Linkedin meets Oodle meets CafePress 4 Property
I decided to put on my McKinsey wannabee meets Web 2.0 hard blogging Slacker when a report called "Real Estate Advertising 2005 : Time to Listen or Lose" came out. It makes you realise it's not just recruiters (or employment classifieds salespeople on commission;) who have to worry - What about that agent (or local newspaper realestate media sales exec :) down the street that sold your house - or did he really sell it ? Did he just take a couple % points, place an ad (which he places a marketing services margin on), runs an auction if a proactive buyer doesn't search craigslist, contact him and make an offer. Yes, its getting closer to disintermediating the real estate agent and while the local newspaper for real estate isnt dead : There is a shift going on when a newspaper property ad, will be a premium 'addition' to a property sale campaign for buyers that that have already optimised their online campaign. This will affect the economics of the property business.
By disintermediating I mean making a 'frictionless' sales process for buyer and seller, thus allowing a cheaper selling price, and thus decrease in total revenue for laggard realtors. Like all classified category plays, stage 1 happened mid-late 90's with a replication of newspapers but online and with pictures. Stage 2 is more local meta-aggregated free listings orientated (eg oodle.com) with the controlling value chain player being the realtor. However, their greed (plus sheer relative weight of emails and calls vs spend vs newspapers) drives them to use online more and more, churning their print spend. Before long (its almost there now) the realtor cant live without the online leads. The online business in stage 3 then increases the price dramatically. Sellers, then realising what the realtor really does (just as they did to the newspaper in the stage before), have the choice of bypassing the agent by using an end-end selling service 'linkedin meets oodle.com meets cafepress.com for real estate' (they deliver a board to put outside your house, the copy for which you build online like an adsense ad) - as well as manage your online selling campaign like a CPC search adsense campaign. (with a post-click behaviorial tracking engine of interested buyers - like a recruitment tracking app)
I haven't yet seen a vertically focused player in this space with the depth of application or offline real estate smarts to turn online classifieds into a smart buying and selling property service. (cross industry capabalities that are hard to develop/acquire/partner) There is vertical work in the online world to do (customer generation, tracking, copy writing/photos for property sale, SEO property and Feed pinging of major search and real estate sites to optimise sales) plus offline (delivery system for property brochures, board outside house - think cafepress or zazzle for property marketing, plus robotic distributed 'agents' to run auctions, rentals, financing etc)
Ironically when MSN entered the 'intermediary' space in the 90's with Sidewalk.com (which I worked on) as well as expedia, investor and carpoint, which I launched downunder, this was the original 10 year vision of assisting both buyer and seller. Anyone interested in discussing post or email.
"The dominant search engines (especially Google) are becoming in attracting local real estate advertising money... Google has begun pursuing the real estate category directly, now employing three regional sales teams in the U.S. that are focused on the real estate and other classifieds categories. The search giant has been making presentations to major brokerage firms such as Century 21, RE/MAX, and Coldwell Banker. Those real estate companies are buying advertising as part of Google's AdWords and AdSense programs, where they pay per click, and they're bidding up keywords to $1 per click, and $2 in some cities. A growing segment of these bidders are local advertisers, says Borrell - individual agents and brokerage firms. A Realtor in Austin, Texas: "That (Google) ad is working great. ... We are busy as hell, and that is the only advertising we are doing right now. We quit our print advertising after we posted that Google ad."
"The CI report similarly concludes, "The bulk of Realtors' online expenditures will be on pay-per-click local-search advertising and in support of their own websites." Some 31 percent surveyed said they're spending no dollars with local print newspapers in 2005, and 37 percent of Realtors said they'd spend no money in print newspapers in 2006."
By disintermediating I mean making a 'frictionless' sales process for buyer and seller, thus allowing a cheaper selling price, and thus decrease in total revenue for laggard realtors. Like all classified category plays, stage 1 happened mid-late 90's with a replication of newspapers but online and with pictures. Stage 2 is more local meta-aggregated free listings orientated (eg oodle.com) with the controlling value chain player being the realtor. However, their greed (plus sheer relative weight of emails and calls vs spend vs newspapers) drives them to use online more and more, churning their print spend. Before long (its almost there now) the realtor cant live without the online leads. The online business in stage 3 then increases the price dramatically. Sellers, then realising what the realtor really does (just as they did to the newspaper in the stage before), have the choice of bypassing the agent by using an end-end selling service 'linkedin meets oodle.com meets cafepress.com for real estate' (they deliver a board to put outside your house, the copy for which you build online like an adsense ad) - as well as manage your online selling campaign like a CPC search adsense campaign. (with a post-click behaviorial tracking engine of interested buyers - like a recruitment tracking app)
I haven't yet seen a vertically focused player in this space with the depth of application or offline real estate smarts to turn online classifieds into a smart buying and selling property service. (cross industry capabalities that are hard to develop/acquire/partner) There is vertical work in the online world to do (customer generation, tracking, copy writing/photos for property sale, SEO property and Feed pinging of major search and real estate sites to optimise sales) plus offline (delivery system for property brochures, board outside house - think cafepress or zazzle for property marketing, plus robotic distributed 'agents' to run auctions, rentals, financing etc)
Ironically when MSN entered the 'intermediary' space in the 90's with Sidewalk.com (which I worked on) as well as expedia, investor and carpoint, which I launched downunder, this was the original 10 year vision of assisting both buyer and seller. Anyone interested in discussing post or email.
"The dominant search engines (especially Google) are becoming in attracting local real estate advertising money... Google has begun pursuing the real estate category directly, now employing three regional sales teams in the U.S. that are focused on the real estate and other classifieds categories. The search giant has been making presentations to major brokerage firms such as Century 21, RE/MAX, and Coldwell Banker. Those real estate companies are buying advertising as part of Google's AdWords and AdSense programs, where they pay per click, and they're bidding up keywords to $1 per click, and $2 in some cities. A growing segment of these bidders are local advertisers, says Borrell - individual agents and brokerage firms. A Realtor in Austin, Texas: "That (Google) ad is working great. ... We are busy as hell, and that is the only advertising we are doing right now. We quit our print advertising after we posted that Google ad."
"The CI report similarly concludes, "The bulk of Realtors' online expenditures will be on pay-per-click local-search advertising and in support of their own websites." Some 31 percent surveyed said they're spending no dollars with local print newspapers in 2005, and 37 percent of Realtors said they'd spend no money in print newspapers in 2006."
posted by redbarren at 12:06 PM
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