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Real Estate Vendors Are Not Created Equally - Here’s My Take on the Big Three
By Ryan Ward | July 14, 2008
Real estate bloggers are a great place to look for leading edge technologies and opinions about our industry and they often offer some excellent insight into how third party vendors see real estate agents and brokers. As bloggers, we’re on the front line and sometimes see ourselves as defenders against interlopers or cheerleaders for new and great technology. Opinions vary widely on the good and bad of third party vendors and I have actively contributed my share, but, not all in one place. So I wanted to through my honest hat in the ring offering up my opinion on some of the good and the bad. The big three in my mind right now are Homegain, Trulia and Zillow. Each offer a different approach to how to interact within the industry and I don’t think it’s fair to lump them all in the same category. I’ll break them down from good to bad.
Homegain - In my opinion, Homegain is hands down a third party vendor that we as agents and brokers can appreciate and not only live with, but use effectively to position ourselves as powerful agents in our markets. (Full disclosure, I am a contributor on the Homegain blog). They work with agents by providing a source of leads for agents - very simple; they have leads and agents need them. I don’t see anything wrong with this business model. Leads aren’t free to anyone and if you need them , Homegain has them. They have excellent customer service, a proven track record and they work on the side of the agent, not in a competing format. Louis and Jessica have done a great job connecting the real estate community with the Homegain real estate blog.
Zillow -Zillow has made great strides in recent months as they have recognized the importance of working with the real estate community. Like Homegain, Zillow came up with a model that is theirs alone that actually brings something to the table that is unique with their zestimates. This is another example of how zillow brings something unique to the table for consumers. Not too long ago, I wrote a post about the zestimate for a city that I work in being not too far off the mark. While I believe that they are working hard to me more a partner with Realtors, using some of their capital, SEO and expertise to give something back to the real estate community, I am still a bit sour with some of where they started. I am a believer that there should and will always be a place for professionals practicing real estate.
Trulia -My feelings for Trulia are fairly well documented as they are in many other areas of the web so I won’t rehash any of that here. If you are interested, you can read about it on the Bloodhound Blog here and here, my blog here, the REW blog and more here. It’s not so much that I dislike them, in fact, I admire their use of technology. It’s just that they don’t actually bring anything new to the table that is theirs or unique in any way. They have a slick website with minimal content and a big wow factor for the look and feel. There big push is SEO - outrank the sources to force the sources to make them a source. It’s that simple. I don’t care for that and it can be spun as consumercentric, but it is not.
So really, what I base my opinion on here, is whether or not these companies bring anything to real estate professionals that is useful, contributes to the careers of agents or brings new information to consumers. Homegain and Zillow do that, Trulia does not. Looked at another way, if I ask myself if we would be missing anything if these companies instantaneously vanished the answer you be: Homegain? Yes. Zillow? Yes. Trulia? No.
That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.
Topics: Editorials |
I agree with you about trulia not bringing much to the table. I surely do not understand how and why they are able to generate 30,000,000 in money from investers.