Yahoo unveiled its new Real Estate site today. The site now incorporates an interactive map displaying home price data filtered by location, price, and number of beds and baths. It draws its data from MLS listings, classified, foreclosures, and rentals. Yahoo has also fully integrated with high-profile and massively funded partner Zillow by using their technology to power a home value mashup with Yahoo maps. The new site will make life more difficult for the myriad of competing real estate websites, including newcomers such as Redfin, Trulia, Movoto, and RealEstateABC.com.
With the redesign, Yahoo supports finding and listing a house, researching the area (schools and community), finding a realtor, getting a mortgage (with local rates), and valuing your home. This makes for a far more comprehensive site than the price listings Trulia provides, yet doesn’t go as far as Redfin and Movoto by stepping in as the broker (note, however that these last two services are restricted to just a few geographic locations).
What is going to happen to the new kids on the block if the G.Y.M keeps flexing their muscle this way!
Startups.in/India
(Nag .B)
Apologies for a double post but hey couldn’t stop congratulating you on seeing the “100K readers” count..WOW.
Quite an achievement! Congrats!
Startups.in/India
(Nag .B)
a very intersting competition: Davide vs Golia
Great job for yahoo. I was looking for something like this 6 months ago.
There was yahoo already when google happened , and there was IBM when Microsoft happened . So don’t you wory startup.in , there is always some space for new ideas. And on internet , its not the size that matters to get loyalties.
Just looked at homes in my neighbourhood, seems like good tool, easy navigation. nice integration with zillow.
Search Engines are the new photocopy machines.
It is a very sad time for entrepreneurs dreams.
I think the truth of the matter of the new millennium is that within the G.Y.M the ability to copy any entrepreneurs work instantaneously gives no real reason to introduce new designs and business models to the Internet; unless you want to benefit there pocketbook, not your own.
Microsoft has been copying traditional software models forever, but now Yahoo with there very simple advertising business model need to keep them within there walled garden for revenue to pay there 1000’s of engineers that think they can better serve all models their data show is valuable keeping the revenue to themselves; instead of as a search engine should–make revenue off the search and lead them into a competitive landscape. This is turning into Walmart vs the small towns in my eyes–and we all know how much small towns have been hurt. At least Google is concentrating on services that ‘not as much’ hurt start-up businesses, ans still try hard to redirect users to other sites more then there own.
The new reality is they all are going to copy any business model that may add to there bottom line or keep them within there walled garden. Good for Zillow i guess for using this new molded reality.
Search Engines are the new photocopy machines.
It is a very sad time for entrepreneurs dreams;
unless you are with-in there walls.
Didn’t turn up any of the homes for sale in my area. The majority of them are listed with national realtors too.
Many of my sites visitors use both Yahoo, Zillow and Trulia to do property-related and real estate searches.
There is also an excellent site at netronline.com that contains a lot of public record information on properties from tax assessors in the US.
So how does Yahoo make money on this? Ads? Or do they link up a realtor to who is searching and profit from commission on a potential sale?
@Prasad – You are right but (where I’m coming from is) some of the new startups have a hope that they will one day be acquired by either G.Y.M
Now, if G.Y.M start dishing out their versions of these products, I think it makes it difficult for the new ones to get acquired unless they really have something unique to offer that cannot be “photocopied” by G.Y.M as Andrew puts it.
Uh … the site failes to load.
When searching for apartments I’m taking to Prudential Real Estate Affiliates with the look&feel of Yahoo. If I want to save a results, I need to register with them, not Yahoo.
Major step forward, but the integration with partners could be more tight.
It really should be noted, when talking about Redfin and Movoto, that while they offer a very similar UI powered by the same data, if you buy through Redfin you get 66% of your realtor’s commission (usually 2% of the sale price of the home) kicked back to you. That’s a pretty significant advantage if you’re a buyer.
And no, I don’t work for them, but I plan on using them to buy a place for that reason alone.
Honestly I’m still disappointed. There are some obvious mistakes on here like not being able to search by all the lists, the school and community data is only included at the bottom of a listing and not linked to the text of the listing, if I want to look at a properties additional photos I’ve got to sign up to be on their mailing list (at least with the higher end properties in the MLS section), instead of icons on the map for each of the different nearby amenities (school, parks, gas, etc.) they’re listed as A, B, C, D, E. I could go on…
These are simple things that show we’re not quite where we could be yet – Real Estate Nirvana.
I am very impressed with the Yahoo Real Estate site. I especially like the featur e that allows you to select foreclosure properties. This is awesome for investors. I was very suprised while using this feature to find many foreclosures on a wide range of properties in my area. Wow! I used to use realtor.com but from now on I will definitely use Yahoo Real Estate for most searches.
Yahoo may say it’s pulling in real estate listings from all those places but it is not. Have you tested the site?
Yesterday, I used Yahoo Real Estate yesterday for the first time. It sucked. Only 4 listings, some from fsbo, when MLS gave 40 or 50 good listings with better info. Saw your posting today. Same thing. Still sucked.
Yahoo gets into a lot of things because of its traffic but unless there’s a good user expereince ala travel which they farm out to travelocity, no one is going to use it. Yahoo then ends up damaging its own reputation because we trust them less.
Yahoo RE had a listing for Lexington MA for a 1400sf home for $10k… something’s wrong here…
Looking further, it was a foreclosure property and the auction was scheduled for July.
How lame…
If you try it you’ll discover that after a few clicks you find yourself at the site of a traditional real estate firm, where you need to register, i.e., to join a mailing list and/or dinner-time calling list. I’m not sure what the big deal for the consumer is. Maybe Yahoo hopes to get a cut on the deals it sends to that site.
ZILLOW IS A POS SITE THEY SHOULD HAVE USED REDFIN.
Expect to see bigger plays from G.Y.M., however its it important to understand that Zillow is here to stay. There is a fundamental difference between a site which helps buyers and one that helps sellers. Zillow has already grown deep roots on the sell-side, positioning themselves as the starting point for potential home sellers.
The buy-side (aka home search) is completely different. Not only does this function in the industry have extensive changes taking place with the advent of commoditized brokerages (i.e. Redfin, Buyside), but brokers/agents do not have the incentive to spend marketing dollars seeking buyers whereas sellers are different.
Keep in mind, a contract with a buyer has a small percentage of bringing in a commission check whereas a listing agreement, or contract with a seller, has a tremendous chance. Agents are more inclined to advertise for listings not buyers.
Bottom line, we’re just beginning to explore real estate with technology and its exciting. The industry will only become more professional and consumer centric. The question now becomes how do brokerages position themselves for success when part of their value, that being information, is now liberated?
There are thousands of local and national real estate sites which will show you home listings, ALL the home listings, without having to register and give up personal information and agree to be contacted by a salesperson. I suggest that those be used instead of this Yahoo/Prudential real estate portal. Information wants to be free.
Find Holly Hill Homes For Sale, REALTORS, home values, Residential Properties. Holly Hill is located on the west bank of the Halifax River in Volusia County.
Find a Los Feliz Area real estate – MLS listings, REALTORS, homes for sale, home values and real estate information for Los Feliz Area.
Wow! We are one of thousands of real estate sites which will show home listings.
Mapple is a real estate site using Google Maps for the city of Rome, Italy
Mapple is a real estate site using Google Maps