Today Better Homes & Gardens rolled out an update to their BHGRealEstate.com consumer facing website. They have done a superb job and the improvements are markedly better to their previous iteration. One thing Sherry Chris and her team has done very well is the attention to design. The site just screams of quality, and a certain airy lightness to it. Simply gorgeous, and very intuitive.
It is by far the best design of all other Realogy websites.
I did a few searches on the new site and got back few listings, which is understandable since BH&G is still a relatively new franchise. So I went over to BH&G sister company sites from Realogy. I did the same search on each of them: I typed in 92648 and clicked search. Here’s my results.
century21.com => 23 listings found
coldwellbanker.com => 41 listings found
era.com = > 40 listings found
Seemed way low.
So I did a search upon for zip code 92648 on a few other sites.
realtor.com => 373 listings found
remax.com => 404 listings found
roost.com => 339 listings found
So, on average, (according to my very unscientific test) other real estate portals are showing up to 10 TIMES MORE LISTINGS than Realogy websites. 10 TIMES MORE LISTINGS!!!
Now on some of the these Realogy websites you get a button that says something to the effect of “Would you like to see more listings?”
“Well F-Yeah, I want to see more listings! What’s so special about your listings? And why are you making me jump through more hoops??”
It’s like going to a restaurant to being handed a menu with three entrees, but the menu also includes a quick map to go fetch another menu in the back of the restaurant with more choices.
Would you ever go back to that restaurant again?
And don’t blame IDX, this is not an IDX display issue, it’s an implementation issue.
So, can someone tell me that why in the year 2009, where everyone agrees that close to 90% of homebuyers go to the internet first to search for home, Realogy is still only showing their own listings?
Seriously, I want to know.
UPDATE:
Joel at FOREM has also posted a review.
