Agreed though that much innovation yets needs to be done on humanizing the real estate search. This would not be so much a programming thing as an agent thing: Be honest. Do not include unlivable crawl space in the square footage. Don't make an ugly yard sound like the SF Botanical Gardens. Don't call an obviously scary neighborhood "hip." Don't take pictures ONLY of built-ins to avid showing water dmage in the kitchen. These ploys only waste time on both the searcher and the searchees part. This is maybe not exactly what you mean with this blog, but I do think accurate information would do much to inprove them humanity of the online search.

-A

PS: MORE snaps for the Morrisey ref.

Frank
FranklyMLS.com

Of course. I merely used myself as one example. Some people might tell an agent they love to entertain. Others may say they want some distance between themselves and their neighbors.

My point is simply this – whatever people say, I am convinced that a good agent, when they list a home, knows to some degree what kind of person the home will appeal too.

In that regard, offering the agent a way to better describe the home and tag key words based upon their core knowledge will create a database of "other" terms that could either turn into new fields to search by or better yet, factor well into a natural language search paradigm.

My entire point, my goal, my wish… is to create a way for consumers to search naturally and derive close to the same 6 or 12 results they would had they gone to an agent rather than the 1200 or 12,000 or 260 results they currently get.

And furthermore, I wonder given the activity derived from today's less-than-perfect search results, what kind of activity could a more humanized, natural search derive.

Great points. I work in the industry and believe it or not, we do ponder this very thing. I would personally agree that many humans do NOT think about a new home as you listed. (Although many can figure out how to fit their criteria to the data that's available.)

As for what humans DO, your points are valid — but what we've found is that people care about many different things — and not everyone would DO what you would do. I point this out for two reasons:

1) Some of your "DO" items rated quite low in our studies.

2) We're on the same page that search needs to change and get orders of magnitude better. But to fulfill your vision requires making home search work for all individuals, not for all humans.

I don't have the 7 figures but it appears a few folks who see the vision do. I may have started a wildfire.

Not sure how I can make my point or the practicality of it any clearer without actually sitting down and programming the darn idea.

Map based searching with little blue markers that are supposed to be homes are not favored among users. It's simply where our industry decided to take it, probably because it was the in thing and seemed practical. Once Trulia did it, everyone followed. And that's what we have today – slightly better versions of the same thing.

I think there's something better. My vision of that is a program that allows the user to write a paragraph into a search field and based on that information, better results would appear based upon how agents write and tag their description of the property.

Furthermore, I can see how allowing user generated comments about the home to also factor into the search with as much gusto as the standard info.

Look, I may be totally on crack here and map searching by zip, city, state, bed, bath, price is the pinnacle of what technology can create.

But I'm holding out because after all the searching someone does, they end up talking to an agent who tells them why half the homes they saved aren't good because they don't meet the needs of the client – needs that come across during a conversation.

And that's what I'm seeking – a way to create that conversation between agent and buyer online. The benefit for the agent and buyer in my mind see unlimited.

http://www.webdigsblog.com/?p=245

I agree with your point of view, but don't really see how it is practical. I guess I should also note that I am a broker trying to make it in a very tough market, with limited resources.

Any suggestions you may have are certainly welcome

Tom