Comments on: Google makes yet another big move into real estate territory

By: What I’ll be looking for at Inman Connect next week | 1000Watt Consulting

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:32:09 +0000

[...] Sebastian, director of local markets for Google, will be on stage with Brad Inman to talk about recent moves by the search giant. I don’t expect him to spill the beans on strategy, but I will be [...]

By: Virtual Tours and Video Go Another Round

Virtual Tours and Video Go Another Round — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 22:10:10 +0000

[...] tours? Will we be seeing 3D scrollable Street View videos from Google on their Place Pages (see Google makes yet another big move into real estate territory) any time soon? It’s something the Swiss already seem to be working on (see The Swiss Give Us [...]

By: Virtual Tours and Video Go Another Round | Future of Real Estate Marketing

Virtual Tours and Video Go Another Round | Future of Real Estate Marketing — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:29:11 +0000

By: Steve Freeman, REALTOR

Steve Freeman, REALTOR — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:08:47 +0000

As long as agents, brokers, and MLS’s are stupid enough to give their listing data away, someone is going to be smart enough to take it and make a buck somehow; even if it is selling leads back to the same people who provided the data.
RPR is pretty new, and full info (well as full as they want us to know for now) can be found here:
http://www.realtor.org/about_nar/realtors_property_resource

Personally, I believe this is a big crock of you-know-what and of very little measurable benefit to the good old local agent.

Just as I scoffed at “insuring my future with RIN” back in the late 90’s; I also doubt the survivability of RETS and RPR.

Time will tell.

By: Marketing Real Estate Online | Bulbwired.com

Marketing Real Estate Online | Bulbwired.com — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:57:10 +0000

[...] 1.) 1000Watt Consulting: Google makes yet another big move into real estate territory [...]

By: Zoltan Szendro

Zoltan Szendro — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:00:54 +0000

Excellent points Jessie. I think the key is as you also said: how they will show these property landing pages on the SERP. Google Maps has I believe some 50M monthly uniques and most people go their for directions. Showing the property details or a link to them on the SERP is a huge jump. Google keyword tool shows over 50M monthly searches for the term “homes for sale” and that without long tail. I think many home buyers go to the main Google search with the direct intention of searching for homes (as opposed to the intention of the majority of visitors on the Google Maps)

By: Jessie B

Jessie B — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:33:51 +0000

@Brian & @Louis

Some additional comments to both of your points. Totally agree with both of you. I think many people feel that Google results pages never really change but take a look at this search for: 8801 Fauntleroy Way Seattle which is a home for sale.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=8801+Fauntleroy+Way+SW%2C+Seattle&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Google is already at the #1 spot with the mapped result, so if they just ad a link / icon or photo indicating this property is for sale and link back to this:

http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=18347100227367887972

…they will have the ability get the majority of the traffic and teach users a new habit of using G as the source to find listings without significant visual changes.

There have been hints of additional changes to come to the SERPS like this: http://www.imanjalali.com/images/google.jpg

This would give them a lot more opportunities to present related data.

With the two examples above, they can increase opportunities dramatically with small changes.

By getting the traffic to a listing specific page the benefit to Google is twofold:

a) they increase ad inventory significantly with an additional 5-8 million pages (turn in individual listings)

b) Ad rates will increase dramatically from the bidding of the 5-6 services that benefit if a specific listing or surrounding listings are sold.

In the long run, if the MLS’s & Brokers don’t see a direct threat from G, they will most likely slowly start to discontinue syndicating listings to 3rd parties like Trulia, Zillow & Roost and go exclusively back to G which would give them more site traffic and decrease long term cost of advertising as there is less dilution of the real estate listing data.

By: Zoltan Szendro

Zoltan Szendro — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:03:14 +0000

Brian – I was thinking along the line that if the assumption is correct that they consider the [place] to be the information entity they focus on for the long run, and the for-sale real estate status as an attribute being an important vehicle to create value quickly, than it makes sense to carry on some sort of attributes once the property is sold, hence the need for public records. I am not sure what Google has access to already in that domain. This is being said without considering any privacy implications etc.

I know about ~20+ MLSs who syndicate to Google Base including major ones like MRIS and MLSPin and I am sure more will do the same. I am really interested to see how these property details pages will rank on the SERP compared to 3rd party pages showing the same information

By: Brian Boero

Brian Boero — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:21:21 +0000

@ Zoltan

What you hint at is something that may not be likely, but is entirely possible: Google cutting a deal with First American to provide a RPR-like experience to consumers. Google already has MLS data from several MLSs.

By: Brian Boero

Brian Boero — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:18:18 +0000

@ Jessie

I agree with you that Google will not get *too* deep into the guts of real estate. It doesn’t need to in order to dramatically increase its RE related revenue.