I am not a realtor, Nor am I in the real estate business. If anyone is curious, I'm an I.T. Student at Ryerson University. My idea is to launch a website much like that of autotrader, where people can search homes. Obviously the searching interface will let you search specific properties such as location, price etc.
I feel there are TOO many sites out there for real estate the content is too limited, and too many people want to search for a home but have no idea where to begin.

Of course I'd need to approach realtor's and for them I would host their listing for free. For an extended period of time at the beginning of the site launch, to get the ball rolling.
Now I need any realtor's opinions, does this sound like something you'd be interested in?
Do you think it would work?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Before anyone says it's been done, I've already searched many of the online sites that do this. Generally the interfaces are horrible, sites are poorly designed, etc. and if the site is good, its content is limited to approx. 50 houses, for example.

Thanks,
Ryan

Web sites that display real estate listings have been around since the inception of the World Wide Web - it just seems to be a natural fit. The vast majority of these web sites have fallen by the wayside - probably due to lack of listings which leads to lack of traffic.

Even though real estate and the WWW are a natural fit Realtors and the WWW are not. There is only a very, very small percentage of Realtors that are actually actively participating beyond having an email address.

The large aggregators of listings all get their listings directly from the MLS system - if they had to rely on Realtors to place ads/upload listings they would not have enough listings to draw the public. That is what you would have to do too if you wanted to compete online.

I agree Realtors and the web is not a very good mix yet.. However, when more people like my self get licensed lookout.

I love the so-called web experts in the real estate Industry they really crack me up.
I have only been licensed for three months but I have over seven years in Internet design and marketing.

Already I have made about 40 websites of my own and have another 70 domains waiting to be developed..

Leads are starting to come Yippy! but on the most part I just reffer them to other people.

I read somewhere I think in realtytimes that "most sucessful realtors have up to 5 websites" rotflmao Wow 5 how do that do it?!?

So there is always room on the Net for new sites. Without traffic and the knowledge to get traffic 99% of all real estate websites will be hidden websites BUT thats ok with me.

Good Luck Out There,
Bill
PS I just Love those advance access templete websites I hope they sell thousands more!


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Bill Scott


Adwebdesigns - Websites
For Realtors ®

Good idea!

However, as alluded to by Doug, data source is a major issue, and Realtors generally are not a good source for web content.

The challenge for any home search website is getting content. This is super major and can't be solved easily.

There are already major infrastructures in place by way of local MLS for the data. They keep most of the data. The closest thing to a national search website is Realtor.com and all they do is download from the MLS nationwide. Even then, it's hard for them to keep current data. It's not trivial for anyone to get cooperation from MLSs nationwide. It takes an organization with a lot of clout and a lot of bucks.

The interface design is a very small part of making a successful national home search website. Any number of web designers can be hired to do this. There is the whole (very major) issue of architecture and organizational mobilizatioin of MLSs.

But if you think you can solve all this, give me a holler because I'd be interested.

Regards,
Ruperto

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Ruperto Elpusan Jr.
Banker's Realty
website: www.FineHomesInLA.com
e-mail: Ruperto@FineHomesInLA.com

[This message has been edited by Ruperto (edited 07-06-2003).]