When CyberHomes and HomeSeekers, two leading providers of online real estate listings, announced partnerships with Yahoo! earlier this year, the fine print of the two deals might have seemed superfluous. But months later, only CyberHomes has secured agreements–three–from any of its 40 participating Multiple Listing Services to allow their listings to appear on the Web’s largest search engine. HomeSeekers has yet to sign on any of its 37 MLSs.
What’s the holdup? Both CyberHomes and HomeSeekers say they still are in the process of “educating” their member MLSs about how the Yahoo! connection will work.
Plans call for CyberHomes and HomeSeekers listings to be incorporated with Yahoo!’s real estate classifieds section, which also includes ads for For Sale By Owner, or FSBO, properties. The first CyberHomes listings–from Rochester, Minn., Mid-Hudson area, N.Y., and Tyler, Texas–recently went up on Yahoo!
Winning the hearts and minds of MLS companies has been the focus of the industry’s move to the Internet. Realtor.com, the National Association of Realtors’ online listing network, has swiftly wooed most of them and now lists 906,000 homes out of 1.2 million properties for sale nationwide, the most of any online service.
The concerns of Russ Bergeron, general manager of the Southern California Multiple Listings Service, are typical.
“I prefer Realtor.com’s method of linking from other sites, but keeping the data in-house. Unfortunately, as the data gets further and further from the source, how it is presented and how it is protected get further from my control,” says Bergeron, who ended up being overruled by his board, which voted to appear on Yahoo! through the California Association of Realtors’ California Living Network.
But the Yahoo! connection hasn’t been detrimental, Bergeron admits.
“Yahoo’s combining of Realtor listings with FSBOs was a concern for us as well, but in practicality doesn’t seem to be a problem,” he says. “My personal opinion is that for a fee, FSBOs should be allowed to enter data on the MLS system in a separate category. Wouldn’t Realtors want to know where all the FSBOs are?”
While no participating MLSs from CyberHomes or HomeSeekers has refused to participate in Yahoo!, the presence and proximity of FSBO ads have been major sticking points, both companies admit.
“It has been a real issue,” says Howard Latham, vice president for marketing for Moore Data Management Services, which operates CyberHomes. To deal with those concerns, plans currently call for FSBOs to appear in a separate and secondary position from any MLS listings on Yahoo!, Latham said. “MLS listings will be in a dominant position,” he said.
But many multiple listing services are still debating, as is much of the industry, the move of proprietary information to one of the Internet’s major freeways.
“We got some very sharp phone calls originally,” says John Giaimo, president and chief operating officer of NDS Software, which operates HomeSeekers.
“Most (of HomeSeekers’ MLSs) have no problem with what Yahoo! is trying to do,” Giaimo says. “But they do have a problem with their data moving to Yahoo!. They’ve learned to trust us and they don’t necessarily trust Yahoo! Yahoo! is a new player in what was a `good old boy’ network.”
Latham says CyberHomes has spent a fair amount of time over the summer increasing the MLSs’ “comfort” with the Yahoo! arrangement. “No one has said `no,’ ” he said. “Mostly they have been seeking more information about what Yahoo! can do with their information once they get it.”
Latham said that he expects most of CyberHomes’ MLS boards to vote on going with Yahoo! in September. Giaimo is similarly optimistic that the MLSs will sign on once the details are ironed out. “It really has to be handled diplomatically,” he says.
Liz Poppens
Cross-fertilization
Classifieds2000, the nation’s largest provider of online real estate listings, has teamed with CBS Television to offer cross-media classified advertising in local TV markets.
The Internet advertising provider will offer customized online classified advertising services to the Web sites of 10 CBS stations, starting with New York, Boston and San Francisco, the companies said.
The move is another attack on the dominance of newspapers in the $16 billion classified advertising market. Classified and display advertising in newspapers makes up a substantial part of a newspaper’s gross revenues and are one of the most profitable areas of business. Online information services believe that real estate advertising has great potential for early profitability.
The television stations will sell additional advertising on their Web sites and direct viewers to the new service though cross-promotions, on-air commercials and special events.
Classifieds2000’s easy search routine won over PC Magazine’s editors in August, when they awarded the Web site a spot on the magazine’s list of the top 100 Web sites. The editors said they liked its Cool Notify push-technology feature, which e-mails customers when what they’re looking for hits Classifieds2000’s database.
In July, RealSelect announced it was teaming up with Classifieds2000, with the Santa Clara, Calif.-based advertising company distributing Realtor.com’s 900,000-plus listings through the Classifieds2000 network.
In April, Classifieds2000 announced an arrangement similar to the one with CBS, in which it provides online regional classified advertising services to the 11 network-affiliated television stations owned and operated by Granite Broadcasting. That program has started in a number of markets, including Detroit; Austin, Texas; and Buffalo, N.Y.
“Today’s agreement with Classifieds2000 is a significant and potentially lucrative step forward for local CBS stations in the continuing convergence of broadcast television and the Internet, and one that has dramatic implications for increasing the advertising revenue potential of our stations,” said Harry Fuller, vice president and general manager of interactive media for CBS.
“Particularly in such high-volume categories as autos, employment and real estate, we believe that the traditional reach and frequency of broadcast spots, combined with the targeted, one-to-one power of the Web, will provide advertisers in local communities with an extremely compelling and effective advertising alternative to newspapers.”
“When you consider the size of this industry and its potential to migrate to other mediums, the upside for this venture, and particularly for participating individual CBS television stations, is tremendous,” said Sani El-Fishawy, president and CEO of Classifieds2000.
Chat’s worth
With the housing market heating up all over the country, it doesn’t hurt to get all the advice, techniques and tips you can.
During the month of September, Bank of America’s spot on America Online will highlight the home buying process. As part of the service, chats with real estate experts Dian Hymer and Bradley Inman are scheduled.
Bank of America also will be giving away free books, autographed by Dian Hymer, to all the chat guests.
To participate in the chat, users must have access to America Online. Go to Keyword “BofA” then click on “Join the Chat.”
The chats will begin at 7 p.m. Pacific Time and 10 p.m. Eastern Time every Tuesday this month.
Personal touch
In the age of high tech, relationships are still center stage among consumers when it comes to selecting a lender. It isn’t rate, terms or easy qualifier that motivates home loan borrowers when selecting a lender–it is previous relationships.
More than three-quarters of all home buyers considered an existing relationship as an important factor when selecting a lender, according to a survey by Roper Starch.
Referrals by friends and family are also a factor, along with brand recognition. Nearly half of those who responded identified a Realtor referral as the way that they got a lender, and the same amount counted on referrals from work.
The survey asked respondents to identify the most important factors when choosing a lender.
The challenge for online mortgage services is to somehow add value to or change the consumer trust bond that goes with the current system of getting a home loan. People are heavily dependent on loan officers, brokers and others in the chain of mortgage services that process loans, help solve credit and loan problems and are entrusted with personal financial information.
In the end, the right mix of personal service and technology tools will win.
Kitchen cabinet
A new system has been unveiled that allows consumers and realty agents to video conference with loan specialists or post a home listing on the Internet from the client’s kitchen table.
The system, Agent Connector from Finet Holdings Corp., enables users to access the Property Transaction Network, Finet’s proprietary service that allows users to locate property and obtain a loan. The program also includes specific contact management tools for realty agents as well as Internet-based capabilities.
The Agent Connector includes links to a variety of real estate services, including online national home listings such as HomeSeekers, and mortgage lenders. It also allows realty agents to create personalized Web sites, upload new property listings, download leads developed by Finet’s marketing arm, send and receive e-mail messages, preview digital images of listings and videoconference with Finet’s loan specialists.
The system was designed so that an agent can take a digital photo of a home, work out the wording of the listing and post the listing on HomeSeekers, all in just a few minutes while working at the client’s home.
“Via the Internet, Realtors can connect to any of Finet’s call center loan counselors who, using automated underwriting systems from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, can approve a loan on the spot in fewer than ten minutes,” said Dan Rawitch, Finet CEO.
Rawitch said the firm is focusing on the 27 states where one of its subsidiaries, PreferenceAmerica Mortgage Network or Monument Mortgage, Inc., is licensed as a mortgage broker.
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Chicago Tribune Homes
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