The article presents a lot of stuff I've been saying for some time, and is bad enough, but...there is a big point that I think was missed. Realtor.com has a brand identity, but the only marketing of that identity is to real estate professionals. As real estate professionals, you hear about Realtor.com a lot, because it is marketed to you in your offices constantly. You're told how great it is doing and how much great traffic it has, and how important it is for you to pay to participate in its success by purchasing a variety of marketing and professional internet packages. Those packages funnel a lot of money into Realtor.com. HomeStore.com manages those funds and directs national advertising and marketing. National advertising targeted at consumers directs visitors to HomeStore.com and builds the brand identity of HomeStore.com -- not Realtor.com. Doesn't this also worry you guys? It's a pretty cool business strategy for a company. Develop a national web site for a trade association, negotiate the contracts with individual MLS associations for displaying listings on the internet on behalf of the trade association, build the site into the dominant real estate force on the internet, then.... use their revenue to build a separate brand identity for your own company - which didn't really exist as a player before. All that is missing is to eventually negotiate to display the listings directly on HomeStore.com instead of Realtor.com. Which company handles the MLS negotiations?

Back to Previous Post Printer Friendly Version | E-mail This Article to a Friend