Trulia, Zillow, Redfin; there are lots of new web 2.0 models out there trying to shake up the real estate industry. But don’t forget about the gorilla: Google.
Back in December I wrote about the
Houston Association of Realtors agreement with Google; this marked the first time for the search engine giant to team with a major area Multiple Listing Service. Now Google is endeavoring to make it easier still to find listings. Search for
“Houston Real Estate” and the search engine will bring up all publicly available listings, even
categorizing them by rentals, for sale, foreclosure and more. Advantage: investors. Information wants to be free, and this is an innovation that should make it easier for investors to see at a glance what is available, both MLS listings and those FSBOs that are scattered around on various online platforms. It will also give investors another way to get their properties seen, both for sale and for rent.
It’s a good thing to have more options. I use a real estate agent for some of what I do simply because it gives me a extra set of hands, eyes and ears. But there are many times when cutting out that middle player allows me significantly reduce the cost of the transaction and gets me
closer to the negotiation.
In their blog post Google includes all the standard boilerplate text about how they don’t plan to disintermediate traditional real estate agents – they’re not going to deal with agents, charge for leads, sell houses, etc. But they will surely make information more freely available which will further empower consumers.
Eventually some company will succeed in shaking things up. I don’t know which company will be the one that ends up bringing technology that truly disrupts the industry, but I’m happy to see them all fighting for the honor.