Based on my request for questions a few days ago, I put together a slew of questions for Yahoo to answer about their new real estate site. I must say that I was a little bit disappointed in the number of times they state “we can’t comment on future releases or upgrades”, but otherwise, I think there are some nuggets of gold in their answers. (Note that I also added a few questions in the beginning to get them talking about their service before I hit them with the agent-specific stuff. 🙂 )
1) What are the three best features of the new site?
1. Integration with Yahoo! Local & Maps:
Yahoo! Real Estate has added maps with satellite imagery so house hunters can easily see where homes for sale or rentals are located and their proximity to roads and other landmarks. In addition, integration with Yahoo! Local allows users to also see “inside information
That’s disappointing that they remained so tightlipped about their “future releases or upgrades”…
Overall, their responses feel less like a conversation and more like talking points from a PR agency, which is a bit of a let down.
Nevertheless, thanks again for doing this Dustin.
It will be interesting to see how this progresses and what Realtor.com, Google, etc do to compete.
My original question was “How can a non-prudential Realtor use this resource to promote their personal brand or listings (assuming the listing is not being shown through an IDX feed from Prudential)?”
The last part in the paragraph was left off, which probably doesn’t matter, because the answer would have been the same. Place the listing in Yahoo Classifieds. I did a few trial runs with clients and Yahoo Classifieds a while back. It was very poor return on investment.
Who out there thinks there is a similar relationship to Yahoo/Prudential that could be structured between a major broker and portal? I’m wonder RE/Max and/or Cendant are looking at this with their eye on a competing relationship. I also wonder if Brokers on a local scale have given consideration to similar relationships with powerful local portals? If I were a broker I would be looking at creative ways to leverage my IDX rights.