Marketing New Construction Real Estate

There has been a discussion in the Inman forums about NAR mandating June 2009 of RETS. Please click here to view that post.

One of the services of our company is providing MLS/IDX solutions for Realtor’s and brokerages’ websites. We deal first hand with the data feeds. My opinion is from a software developer’s viewpoint.

Some of the comments talked about providing data to 3rd party companies. That boat has already left the dock and will never come back. The reality is that the listing data (with or without RETS) is already being provided to 3rd party companies.

Our subject at hand is the mandating of RETS and how that would effect Realtors. IMHO, there should be very little change in today’s landscape and business processes for Realtors. The listing data feeds are already out there. The biggest impact will be for 3rd party companies.

The current lack of a data standard creates a huge issue for 3rd party companies. Each board’s data feed contains a different data schema (if you’ve ever wonder why the information about your listing is wrong on your website, this is usually the main cause). Because we pull the listing data from multiple boards; what we get is a jumbled mess of listing data. Our system then has to sort through this mess and turn it into something useful. The mandating of RETS will make life much simpler for 3rd party companies. Instead of having to account for a thousand different data schemas we only have to account for one.

Mandating RETS will provide a lot of positive impact for Realtors. In my humble opinion, I don’t think the mandating of RETS will increase the Realtor’s cost (marketing dollars spent, keywords, etc) of doing business. In actually, it should lower the costs. Software companies can redirect the resources and personnel that was being used to manage and sort data feeds into R&D. I think there will be an acceleration of new tools and features for Realtors to benefit from.

I’m personally very excited about the mandating of RETS.

For those of us who live in smaller markets; technology gets to us last.  That’s one of the things that I really miss about living in a big city.  Down in Naples, we are finally getting some of the fun stuff like fast wireless Internet (ATT Wireless’ 3G network) and now Google map’s Street View.  Street view is an awesome addition to Google Maps. 

SW Florida, being a vacation and 2nd home destination, many buyers and renters make their purchase/rental decisions sight unseen.  Before Street View, they may have a few photos to work off; now they can really explore the neighborhood and make more informed decisions. 

Specific address can be embedded and linked directly to Street View.  You can now better inform your prospects by adding Street View to your real estate listings.  Trulia.com has implemented in the listings on their website. 

The upside is that buyers will be able lower some anxiety by being able to view the neighborhood.  The downside is that i areas of high change (like Naples) the pictures can get outdated pretty quickly. I’m not sure how often Google comes back to update pictures … my guess is not too often. 

None the less, it’s really cool to see Street View to finally hit my area. 

Here’s an example of Street View:

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