NRT’s Flank…is a Flunk
NRT threw some money at the portal space, with the launch of Homesforsale.com.
When I question whether brokerages / franchises have the chops to compete with the big portals (see here), this “portal” is exactly what I mean (in less than 3 minutes of looking)…
- Not responsive – doesn’t work on mobile.
- Took 5-10 seconds for the home page to load on my desktop
- An iframe for local info. See –> http://www.homesforsale.com/pages/local-info
- ZERO unique content
[Update 3/1: There is a iOS version of the site when viewing from an iPhone]
Positives…
- Domain name has a lucrative keyword in it
I wrote about this in August. I said it then, but I’ll say it again now. Please tell me, what exactly is differentiated about this? Why would a buyer use this over Zillow/Trulia/Realtor.com (or, any of the thousands of IDX sites for that matter)? How is anyone ever going to find this site? How much money did NRT spend on this? If this an investment of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, consider it a very poor use of money…to say the least. There are a number of better mobile ideas that can be executed for a hell of a lot less money than I’m guessing they spent on this.
Does Zillow / Trulia and Realtor.com / NewsCorp have anything to be worried about regarding the Broker Public Portal project? If this is any indication of what’s the come, the answer is a resounding no.
Seth Siegler
Posted at 23:59h, 24 FebruaryIf you try a search for “San Diego”, it says it has no listings. But if you search by state and choose “California” it then shows “San Diego” as an option. But if you click it, it shows you listings in Sacramento…
If you do a search for “Miami” – same issue. But if you choose “Miami” from the footer “Markets We Server” section, it shows listing but the first few are commercial businesses for sale… On “HOMESforsale.com”…
Looks like it could use some more testing. To start with.
petertoner
Posted at 00:58h, 25 FebruaryI had a quick crawl through the code – there are links to this URL http://homesforsaleimages.fnistools.com/ Considering the resources at RED & NRT’s disposal I would have expected maybe just a little more …
Malcolm Lewis
Posted at 10:09h, 25 FebruaryTo be devil’s advocate:
1) Adapts nicely on my iPhone 6. Mobile-friendly UI and fast loads.
2) It’s slow to load fully, but I get above the fold content fully rendered in 1-2 seconds on both my desktop and phone. The speed bumps are easy to fix. http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/hDWmS/homesforsale.com
3) Some basic SEO tweaks plus some online/offline marketing could take care of consumer discovery.
4) They *could* secure a a unique content advantage *if* they pull all their listings from Zillow and make them exclusively available on HFS.com and partner sites.
Definitely needs some UI/UX issues, but those are easy to find and fix quickly.
So on the consumer side, I think they might have a shot and carving out some Zillow/Trulie traffic. I’m not sure consumers care where they get their listings info from.
The big negative I see is on the agent side. Charging agents a 35% referral fee PLUS the broker split seems egregious.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 10:12h, 25 February“4) They *could* secure a a unique content advantage *if* they pull all their listings from Zillow and make them exclusively available on HFS.com and partner sites.”
Agreed, that is one strategy they could take that could get them some traffic.
Malcolm Lewis
Posted at 10:22h, 25 FebruaryI’d say it’s the *only* way any of these “Zillow killers” can be successful. No listings = no audience = no ad/referral revs = death.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 10:24h, 25 FebruaryI agree. Listings are the only thing every buyer wants to see.
https://geekestateblog.com/hook-entire-real-estate-industry-revolves-around/
Bryn Kaufman
Posted at 11:19h, 25 FebruaryAgreed. The Zillow CEO said getting cut off from List Hub was liberating because they do not have to rely on a competitor for listings, yet then filed a restraining order to not have Trulia cut off.
Interesting to watch because one analyst said ListHub supplies Trulia with 40% of their listings. If all those listings go missing, it would not make sense to use their website.
As Zillow just paid $3.5 billion for them, I can understand they are concerned. It is high stakes as Zillow does not want to be seen as paying $3.5 billion for nothing.
Bryn Kaufman
Posted at 11:22h, 25 FebruaryI would not write it off yet. Maybe these big projects are different, but with my Website it is always improving. What it started out as, and what it is now are very different.
If they adapt and improve fast, it could still turn into something nice, and as Malcolm said, if NRT pulls a ListHub move on Zillow, that could be a game changer.
Sam DeBord
Posted at 12:25h, 25 FebruaryWow. I hadn’t seen all of the technical flaws/iframed “local” content etc. yet. There may be a viable strategy, but the implementation is rough.
This isn’t meant to compete with portals as much as other brokers as far as I can tell. It’s not doing either yet. I wouldn’t equate it with the broker public portal, but BPP folks should look very closely at how hard this is to do right.
Drew Meyers
Posted at 12:26h, 25 FebruaryI really think the industry vastly vastly underestimates what it takes to execute on zillow’s level. Particularly product wise.
bonozoffa
Posted at 14:33h, 25 FebruaryI think the industry vastly underestimates the complexity of technology products in general. which is why I think everyone feels that there is an abundance of opportunity in this space. Because as many times as one might fail, they (or someone else) is that much closer to getting it *right*.
Grant Simmons
Posted at 08:07h, 26 FebruaryPortals are just the name given to successful implementations that bubble to the top in Real Estate. Often seen as a derogative term in the Real Estate industry, yet badge of honor in others, primarily due to business models / industry sentiments. These guys have a lot of work (and investment) to do to be competitive. 2c
Cheers