For this month’s Nestoria interview we had the chance to chat with a man who has his fingers directly on the pulse of the innovation happening in online property: Joel Burslem, author of influential blog The Future of Real Estate Marketing. Based in the US, Joel has been one of the leading advocates of new methods of property promotion. If you don’t yet subscribe, I highly recommend it as the definitive way to stay abreast of Real Estate 2.0.
Our questions for Joel:
1. One common claim is “web2.0 is just hype”. How do you distinguish between ideas that will truly impact the real estate industry and flashy design that won’t actually help sell houses?
There’s no doubt there’s a lot of snake oil being pushed in real estate technology, but it’s not all hype.
The single biggest innovation so far, in my mind, was the map-based search interface. That’s fundamentally changed the way people search for property online. I’ve often referred to the moment Google released its Maps API as the flashpoint for the Real Estate 2.0 revolution.
When all’s said and done however, I think that it comes down to context - whatever technology can help add context to a property listing (where is it located, what does it look like, etc.) and help move along a consumer in their purchase decision, will be a success.
2. We often hear (wrongly or rightly) that Europe is a year or two behind the US in online innovation. Assuming this is the case, what trends do you see coming to the UK from the US?
Mobile technology is huge in Europe, though the US is starting to catch up with the roll out of 3G networks over here. I think since real estate is ultimately a mobile profession, there’s a lot we can learn from the UK on that front.
I feel pretty strongly that local search and mobile technology is going to have a huge impact on the way real estate is marketed in the next few years.
As far as online innovation in the real estate sector, I don’t see the UK that much further behind than the US. In fact, some of my favorite innovators in the space have come out of Europe already ( e.g.,
www.igglo.fi,
www.immo.search.ch).
That the beautiful thing really with Real Estate 2.0, we’re all in on the ground floor, so to speak.
3. As someone at the intersection of property industry and the online world, what are your thoughts on the developments in the property search sector in the last year? What benefits do you see intermediaries like Nestoria providing to the house hunter.
I think vertical search engines help the consumer at the top of the funnel. By aggregating listings in a useful, intuitive fashion, sites like Nestoria can help consumers refine exactly what they are looking for, long before they hit the road.
Ultimately, they’re still going to need to get into their car and go see a property firsthand, but if they’ve already weeded out the ones that don’t fit their buying criteria and they come armed with the best information out there (comps, recently solds, etc.) then they’re already one step ahead of the game.
In theory, intermediaries should also help connect consumers with a real estate professional to guide them through the final stages of the transaction. Unfortunately, I have yet to see anyone doing this truly successfully yet.
4. What are the challenges you think a vertical search engine for property like Nestoria faces?
I think the biggest challenge vertical search engines face is the growing realization by the big brokers that they need to be providing all this information on their own web sites. As they do, the verticals will need to step up their own marketing and development efforts in order to fight off this challenge.
If the brokers’ offerings are sufficiently well developed, consumers could just end up bypassing the middle men altogether.
Thanks Joel for offering your insights. We agree a map based search interface is nice, but also that context is increasingly critical. We’ll keep working on continually refining our relevancy in this respect. As you say, it’s early days in Real Estate 2.0
past Nestoria interviews:
Ed Parsons,
Ben Brandt,
Jason Ball
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