In August 2007 a little known study by eVOC Insights was published that compared online real estate sites such as RealEstate.com, Realtor.com, Trulia.com and Yahoo! Real Estate, among others. While some findings might be outdated nearly nine months later, others are spot on -- namely that making it easier for consumers to find homes should be the goal of any real estate site.

Dividing home buyers into short-term (recent and active homebuyers) and long term (those seeking to buy in the next years), researchers found that nine out of 10 homebuyers plan to use the Internet to aid their research. Where they go is what inquiring minds want to know.

Realtor.com came out on top in a number of key metrics -- site traffic, brand recognition, property selection, search results, and home descriptions. Over half of short-term buyers preferred Realtor.com and Trulia was second in popularity. When it came to name recognition, Zillow was number two among consumers.

Where real estate brokers should sit up and take notice is eVOC's conclusion that real estate websites are disintermediating the real estate industry. For example, in determining which web sites to use for home searches, only 20 percent of homebuyers received recommendations from their agents, which suggests that the industry is disintermediating itself.

Worse, homebuyers said they preferred real estate portals to local realtor sites because they have more listings (73 percent) and selection (57 percent.) Yet, real estate portals fared poorly when it comes to accuracy with only 17 percent of homebuyers preferring them for that reason.

One out of six consumers complained that there weren't enough photos of properties on the top portals RealEstate.com, Realtor.com, Trulia.com, and Yahoo! Real Estate.

But things change.

Since the report came out, Zillow has made a deal with Realogy Corporation to publish the listings from ERA, Coldwell Banker, Century 21, and Sotheby's. Century 21 already got the same number of page views as Realtor.com, but visitors only stayed half as long.

Realtor.com is making an active effort to improve the consumer experience by providing fresher listings.

But anyone who markets listings online has room to improve. The report recommends that best practices in search, features, and functionality are what drive usage preferences and property decisions.

In other words, any site can improve its results.

Published: April 29, 2008

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