Cyberhomes and Realtor.com

Cyberhomes has Realtor.com in their cross-hairs.

For the real estate buyers/sellers/consumers in the Charlottesville area – which site has better, more useful data, and data display, for your house?

Realtor.com has the current listing data:

But Cyberhomes has more data, and is working on acquiring the “current” data.

From an (subscription required) Inman News Article in May:

Fidelity will keep property listings content fresh at the Cyberhomes site by updating brokers’ data directly from MLSs, said Marty Frame, senior vice president and chief information office for Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions, a division of Fidelity National Financial Inc.
…
In addition to past sales and for-sale home information, Cyberhomes also offers “heat maps” that allow consumers to visualize data on a map that is color-coded for home values, changes in value and property density at the neighborhood level. Zillow, Trulia and PropertyShark are among the other real estate sites that offer a variety of heat maps.

The New York Times has gotten rid of its pay firewall. So has The Economist. Why not Realtor.com? Consumers simply don’t want to register to get data they can usually get elsewhere. The MLS data is already distributed near and far and diluted so much that the best Realtor.com can do is do what the competitors are doing – but better. Leverage the value that is remaining to put themselves at the top.

I’ve written a lot about Realtor.com over the years, and there has been an awful lot written in the RE.net (archived: 2008). Right now, it remains the #1 destination for homebuyers who are searching for homes.

Cyberhomes, however is moving forward – rapidly. This is what consumers want (no longer available):

users can also learn about the neighborhood and community, including the weather, economy, commute times, diversity, even air/water quality.

As a Realtor, that is what I want to provide to my customers.

Users don’t have to login to either Realtor.com and Cyberhomes, but here is one of the many distinct (and detrimental to Realtor.com) differences between the two. To get the “value” of a home in Cyberhomes, create a login, search and get this data-rich page with options – neighborhood, schools appreciation rates, demographic information:

Do the same search on Realtor.com, and users get this roadblock:

1) They don’t have the data.
2) There is no way to choose “your” Realtor, among other deficiencies noted earlier this year.

When you do find a home you like, there is nothing more than information on the property itself (and there is no “maximum square footage” search limitation – only “minimum square feet” – a significant limitation in the search).

It’s been said before – consumers want all the information, they want it now and they want it for free.

Cyberhomes has the potential to move up the ladder in of usefulness for on the list of “Empowered Buyers’ Online Tools.”

Take this example – I was previewing a home for a couple this past week. My clients have never been to Augusta County, west of Charlottesville. I walked through the home and gave an audio tour as I took photos (and a short video) that I posted on a website for them later that morning. While leaving the property, I noticed a library nearby; as close proximity to a library is one of their primary needs, I called them to let them know. They replied, “yes, we saw that already!” – they are doing their research online, looking at much more than just the home itself – they want to know what the area is like.

Buyers are buying much more than just a house – they are also buying their Monday Mornings. The first site to implement this need for rich and deep information for the real estate market – wins.

Realtor.com needs choose which customer it wants to serve – either the consumer or the Realtor.

Why doesn’t Cyberhomes just buy Move? See Move’s stock below –

Cyberhomes has quite a way to go to build their traffic though …

(no longer available)