Would @Google or @Facebook want to takeover/buy @Zillow or @Trulia ?
Posted by Tina Fine on Fri, Feb 03, 2012 @ 07:10 AM
As recent discussions surrounding listing syndication heat up -- with some firms (Edina, ARG ) deciding to take their listings off third party sites-- I began to wonder what if they didn't? What if certain third party sites like Zillow or Trulia grew and grew and became the places where more and more buyers went to first. Would they become targets for search and social Goliaths such as Facebook or Google?
Much of what real estate brokers do falls into three broad areas areas -- “search" "matching” and “transaction.” Trulia and Zillow are good at search, but they do not match people up directly, they pass leads on back to brokers.
Syndication is only about Search. And the future of the industry is in Matching -- that's why I built homingCloud.
It seems to me that Google could be quite good at matching up what people have with what they are looking for. Combine listing data that Google could get from buying Trulia , Google Plus Profiles that contain information about what property people are looking for, maps, and hyperlocal data, and Google would be a great matchmaker.
And Facebook would also be great at getting people matched up. Facebook pages could have people declare if they are looking for a home or if they have a home. If Facebook had Zillow listing data they could place ads for listings on the wall of persons looking for that type of home. And if people had part of their profile page dedicated to their home for sale, they could or their broker could interact directly with buyers who ask questions, update photos, etc, all on the Facebook platform.
It seems natural for "social and search platforms" to enter into the real estate matching arena. What do you think? Do you think the Zillows or Trulias would fight off Google and Facebook. Could they? Would it be good for the average brokerage firm if all search and matching took place on Google or Facebook? Maybe HomingMatch is the answer.