In working with traditional publishers you become akin to the fact that there are large business verticals that we must pay attention to, because of the potential ad dollars.  Those said verticals are, automotive, employment and real estate (including rentals).  For the most part, we are able to exercise fair and common sense in the rules and business processes applied to the advertising solutions we provide across all of the clients media, but I can’t help but question some of the unspoken, but yet widely known, rules around real estate.

In many geo’s real estate listings are heavily controlled by real estate boards and a communal property listing web site. In North America, we know this communal property to be MLS (Multiple Listing Service).  Given the control over listings and the inherent advantageous position, many web publishers wishing to serve up real estate listings in a new and intuitive manner online, have to make nice with the boards to be able to use the content.  In many ways, the argument could be made that it’s their content anyway, so they have the right to determine where to publish it, but the weight and opinion of local real estate boards go deeper than just speaking to the use of their own listings, they often affect or impact the external publishers business rules.  Let me use a true story here to better describe this point.  There was a real estate service I had once known and they were an extension of  a large national department store.  This service would partner at the agent level in local markets and would connect potential home-buyers they had met through their other services, with their partnering agents.  For the home-buyer, the process was useful, as the large national player would certify each partnering real estate agent and offer guarantees and service numbers in case an agent was inattentive or unscrupulous.  Nonetheless, this real estate service started to advertise online through local real estate listing sites, using banner ads and advertorials.  They were advertisers of one real estate listing site for eight months, until their campaign was ended and money refunded because of the potential threat that a real estate board would stop sending listings to the site, if this service continued to  advertise.  In cases like these, we ask, who really benefits and have we forgotten about the consumer?  When one group gets to dictate the depth of advertising for another, for their own benefit, I think we could be bordering on items better left for our Competition Bureau.

In the end, I do not think anyone would suggest a home-buyer not use an agent – they are well trained and the business of moving homes is their core competency.  What we do suggest is that the consumer be given choice.

Two large indications that we’ve left the consumer behind

Real Estate Board Driven Sites

Because of the position of leverage boards often have, there appears to be no real driver for them to improve online services, especially their listing sites.  It is not surprising to arrive at a board driven site and be shocked at how much the functions you are accustom to using on other properties, do not apply well there.  Looking at how neighbourhoods are referred to (M15, M11) is a clear tell tale sign that one or two improvements could be made.  Internal reference codes should never make it to a consumer facing site.

Third Party Real Estate Sites

To date, there have been some advancements here where some smart people are trying to serve listings as best they can, but we still argue that their are too many handcuffs to allow an online publisher to properly execute in the real estate listing space.   In our opinion, if you are providing an online real estate listing site, I expect to find all available listings there, FSBO (for sale by owner) and agent driven.  I would like to see all of the services available to me, even if they are offered from non-traditional real estate companies, and this today does not exist, and it is not because it cannot happen.  It’s because real estate industry rules dictate how much of what they will allow users to see.

I liken what we are seeing in this space to the protectionist mentality other traditional media and services companies held on to, and who now are suffering from those short-term strategy decisions.  With the uses and functions of social networks, with the mentality of everything being open, I would not be surprised if home-buying leapt to levels where you would see less reliance on real estate board driven tools – still including the agent in many cases, but removing the business barriers that protectionist play-books usually bring.