We’ve got a few things pretty much nailed in online real estate.
IDX, mapping, and data integration — they’re all reaching a point
where innovation comes in small increments. I can see the path forward
on mobile applications in real estate. And larger trends like the
semantic Web and data portability just seem remote.
But there’s one nut no one has cracked: The neighborhood.
It seems so natural. Real estate has always been about neighborhood
conversations. Did you hear about the new principal? What’d the 3
bedroom on Sheridan go for? You know a good grout guy? Shouldn’t
someone, somewhere, be able to capture that with some Web 2.0 magic?
Well, no one has. Plenty have tried:
- ConnectingNeighbors,
a sort of proto-local-social application, was (and probably still is)
an effective lead generator for agents, but never seemed to spark
neighbor-to-neighbor discussion on a large scale - Fatdoor, once a neighborhood-level social play, changed its business model (and name) before it even emerged from private beta
- PropertyQube, which launched
as a local hangout for the "property obsessed," seems, from the look of
its website today, much more like Trulia, with a heavier focus on search - StreetAdvisor and YourStreet still feel vacant to me
- Backfence, in its original incarnation, is gone
- Localism is still in beta-like repose
- VillageMaker, which launched
at Inman in January, is something of a Web 2.0 take on the
ConnectingNeighbors concept, but is too focused on the Realtor, in my
opinion - Trulia Voices, perhaps the best example of online real estate conversation, is more rooted in topic than place; Zillow Q&A is tied to specific properties and I could not find a single thread in any of the "Neighborhood discussion" fora in my area.
Why is this space still ripe for innovation?
Well, part of me thinks it’s a simply a non-starter. I’ve written about this before. There’s not a lot to suggest that people are eager to meet the neighbors online.
But I also think we’ve been going about it wrong.
Neighbors do connect when there’s an event — what we called in social science an "exogenous shock." A crime. A policy change. A shift in home values.
I’ll give you an example: My neighborhood has a Yahoo! Group,
basically a simple email listserv. It binds our community. A few weeks
back, a police helicopter descended upon the neighborhood at 3:00 a.m.
The next morning I had twenty emails from neighbors who reported in
real time on what had happened. By the end of the day, darn near
everyone new the deal.
Any time there’s a crime, an important city council issue, or a new
building going in our little commercial strip, the listserv lights up.
People are moved most effectively by self interest. And those who
have attempted to connect people at the neighborhood level haven’t
really leveraged that. A "conversation" is unlikely to happen without
some basic impetus.
There are some clues out there about how someone might nail this.
I’m really intrigued by Everyblock,
a site that aggregates things like restaurant inspections, liquor
license applications, zoning permits and news at a hyperlocal level.
Imagine this information piped into a neighborhood forum. Would rats at
the local coffee shop get you talking?
I also think no one has effectively leveraged local market data in a
neighborhood social environment. Current market stats are great
conversation fodder. And that conversation has value: I can’t tell you
how many times I’ve been puzzled by a sale price, and tried to
interpret it relative to my own home’s value, only to have a neighbor
make sense of it with something like, "The Hayward fault runs right
under the house."
As I look forward to Inman Connect next month, I’m hoping someone unleashes something cool in this space. I think there’s a business there.
– Brian Boero
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Freaking...
That's an interesting observation about how it can take a specific event for local people to start talking online. It is certainly difficult to get conversations flowing. I wonder if there's really any demand for that sort of interaction. Perhaps all people really want is something like Craigslist.
Thanks for the handy summary of those sites. You might also be interested in UpMyStreet.com. It's a UK site that has been around for a while now and is probably the leader at the moment for neighbourhood-level information in the UK.
Engaging the community using social media tools (e.g. video, audio, digital photography, etc) will eventually prove to be the golden thread that stitches and weaves shared community experiences together (or to continue with your metaphor) tha hammer and nail used to build the frame of a successful neighborhood network. 2 things Realtors seeking to build such a site need to understand: a) we are all media companines now and we must engage the community at street level and sniff out the local news that matters on covering such issues as real estate, parks, transportation, schools, town events, etc. and report on it (publish or perish) using said social media tools, and b) the act of bearing witness and interacting with your community in the real world is as important if not more so than whatever it is you end up publishing online. This is, and always has been, a relationship business. If you get out there and prove to your community that you are an interested, engaged and knowledgeable member of that community, and then report your finding online, the community will flock to your site. BE THE HUB OF ALL LOCAL REAL ESTATE CONVERSATIONS ONLINE (but get your raw materials through interacting with the real world). The agent that does this succesfully–and it is difficult maneuver–will win big. I, for one, am building such a platform as we speak.
Matt: Thanks for pointing out UpMyStreet. They have been more successful than just about anyone in the U.S.
To be fair, http://wwww.Propertyqube.com dedicates I think a total of 6 pages to searching for real estate. Our #1 most active popular pages is our Conversations Board.
Even on the home page, Search may be the first thing, but it's not even close in terms of the real estate space dedicated to the social aspects of the site.
I think the work we have done at Propertyqube.com is a great start towards that local conversation. We just launched new user home pages which deliver local content to local people, and the conversations are getting more and more local. If you take some time to really dig into the site, you'll see that we are approaching exactly what you are describing while having to maintain the original teaser content of Real Estate Search.
Give it another look.
To be fair, http://wwww.Propertyqube.com dedicates I think a total of 6 pages to searching for real estate. Our #1 most active popular pages is our Conversations Board.
Even on the home page, Search may be the first thing, but it's not even close in terms of the real estate space dedicated to the social aspects of the site.
I think the work we have done at Propertyqube.com is a great start towards that local conversation. We just launched new user home pages which deliver local content to local people, and the conversations are getting more and more local. If you take some time to really dig into the site, you'll see that we are approaching exactly what you are describing while having to maintain the original teaser content of Real Estate Search.
Give it another look.
I am not a lawyer, but it seems that if these websites do not allow home sellers to opt out of having their home discussed, they could be in violation of the new DOJ/NAR settlement rules.
With respect to any VOW that……
(i) allows third-parties to write comments or reviews about particular listings or displays
a hyperlink to such comments or reviews in immediate conjunction with particular
listings,………
the site shall disable or discontinue those features as to the seller’s listing
at the request of the seller.
Once again, IMHO, the successful neighborhood network (in the real estate space) will start from the bottom up and not the top down. This is not anything like IDX or listing aggregation, which is why the all the companies your mentioned in your post have failed at local. This is not a data play, but a lifestyle play with innumerable (unzillowable) variables. Success will come organically by the beat real estate "reporter" who learns how to leverage the power of the network (links) and offers a unique value proposition at the hyper-local level. But if any big aggregation player "nails" the neighborhood social, it will probably be Goolge (or an acquisition of)
@David
I am glad you are making progress. I've spent significant time on the site, and there's a lot to like. But I did not see much street-level discussion. A lot of the groups appear to be company or industry focused. Many of the consumer focused groups and discussions appear to be at the county or regional level.
Burlington Vermont has exactly what you are asking for: http://frontporchforum.com/
It's pretty much a forum/bbs system with email push (read: super easy to use for non-tech-savvy), organized by neighborhood (the real neighborhoods of the town, not just sliced up street-sections). People can only join one of the neighborhoods (though obviously you could you use different emails etc).
Conversations and postings range from yardsale announcements (and subsequent consolidations) to the Fire Chief giving the complete report on a fire in the neighborhood including advice on how to prevent that kind of fire in your own home to an elderly person asking for assistance with driveway shoveling in exchange for baked goods to complaints about abandoned vehicles etc etc etc.
The site is not real-estate specific but neighborhood specific. Which is probably why it works.
Just like any community meeting there are some people who talk more than others. But it is a great format and I hope the developer expands it.
Great observation. Everyblock is the only neighborhood-oriented company that excites me on that list – they have a fantastic product that is a great way to monitor your neighborhood.
Brian,
I started to comment and decided to expand on them on my blog. I had already started a draft of the post and yours prompted me to complete it. Thanks for the push! http://www.mlpodcast.com/blog/2008/06/harness-power-of-neighborhood-knowledge.html#links
Hi
Your blog is very nice. I have really learnt a lot from this blog thanks
Canned neighborhood descriptions don't always work because after a while they look alike.
IMO, there are just too many areas across this great country to accurately describe the flavor of the "neighborhood" as locals know them.
Mmmm. Could this be an area that is actually beyond the reach of the Internet?
Lenn Harley
Broker
Homefinders.com
http://www.homefinders.com
[...] to provide news, blogs and other media tied very tightly to place. I have long believed that online real estate’s final frontier is the neighborhood. The technology the adventurous will need to conquer it is pretty much here at this [...]