floating out there? But I digress...)
• How Do You Compete With HomeGain and Trulia?
• ERA Real Estate Feed Trulia
• The Great Realtor Giveaway
• Universal MLS
• MLS.Google.com
• Microsoft and the Loss of the MLS
• Real Estate MLS gone

Google Changes

From Froogle to Googlebase to ?

Have you noticed that Google has replaced video for products? And a search for san diego real estate gives me a list of related products -not homes:

So I went to the old Google Base link and it gives me something just as lame.
http://www.google.com/base/search?q=san+diego+real+estate&btnG=Search+Base

I have looked for the traditional Google Base real estate search form in the web results and found it. So who knows what Google is doing?.

The Great Realtor Giveaway

The Great MLS Listings Giveaway

This is a story about how a listing can get contracted and sold in today's internet environment. And how NAR is giving Billions of Dollars in Listings of homes away this year.

I bet you didn't even hear about it. Heck, I bet most the people at your Board don't even know....

Universal MLS

Recently I hinted that I believe that the current MLS system is dangerously susceptible to being replaced. Possibly by an outsider.

The only way to fix this problem is for the MLS's to get themselves in touch with technological realities and to create a true Universal sharing of data.

As it happens ( as reported by Inman), 3 of the largest multiple listing services in Wisconsin just announced an aggregation of real estate data that will benefit members across the State.

This is a major move that hopefully causes more influential states to take notice. Meanwhile, Colorado real estate broker Creed Smith, has recently created Universal MLS. Smith has plans to build a new MLS. The idea is not new by any means, however few insiders have attempted such an approach.

He has a hefty challenge as few have the wherewithall to change  industry habits except for a nicely funded startup. It is only a matter of time.

Why I hate Microsoft

Now, I am the first one to complain and curse Sir Bill Gates every time my laptop with 1 gig of ram sloooows.

Nevermind that I have 15 Internet Explorer windows up, 7 tabs in Firefox, not to mention Photoshop and a couple Excel sheets running. And can I mention all those nasty backgound programs that keep finding their ways to chew up crucial memory?

Well, today , I had an epiphany. The PC gods have bestowed clarity upon me, and it all is very clear to now.

You see Microsoft with all its poor customer service. In its monopolistic endeavors and its crappy products has created the digital age.

As much as I love my Mac, I have to use MS. In fact, I have to use them in order to use many commercial applications that just are not available to the MAC or Linux operating systems. Like English is used begrudgingly worldwide in order to do business, MS has created the digital language of business. Mac may be my favorite language. But I use my PC when I wish to do business. In fact, Apple has had to create applications that easily "translate" to the MS PC.

Oh, sure Microsoft has created apps that can work on a Mac, but it is akin to we Americans showing our hospitality by our weak attempt at the metric system.

Uncle Bill has given us the consistent standard by which to operate in the digital era.

All mediums need a standard. Recordable DVD's are still grappling with a standard. Digital Video is dealing with the same issue. You would think if I have a purely digital video camera I could lay it down immediately onto a DVD for my family viewing, and just as easily upload it to the web. Nope.

The company that creates that standard will be rewarded handsomely.However, like with Microsoft,the fight is often bitter. The standard bearers always are rewarded for their efforts.

In real estate sales, it seems online companies are fighting to create the standard. However, the Realtor organizations already have a standard called the MLS.

The problem is the industry gets an "F" for its efforts to claim its birthright. A birthright that was built on the backs of generations of members throughout the years.

The MLS has been the industries consistent platform. The Realtor version of the stock market if you will.

An industry will always be inneficient until a standard is followed. Mess with the markets consistency and there is disruption and confusion.

Real Estate AntiTrust Again?

The real estate industry is under pressure to change because of a couple major arguments.

1. Freely distributable MLS data
2. Price gouging

Actually both fronts stem from the idea that the NAR is running a monopolistic organization, where prices are fixed and the listings data is controlled by the organization.

And it isn't totally manufactured either. I know of a local discounter that has been blackballed by local buyer agents. Its not official of course, it is subtle.

And, I know of local companies that have opted out of IDX!

In fact a leading consumer rights group, the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), on Monday issued a report charging that real estate industry members act as a cartel to stifle competition, resulting in higher prices and poorer service for homebuyers.

The argument goes that it is cheaper to operate a brokerage today because of technical advances.

...and most of your licensee friends sleep as the rug is being pulled right out from underneath.

If it Ain't Making Leads, Then its Just an Expensive Brochure

Blogging, Websites, lead capture vs open MLs.

I can't tell you how many times a day I hear an agent or an "expert" espouse the virtues of the empowered consumer and that it really is a benefit to leave the MLS open VS forcing them to opt-in.

The biggest excuse is that the consumer will just move-on to another website.

Hmm. Lots of responses come to mind for that one:

"Whose fault is that?"
The MLS has systematically been given away by NAR itself and boards since the beginning of the net.
"So what"
Serious people do not mind giving away some personal information for the data they want. Blogs are growing at a blistering pace where anyone with a thought can publish. Do you want to see the future? Just go to MySpace. What a mess of disjointed and frenetic text. Remember the line, "57 Channels and nothing on?" Yah. The net is Cable TV on Steroids.

The future of the internet is paid content. People, will not mind paying for content from sources they trust, because they want the information they can trust. When you have a medium where anyone with Frontpage and some time can start a business, it makes it more time consumptive to get what you want. Thus, people do not mind giving their information.

I have driven millions of consumers to my own and my client websites. They all get a phenomenal lead conversion rate.

Real Estate Control Freaks

At the end of the day, a forced opt-in is about control.

Control over your business, your website and your future. The money is in your list of prospects that come from your blog, your website and IDX VOW websites.

Control is from you communicating your message to an opt in list. It comes from knowing the point of your real estate blog, or your realty website. In my opinion that is to gather names. Lots and lots of names. So that can talk with those names on your terms.

MLS.Google.Com

I have made a central theme of my posts and a foundational basis for my type of marketing real estate online is that the MLS has got to be protected. Why?

For one it is your only tangible service that you provide. It is something that the consumer can get its arm around. Thus it has value. Henceforth, the gazillions of seed Capital for this new era of Dot Com exuberance.

This will only serve to take away the consumers access to agents as the primary contact point. An intermediary will serve to capture the lead and charge you for privilege of accessing that lead. Not to mention the possibility of swaying the consumer away from a Realtor served MLS system.

Of course it isn't being protected much. And I believe it end will be a losing battle for the real estate industry.

Actually as a side thought...in order to have a battle implies a fight. So maybe I should not call it such.

Which is amazing to me since the data that is being given away is being financed and underwritten thru Realtor dues. Yes, my friend, like it or not you are financing eventual changes that you may or may not like. I would assume for the vast majority of you it would be the latter.

Think I am nuts? Well all we have to do is look at what the search giant Google is doing over the pond to get a glimpse of things to come here in the good ole US of A. Can you say MLS.google.com?

From the NYTIMES :Google is planning a big push into the European retail industry with plans to launch a service aimed at giving bricks-and-mortar retailers a base from which to market and sell goods on line......planning to develop Google Base, a product still in test, into an on line retailing platform. ......Nikesh Arora, head of Google's European arm, said in an interview with the Financial Times that Google wants companies in retail – and possibly other sectors, including real estate – to hand over private internal databases of goods and prices.

The times, they will change. How & when is up to you.

Predictions for Online Real Estate 2006

Get the insider track on 2006
....online real estate marketing predictions

Happy New Year! everyone. I just posted my predictions for the new year. Check it out.