Online Real Estate Landscape is Changing

A: With the emergence of Streeteasy.com, a 2nd round of financing at Trulia.com, and the coming of the Rich Barton project titled Zillow.com, the online real estate landscape certainly is changing. Here's the lowdown.

STREETEASY.COM



According to the ABOUT page:

StreetEasy was born out of the frustration we experienced when we set out to buy an apartment in New York. Not only did we have to check multiple sites, but also we could never search by the things most important to us (like by school) or get information that was important to us (like the real deal on a condo or co-op board).

I think Streeteasy.com has the best search technology so far, although I'm only comparing it to Trulia.com as Zillow.com has yet to be launched. However, they really did their homework and seems that the site was designed truly from the minds of frustrated buyers who wanted a better resource to find sales listings in New York.

Search features offered include FIND YOUR BUILDING, MOST/LEAST EXPENSIVE, NEW DEVELOPMENTS, RECENT CONVERSIONS, SCHOOL ZONES, A BLOG, MOST ACTIVE LISTINGS, & STREET FACTS. A comprehensive suite of data laid out in a very user-friendly manner! Search technology is pretty good too.

Here are the results of a search for 1BR condos in the Upper East Side around $500,000.


TRULIA.COM

Trulia is an independent and unbiased residential real estate search engine that gives you free and open access to real estate information.

Well thats what the ABOUT webpage says anyway. Trulia focuses on real estate in California and has a fairly good search technology to power its mission. Its got a search engine feel and simply asks you to enter a CITY or ZIP CODE in California which then yields you properties for sale and a bunch of statistics about the desired location; such as Neighborhoods, Pricing Breakdown, # Beds, # Baths, Size, & Type.

A search for 'San Francisco' brings us THESE RESULTS with the most expensive listings getting priority. Click on any of the trulia logo's on the Google map and you get instant access to more listings. Under the map is a quick FACTS chart about San Francisco in terms of Average Housing Prices.

With a 2nd round of financing of $5.7M just secured, I would bet Trulia expands to other markets first before enhancing their site with more bells & Whistles.


ZILLOW.COM



Zillow is a 'soon to be launched' online real estate website that is being led by Expedia.com founder Rich Barton. Other than what was released to the general public, we really don't know much about this startup other than that it will be huge! With 32M in funding and 75 active employees (mainly engineers), it is sure to change the online landscape when it launches later this year.

In the meantime, Inman News Blog is holding a contest to see who guesses the closest business model to what Zillow actually will be when it launches.

I think it will be a combination of NY Times property search technology, Craigslist model of using brokers/agents to post content for public, and Ebay model of user feedback and reviews for self governance and to create a barrier to entry for future competitors. Read my recent post on Zillow.com.

What do you think Zillow will be?

In the end the brokers will have to adapt to this changing marketing environment as potential homebuyers realize new and improved online resources to find properties they might buy or rent. It doesnt pay to ignore these entities. Rather, the big firms will be striking deals with these sites as their traffic grows to get their xml feeds of corporate listings integrated.