Google Real Estate: Time to Be a Portal

As Battelle and several IO readers have noted, Google has quietly launched a real-estate search service, which appears to be driven by Google Base.  (Search for "real estate" in the main box and then narrow down the search).  When the search is narrow enough, the results pages combine listings and annotated maps, which is nice.  Once again, Google has taken a seemingly obvious and customer-friendly step that specialists like Homestore have failed to take for years.

Google's service appears to be driven by Google Base (listings in a Connecticut area I know well were submitted by homesandland.com).  As a result, at least in the area I searched, the service contains only a small fraction of the properties available.  In other words, thus far, Google does not seem to be searching or scaping local real estate sites or the MLS listing services.  Until it does so, it will not become a serious place to search for real estate, no matter how cool the interface is.

Real estate search creates the opportunity to eventually generate billions of dollars of advertising, referral, and transaction revenue, from agents, mortgage brokers, movers, lawyers, and others.   Real-estate is very much a local business, however, and until Google is able to present all of the listings in a given area, its real estate service will be yet another promising but under-developed sideline.  Given the difficulty that Homestore, Yahoo, MSN and other companies have had assembling comprehensive national listings, building a good local real-estate search capability is probably not something that can be accomplished by waiting for local agents to enter data into Google Base.  Rather, it will probably take a dedicated team of editors, salespeople, and engineers focused on building a dedicated real estate business.

The bottom line is that, in real estate, as in many other categories (including Finance), Google has demonstrated that it has the right stuff necessary to take on and beat incumbents.  It is doubtful, however, that it has enough right stuff to beat incumbents while pretending that this is the last thing it wants to do. 

Both Google Finance and Google Real Estate would benefit from having an easy-to-find, easy-to-use section welcome page, like those found on Yahoo! Finance.  Both would benefit from having links on Google's front page.  Adding sections and links, of course, would force Google to publicly abandon the already ludicrous claim that it has no interest in becoming a portal.  But it would be better for users and shareholders alike.

Comments

[Anon]

Zillow.com SUCKS! The information is highly inaccurate. I big expose done that shows square footage, home amenities, pricing, everything on that site is f*cked up. If I recall, they have a legion of people in India punching in info. And the only way to fix it is if the homeowner complains??? WTF? Quit marketing your site on blogs.

[TallTroll]

>> The barriers to entry in search are very low, the barriers to entry in the auto industry are pretty high.

Not quite correct, IMO. To enter the auto industry, all you need is a big pile of cash. With that you can buy plant, hire workers, buy raw materials and parts and start selling.

To enter the search market (seriously, not just getting a copy of Nutch and tweaking the parameters) you need awesome quantities of talent and intellectual capital. Granted cash can buy you some of what you need, offices, servers but without the mental spark as well, you CANNOT buy a place there for any amount. Ask Microsoft...

The thing is, there is a very finite supply of those with the real quality necessary, and money tends not to be their primary motivator. Now, I'm not saying that all those rich geeks at Google are going to donate their worldly wealth to charity to focus more purely on the challenge, but I DO say they would have worked at Google for enough cash to pay the bills and a steady supply of lava lamps

>> force Google to publicly abandon the already ludicrous claim that it has no interest in becoming a portal

I've been in the room when a senior-ish Google type stood on his hind legs and announced to the room "It's not about search any more". Of course, that flatly contradicts statements by G's senior management team, but I believe it nonetheless.

I think Google have an institutional memory of AltaVista, and what they did to them coupled with a not unreasonable fear of the same happening to them. I think that's what's behind the "release early and often" strategy. Get a load of services out there, see which ones work, and build the portal around them. If you try and say "These are services we deign to allow you. Kneel before us!", you die. They want to be very sure they've got it right before they break cover

[Jimmy]

My other problem with goog is the super high margins on the search.
From an economist perspective it seems that eventually someone will figure out a way to cut these margins a bit.
A9, gravee, congoo are such attempts.

[Walter]

No, Robert. I'm not going to research your posts from months ago. Why?
You are an anonymous poster.
I've seen 10000's of anonymous posters just like you.
It would be a complete absolute 100% waste of my time.
Your entire analytical thesis appears to be Goog is going to the moon just because.
And if anyone disagrees with you, rather than present a coherent argument, all you do is disparage them with childish name calling.
What was that Henry said about neandrathols?

[Ryan]

I agree that Google is heading towards some sort of portal strategy - maybe a hybrid one, but they are heading that direction. The one problem I have with their strategy right now is that they are throwing products out right and left as betas, yet they don't refine them too often. For example, Gmail has been beta forever and seems to lack a lot of the basic features of Yahoo mail. I am using Gmail currently, and I still have a Yahoo account (canceled the premium). For some reason, I keep hanging on to Gmail thinking they will catch up with Yahoo.

Another service which is supposedly out there is this Google calendar. I am getting to the point where I would love to have an online calendar- I am wanting email and calendar online and in one spot for ease of use. However, Google hasn't released anything to the general public in this area. I am not sure that it is fair to label them as a portal when some of the basic services that other portals offer are not even close to being ready, or released. I wish Google would focus some serious energy on closing the gaps on these services so that folks like me can determine if Google or Yahoo is going to best fill the void for online services....

Portal, it just might be to early to tell.... Maybe best to say the portal strategy is BETA.

[Paul Biznatch]

The media right now has the impression that everything goog does is wonderful. Probably has to do with some psyschology of the rising stock price.
The truth of the matter in my opinion is they have come out with one great product and that's really it.
Nothing else they seem to have done is very ground breaking.

[Luke Rummell]

A1 Buyer Broker serving all the way from Astoria to Lincoln County,Oregon.

[Dallas TX Real Estate]

ZipRealty already started showing all those data which was prohibited earlier. This market area is so unefficient eith loads money into it somebody has to come and show us the way to go forward. Do we still need realtor. Did not people try to sell car on the net just above invoice price. Did it work? no. People need an expert help in deciding one of their biggest financial decision.

[ugurss]

thanks admin good post
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