Category Archives: USA & North America
New Mapping Product Launched

US company Digital Map Products, which lists redfin.com, zillow.com, and trulia.com amongst its clients, has released a new mapping tool that visualises how home prices change over time.
The product, dubbed SpatialStream, animates property price fluctuations as colours on a map, changing from green to red as prices fluctuate. The company says this is an easy way to show what would otherwise be thousands of separate data points on a spreadsheet.
realtytrac.com Goes Social

US foreclosure marketplace realtytrac.com has introduced a social media element to encourage discussion amongst users.
RealtyTrac Community, which is free to join, covers topics such as buying, selling, home values, investing, and realtytrac.com features.
realtytrac.com says visitors can seek out local real estate experts and ask questions on neighbourhoods, schools, market conditions, financing, and foreclosure activity.
Big Changes at zillow.com

We knew something was up at zillow.com when it posted a “site down temporarily” note on its blog on Monday.
The next post confirmed our suspicions: zillow.com was adding the option to list rental properties on its US-based real estate marketplace. By the next morning, zillow.com was already touting the first ten listings to take advantage of the new option, and dealing with a wave of questioning regarding its new pricing strategy: US$9.95 for a 180 day listing.
The comments were relatively quiet on zillow.com’s own blog, but over at 1000watt blog and agentgenius.com things were different, prompting zillow.com’s spokespeople to respond.
NAR’s Game Changers Announced

The US National Association of Realtors (NAR) has announced the 14 winners of its Game Changer Challenge, all of which will be fully funded by the NAR and guided by a panel of consultants.
Social media platform Front Porch, resume standardisation tool Realtor Resume, and Realtor rating tool Realtor Finder were among the ideas chosen for NAR backing.
Google Real Estate – Should Agents Bank On It?

The news just over a week ago that Google was “entering” the UK/European market has sent the share prices of Rightmove and Seloger into a tailspin. Seloger dropped by 9% while Rightmove has plummeted a whopping 17%. Seloger has since recovered to its pre-news price while Rightmove continues to be significantly down.
So let’s look at what happened, will the property portal landscape change and is this impact on the share prices is justified.
An article by the Financial Times (Dec 2 titled “Google set to enter UK property market”) seems to have set the cat amongst the pigeons. The article stated that Google is in talks with British estate agents and that “experts” say that an entry by them to the market could pose a serious threat to existing property websites. The article didn’t talk about what Google was going to do and Google didn’t comment. So there is really not much to go on. So the only guide we really have as to what Google may do in the UK and Europe is what they have done in Australia.
NAR: Buyers Relying on Referrals

The US National Association of Realtors recently released its 2009 Profile of Homebuyers and Sellers and the results show an even heavier reliance on the Internet to find homes than in 2008.
The often-quoted statistic from the 2008 NAR report had 87 percent of US home buyers looking online for their next home. According to figures posted by Sara Bonert, zillow.com’s director of broker relations, that figure has now risen to 90 percent.
Bonert’s blog post also shows that looking online for properties was the first step taken by both first time and repeat buyers, rather than contacting an agent. Buyers spent an average of two weeks on this initial property search before they decided to find an agent to help them with the buying process.



