Where Real Estate Gets Its Dirt

A new home search portal swoops in to the mix

Flyhomes Launches World’s First AI-Powered Home Search Portal

“Developed over the last two years, ‘Flyhomes AI,’ is a proprietary technology which brings the first conversational real estate search and research to the market, dramatically expanding the amount of information home shoppers can find online.”

Flyhomes

The company has some legit pedigree too.

“The technology integration was overseen by ZeroDown co-founders, Laks Srini and Abhijeet Dwivedi, who joined Flyhomes as chief technology officer (CTO) and chief growth officer (CGO), respectively. Srini and Dwivedi previously served as Co-founder/CTO and as COO at SaaS HR platform, Zenefits.”

Flyhomes

One of ZeroDown’s major investors is Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT.

The new portal will be live in 28 states and Washington D.C., which they claim covers 75% of the listings (I think that sounds right). I got an early sneak peak at the site and it’s pretty rad. Along with the typical portal things you can also ask it questions like

“Show me homes in Los Angeles that have recently dropped in price”
“Provide me an overview of recent t sales in 90210”
“Show me homes in 92648 that are having an open house this weekend.”

To me this could be what a future MLS system interface could look like.

I’m hoping to have someone from Flyhomes on my podcast, I’ve got a ton of questions about their business model, and how they plan to expand coverage.

But my biggest take away is just when we thought that there was no innovation left in the listing portal space, a new competitor enters the ring. Congrats flyhomes! Can’t wait to see more!

David Mele leaves Homes.com

Homes.com president out

“Mele took the president role at Homes.com nearly 10 years ago after a run in local news publishing with The Virginian-Pilot. During his tenure with Homes.com, Mele oversaw the company’s acquisition by CoStar in 2021 and its rise as a major player in the home search space.

CoStar CEO Andy Florance confirmed Mele’s departure to Real Estate News, adding that the company is “grateful to David Mele for his contributions to Homes.com” and that the team “wishes him the best” in his future endeavor”

AJ LaTrace, Real Estate News

Sounds like he left on his own terms. Good for him. Having been there from the beginning (starting at Dominion Enterprises) on through the acquisition by CoStar, changing the entire business model, heading HomeSnap and then Super Bowl ads. You gotta believe he has some great stories to tell.

Ziltorfin just peed in its pants

“Over $1B invested” 👀

Homes.com was #2 portal in September

CoStar’s Homes.com beats Redfin, Realtor.com to become No. 2 portal

“In a monumental sign of the real estate listing portal’s growing influence, CoStar Group’s Homes.com hit over 100 million unique visitors in September, besting Realtor.com and Redfin in monthly unique visitor traffic for the first time since acquiring the portal nearly three years ago, the company announced Monday.

That level of traffic made Homes.com the No. 2 most visited listing portal during the month of September, second only to listing giant Zillow. Realtor.com reported 74 million monthly unique visitors and Redfin reported 52 million unique visitors for the month.

CoStar founder and CEO Andy Florance told Inman that the company’s achievement was no accident since a lot of time and energy went into getting the Homes.com portal to where it is today.

“I know we’ve surprised everybody,” Florance said.

Lillian Dickerson, Inman News

I’m not too surprised, I see Homes.com ads everywhere online, but I will say I’m very surprised how quickly this happen. Congrats to the entire team at CoStar!

Homes.com responds…

Remember that article, Homes.com Using Your Name to Steal Your Leads?

Well, Homes.com responded to the article. And not just anyone but Homes.com CEO David Mele.

THE HOMES.COM RESPONSE WILL SURPRISE YOU

Ray: “One of the questions I was asked by agents, does Homes.com have the right to use an agent’s Name, Image, or Likeness to advertise or market the Homes.com website?”

Mele: “Homes.com has not specifically selected and used agent names, images or likenesses to advertise the Homes.com website. But we have utilized Google’s DSA system, which generated ads based on content that was listed Homes.com, which included both property listings and agent profiles.”

It’s precisely what I pointed out before. Agents using a platform like Google (which is free) means they (the agents) are the product. Homes.com is doing nothing wrong here.

The Q&A goes on to address “selling leads” and what happens to the inquiries made on the website.

Ray: “You stated in your email that “Homes.com doesn’t sell leads or trick users. … Click on our ads and submit leads, and see where they go.” One of the agent’s spouses did this. They went to YouTube, searched for the agent (their spouse) by name and saw the Homes.com ad using that agent’s name. They clicked on the ad that took them to the agent’s profile page. Then they searched for a house, clicked on a house and submitted a request. That inquiry did not go through to the agent whose name they had searched on YouTube. Can you help me understand anecdotes like this that we received?”

Mele: “If they had submitted an inquiry from the agent’s profile page, that inquiry would have gone directly to the agent they landed on.  But if they then searched for a house listed by another agent, then the inquiry would have gone directly to the listing agent for that house.  Since we employ a “Your Listing, Your Lead” model, all inquiries from listing detail pages go to the listing agent and the listing agent only. And these leads are not sold to the listing agent.  They are provided for free.”

It’s pretty funny that agents can’t grasp the “your listing, your lead” concept. Big kudos to David Mele for addressing these concerns head-on.

Is Homes.com hijacking traffic from broker and agent websites?

BREAKING: IS HOMES.COM USING YOUR NAME TO STEAL YOUR LEADS?

“Is Homes.com selling your own leads back to you?

Kristina Smallhorn, eXp agent and real estate YouTube extraordinaire, searched her own name on YouTube and was shocked at what she found. 

The ad read, “Kristina Smallhorn, Real Estate Agent in Baton Rouge, LA” and looked like a large text post on Facebook. The call to action was a simple “Visit site,” and just below that was a one-line title for the ad: “Find Beautiful Real Estate for Sale with Homes.com”

Interesting story. CoStar has recently touted that they have increased traffic to Homes.com website by 84%, we may be finding out how they are doing it.

It appears that in this case Homes.com is buying ads on YouTube and YouTube is inserting Homes.com ads in YouTube search results related to high performing real estate YouTube channels. These ads will use the agent’s name and then link back to their Homes.com agent profile.

What’s the rub? Well what the article gets wrong is that with Homes.com’s “your listing, your lead” any lead on Kristina’s listings should go right back to her. But Kristina and other agents are concerned about traffic.

“It’s harmful because they are tracking your leads that you’ve cultivated with your content to drive traffic to their website. They are using your name to collect data and send advertising to those people who wanted to speak to you and now are being pushed to use their site,”

Another concern is that a lot of the information on the agent profile is incorrect. Christa Nielsen writes…

“As (with) all ads, when the user clicks to the Homes.com ad that is using my name without permission, they are now going to be “followed” and retargeted from them.  They are using agents to generate traffic to their website.  This, plus the false information shown, can be detrimental to any business.”

Christa goes on to say that a lot of data on her profile was compltely wrong, including sales history and experience.

“If someone is clicking this profile, they are being shown that I, for example, sold one house in the last 5 years. This also can be detrimental.”

There are a few concerns here. I’m not sure if this would be too much of a story but CoStar’s CEO Andy Florance’s statements about other portal’s “hijacking” leads seems to invite criticism when something like this is exposed.

On the other hand, Kristina and Christa are using Google’s platform(s) (most likley for free) and as the saying goes, “if the service is free, you’re the product.”

Industry Relations Podcast: Making Better Agents and Listings

Ever wondered how to get the most out of your listings and become a better agent? In this episode, Rob & Greg touch on the different technologies and marketing strategies that agents can use to get an edge in sales. Tune in for why Rob believes great photography is the best way and why Greg thinks it’s just putting lipstick on a pig and pricing is the best strategy.

UPDATE 1-26-2023

A representative of Homes.com has reached out and said that the new version of their website has rolled out and has been live for the last couple of months.  Though there has been no industry-wide notification and they have still yet to launch any of their much-touted “listing enhancement” products.   The new site features include:

  • Completely new tech stack with noticed speed improvements
  • Historical AVM chart with three models + average
  • Deeper set of property characteristics from MLS, 
  • New design, 
  • IDX data via Ten-X in 460+ MLS markets (no more supplemental data via ListHub)
  • New agent search with updated agent profiles (includes transaction history)
  • New Homes Pro dashboard for agents on the back end (full integration with Homesnap Pro), and agent-client instant messaging for collaboration

Watch us on YouTube!

Connect with Rob and Greg: 

Rob’s Website

Greg’s Website

This podcast is produced by Two Brothers Creative 2023

CoStar to purchase Realtor.com?

News Corp in Talks to Sell Real Estate Site For $3 Billion

“Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. is in talks to sell its Move Inc. online real estate business to CoStar Group Inc.

Move is the parent of Realtor.com and other real estate-related websites. The deal is worth about $3 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. The sale could be announced within days, one of the people said.”

After CoStar announced at a recent earnings call they had raised $750M for future acquistions Rob and I on our Industry Relations podcast tried to guess what they would scoop up. I thought we had a pretty good guess with Matterport. Matterport had recently bought VHT Studios. So we thought it would give them some killer IP and a network of photographers. Turns out Zillow took the bait and purchased VRX, and CoStar had bigger fish in mind. Although $3 billion isn’t that much money for CoStar, remember they bid $7 billion for CoreLogic.

Brings up a few questions. Will NAR approve? Or do they even have the say? If NAR was cool with handing the reins to Rupert Murdoch, then Andy Florance seems like a Boy Scout.

What about Homes.com? I’ve been wondering when the new website would be launched, and they recently had a big round of layofffs. Maybe Andy realized that it would take a hell of lot more money to get Homes.com (a distant #3) to compete with Zillow than it would take #2, realtor.com. And the whole “your listing, your lead” actually might play better under the realtor.com umbrella.

Your move Nestfully.

Did Zillow just launch the new Homes.com?

Well it certainly looking that way…

Check out today’s press release from Zillow:

New service from ShowingTime+ enables agents to deliver beautiful, dynamic listings with less hassle

“We want to help agents effortlessly deliver standout listings that wow their sellers and help win over potential buyers,” said Cynthia Taylor, vice president of product for ShowingTime+. “Listing Media Services cuts down on the time agents spend preparing a listing so they can focus on the high-touch, high-value work they do as a trusted adviser for their clients.”

Also, check out the Listing Showcase site:

Here’s copy from the Listing Showcase site:

… select agents will receive the keys to a new best-in-class listing display — Listing Showcase.

Until now, online listings all conformed to the same structure. Listing Showcase is a NEW style of listing display that truly differentiates top-tier agents in their market.

Aren’t these two things; better content and new ways to highlight listings, exactly what CoStar was promising with their brand-new Homes.com?

Looks like Zillow just hijacked CoStar’s business model.

Zillow acquires VRX media, includes a national pro photographers network

Zillow Group acquires VRX Media to create national photographer network, elevate listing media through ShowingTime+ brand

“Zillow Group (NASDAQ: Z and ZG) today announced it has closed on the acquisition of VRX Media. This real estate media marketing and services leader is known for its aerial drone photography, virtual staging, 3D tours, high-definition photography and fast-media delivery to clients, which is made possible through the company’s national professional photographer network. Zillow Group will continue to offer VRX Media’s services through the ShowingTime+ software suite.”

Smart, and obviously a move to help Zillow compete against CoStar’s yet-to-be-announced launch of the new Homes.com which is said to offer “listing enhancement” packages.

I had made a prediction on the Industry Relations podcast that CoStar might buy Matterport because Matterport had recently bought VHT Studios which also had a nationwide professional photographers network. I guess Zillow thought it was a good idea too.

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