The Bombshell: Facebook is Coming to Real Estate
It’s finally happening. Facebook is making a massive push into real estate by expanding the real estate listings portion of their marketplace. (via HousingWire).
Obviously Facebook’s traffic is incredible. 2 billion actives a month. That dwarfs all other real estate competitors combined (Zillow, Trulia, Realtor, Redfin, Craigslist, etc) by at least 5x and more like 10x.
While for sale listings will remain in slow growth mode, Facebook is sourcing rental listings from Zumper and Apartment List — meaning they are going to have a huge amount of rental inventory extremely quickly (aka out of the gate).
What does this all mean? Will Facebook stick it out alone and compete with Craigslist and Zillow? Will they buy Zumper or Apartment List perhaps? Will they, heaven forbid, become a brokerage?
If Facebook is serious about the real estate vertical, they should buy a portal with existing brand credibility. Rent.com perhaps? Otherwise, they are going to spend years and years attempting to build brand/mindshare related to real estate — and still fail.
How do you see this playing out?
Abraham Walker
Posted at 15:17h, 14 NovemberCould they purchase Zillow?
Drew Meyers
Posted at 16:16h, 14 NovemberIf they really wanted to, they could.
Drew Laughlin
Posted at 13:35h, 16 NovemberI wouldn’t see that happening. They’d create their own service
Drew Meyers
Posted at 13:43h, 16 NovemberGoogle tried to create their own real estate portal years ago. Didn’t work. Guessing a fb approach would suffer the same fate — UNLESS they invest heavily and build a new brand/business.
Patrick Healy
Posted at 08:50h, 16 NovemberIt was just a matter of time. Look for them to go straight to the consumer for this and snap up FSBOs first. Eventually, they will have a broker package that will allow you to upload your listings.
nida
Posted at 03:26h, 17 NovemberWow facebook into real estate! Really its good but to build a brand or improve their business instantly it’s not easy. Anyway they have the option of purchasing zillow or any other real estate site.
Sep Niakan
Posted at 07:00h, 17 NovemberSo as agents and brokers, how would we be able to participate or capitalize on this? I wonder if they will sell agent ads? Or can we get our own listings fed into there eventually? Or already?
Drew Meyers
Posted at 12:58h, 17 NovemberYou’ll be able to feed listings in, eventually. I think they are only importing feeds for rentals currently.