We’ve had people ask why something wasn’t showing on Zillow, apparently thinking that it had an mls feed and all of the listings. If people choose property there, as 2nd home people are more prone to do. Even sight unseen at times. It could be deceiving if it had a lot of content, and yet not all of the homes, in the featured “lifestyle” destination.

I think another problem is that the small MLS systems are less likely to have the ability of syndicating listings than the MLS systems in the big cities do. So even if a listing agent wanted to promote their listings on Landwatch or ResortScape, they likely have to enter the listing twice, instead of living in digital listings land like the big boys do. That will hinder growth.

I think the small MLS systems will be interested in playing, for the same reason the big ones playing with Trulia, Zillow, and Realtor.com. The more eyeballs you get looking at a property, the easier it is to sell a property. If you don’t effectively promote your listings on the internet, you prevent interested buyers who are out of region, from ever considering your listing.

One question I do have, I assume the small MLSes aren’t interested in joining forces with the larger NWMLS because their members want to have the autonomy and independence they currently enjoy, despite the advantages of being in the NWMLS would bring them (easier access for big city buyers).

Unless they are adding precognition and Jedi mind tricks (you don’t want that NYC condo, you really want this other one in Miami) to their search engine in V 2, they are going to need a much better inventory. Right now, it’s just a much better engineered Luxury Real Estate.com. It is impressive, but not completely useful.

Part of their value proposition is the business intelligence and site analytics information, they collect for their advertisers and the area & lifestyle information they offer consumers. So, it’s likely they make more money per listing than other portals do. However, at the end of the day, you need customer enthusiasm or traffic, and I’m unsure how they are going to create that with the slim selection they currently offer.

However, it could be argued that my time share company has the same inventory issue, and they are wildly successful. Maybe, you don’t need millions of listings, you just need thousands of exceptional ones? Still, I like what they are doing technically and the business plan seems promising, they just need to add enough high quality listings that give me a reason to come back and tell my friends.

I’ll leave the technology evaluation to you. From a real estate perspective, most “second-home” properties can often be primary residences to some, and second-home for others. It surprised me to see how many people own property in Kirkland as “second homes”. It also surprised me how many CA residents own second homes in Idaho.

If I were looking for a second home, I wouldn’t limit my search to a site that might be overlooked as to listing property there by people selling their primary residence. I might go there to get ideas of where to look as to community, but then I’d hightail it off to a real site with all of the listings.

It always amazes me when investors sink many millions of dollars into these ideas. I sometimes wonder what increment of value “cool” adds to a product or service.