…has not arrived.
Not by a long shot.
Here’s why:
Think about who actually engineered search for real estate.
Programmers — guys and gals with 180 IQs — guided by folks who get their kicks from Excel.
Not enough input from the people that really matter. Brokers. Agents. Consumers.
Everyone ought to stop for second and ponder this
Humans don’t search by ZIP code.
Humans don’t search homes from space. Or on maps filled with little blue markers.
Human don’t analyze comprehensive census data that pop off listings like a Crayola box of colored graphs, charts and heat maps.
Humans don’t understand the difference between a "Hybrid, Satellite, or List View".
Humans don’t sift through 12,000 listings that "match my criteria".
Humans don’t "save searches".
Humans don’t want to view only 8 crappy pictures of a home.
Humans don’t want their search experience cluttered with advertising.
Human don’t benefit from poorly executed applications that include home value estimates that can never be accurate, no matter how many PhD’s are thrown at them.
All of this…stuff. I applaud it for what it is. But it’s not great. Because in the end it’s very different from how humans actually search for homes.
I am human and I need to be loved
Humans drive around neighborhoods.
Humans meet neighbors.
Humans ask lots of questions.
Humans like to talk to the seller.
Humans spend time vibing the neighborhood.
Humans test drive the commute from prospective home to work.
Humans like to look at 6 homes that match their criteria, to a tee.
Humans require affirmation. They like to be gently nudged and influenced.
And most of all, humans like to converse.
They like to tell their agent who they are.
And technology has been making all this harder and harder to do.
If I could set the stage for what search should be, it would be a way to take this next paragraph and turn it into a search experience.
Hi Barb. This is Jim. My wife and I are hoping you can help us find a home.
See, she is an artist. An illustrator to be exact. Works for Disney. Me, well, I can’t draw a straight line to save my life. But I
love to cook. It relaxes me. Anyway, we’ve been renting and now want to buy. We’re planning to start a family. Actually, we’ve already been trying. What would be ideal is a home with an Arts and Crafts feel rather than the standard split level. But it has to have a cook’s kitchen. And a nice backyard. One where I can plant basil, garlic and tomatoes because I make a mean marinara. We want to be as close to things like mass transit and city life as we can but just far enough away to see the stars at night, sit on the porch and hear crickets. Oh yeah, we want 2 bedrooms — at the least. 3 is better. And enough room to entertain. And finally, a space where my wife can work from home and be inspired.
Innovation
Programmers: Want to be innovative? Create a natural search paradigm that gets us moving toward this.
Agents: You want leads? Imagine if you could actually describe homes in a manner that reflects how people think. Imagine being able to tag every key word inside the following description:
Beautiful Arts and Crafts house, close enough to the city but far enough away to enjoy crickets. Or a starlight night. A home perfect for a young family, empty nester and anyone inspired by decor. With a great flow. And a backyard perfect for planting. Sunning. And gathering your thoughts.
Image posting 50 pictures. That are clear. With a description of what every picture is.
Imagine incorporating local data and writing about it.
Explaining what a "3" means when describing a school or a test score.
Or what a "66" means when describing a housing trend.
You may point out at this point that we can’t even make RETS work across the country.
That agents don’t take pictures.
That the MLS system is medieval.
I know.
But maybe, they’ve never been really inspired to change.
Or truly show how.
But those excuses are not going to make searches finest hour come any faster.
Keep pushing.
- Davison
Local, Mobile, Social and the future of real estate
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I am a programmmer and I am human.
I have also had difficulty finding a house, but not because of the search. It's because I don't really know what I want or where I want to be. I bet you most people couldn't describe their target house the way you did in your example, which, by the way, is not really very descriptive.
If you don't where you want to be Joy, you wouldn't be the first. Most of the time when I search for items online, I'm not sure either. So like many, I chose websites that understand that reality and navigate its customer accordingly. Considering the many facets that make of a real estate purchase decision, few if any home search site do a great job of massaging all those facets.
As for the description – it was an illustration of what a dialog could possibly sound like. My goal was not to stir the reader with a definitive narrative. But I do disagree with you – most people have an idea of what they are looking for even if it's a simple description of neighborhood, distance from something, type of yard, bed, bath, size, etc.
What I have suggested is that what we have come to herald as search innovation – a map with markers, simplified by a typing in an address, city, state, zip, doesn't come close to offering the user a chance to express all the other things that matter and or help them locate a place to live. Those things come from a discussion with an agent.
True search innovation will be one that includes hyper local knowledge offered by the agent infused in with the MLS data allowing the user a more natural search experience.
What I have found to be most effective and what my clients are looking for (I'm a broker so no flames) is a home in an area that meets their needs. It usually starts out with a school or description such as west of hwy 73 and north of the 5 fwy and such. I've found that something like hotpads.com works for me as a start since I can search using a map, but then you get into the problem of lack of photos, poor descriptions or sign-up so I can market to you. In this day of high gas prices, I supply my clients with as much information as possible to qualify or dis-qualify a home. I really don't want to drive around. I have also found that given certain demographics, clients come to me from Craigslist, etc. and not the traditional Realtor.com. What I like about Craigslist is the posting of a very nice flyer with links to more in-depth descriptions. An earlier post showed a FSBO blog with information that could not be expressed in many sites today. I agree with the natural search engine but you are still constrained by what the agent puts there. Maybe something as simple as http://www.franklymls.com is what people are looking for. If the liting agent is not willing to post photos and comments, buyer's agents who preview can give a heads-up on whether it's worth viewing and priced right.
Marc – I wasn't sure how much room I had here to comment…so I posted a my thoughts about this on my blog…
http://www.webdigsblog.com/?p=245
I agree with your point of view, but don't really see how it is practical. I guess I should also note that I am a broker trying to make it in a very tough market, with limited resources.
Any suggestions you may have are certainly welcome
Tom
Tom,
Not sure how I can make my point or the practicality of it any clearer without actually sitting down and programming the darn idea.
Map based searching with little blue markers that are supposed to be homes are not favored among users. It's simply where our industry decided to take it, probably because it was the in thing and seemed practical. Once Trulia did it, everyone followed. And that's what we have today – slightly better versions of the same thing.
I think there's something better. My vision of that is a program that allows the user to write a paragraph into a search field and based on that information, better results would appear based upon how agents write and tag their description of the property.
Furthermore, I can see how allowing user generated comments about the home to also factor into the search with as much gusto as the standard info.
Look, I may be totally on crack here and map searching by zip, city, state, bed, bath, price is the pinnacle of what technology can create.
But I'm holding out because after all the searching someone does, they end up talking to an agent who tells them why half the homes they saved aren't good because they don't meet the needs of the client – needs that come across during a conversation.
And that's what I'm seeking – a way to create that conversation between agent and buyer online. The benefit for the agent and buyer in my mind see unlimited.
I know what you mean and it can be done. If you had 7 figures I could show you.
Hi Joe,
I don't have the 7 figures but it appears a few folks who see the vision do. I may have started a wildfire.
Marc-
Great points. I work in the industry and believe it or not, we do ponder this very thing. I would personally agree that many humans do NOT think about a new home as you listed. (Although many can figure out how to fit their criteria to the data that's available.)
As for what humans DO, your points are valid — but what we've found is that people care about many different things — and not everyone would DO what you would do. I point this out for two reasons:
1) Some of your "DO" items rated quite low in our studies.
2) We're on the same page that search needs to change and get orders of magnitude better. But to fulfill your vision requires making home search work for all individuals, not for all humans.
"As for what humans DO, your points are valid — but what we've found is that people care about many different things — and not everyone would DO what you would do."
Of course. I merely used myself as one example. Some people might tell an agent they love to entertain. Others may say they want some distance between themselves and their neighbors.
My point is simply this – whatever people say, I am convinced that a good agent, when they list a home, knows to some degree what kind of person the home will appeal too.
In that regard, offering the agent a way to better describe the home and tag key words based upon their core knowledge will create a database of "other" terms that could either turn into new fields to search by or better yet, factor well into a natural language search paradigm.
My entire point, my goal, my wish… is to create a way for consumers to search naturally and derive close to the same 6 or 12 results they would had they gone to an agent rather than the 1200 or 12,000 or 260 results they currently get.
And furthermore, I wonder given the activity derived from today's less-than-perfect search results, what kind of activity could a more humanized, natural search derive.
Hey Davison,
We have a long way to go, but over on our MLS site, we have added 30,000 buyer agent photo albums. Many of them were photoless listings, until a buyer agent grabbed a camera and decided to share.
Frank
FranklyMLS.com
Redfin put up a cool (human pleasing) neighborhood search and that, combined with the blog in which we blog people write local interest blurbs, helps.
Agreed though that much innovation yets needs to be done on humanizing the real estate search. This would not be so much a programming thing as an agent thing: Be honest. Do not include unlivable crawl space in the square footage. Don't make an ugly yard sound like the SF Botanical Gardens. Don't call an obviously scary neighborhood "hip." Don't take pictures ONLY of built-ins to avid showing water dmage in the kitchen. These ploys only waste time on both the searcher and the searchees part. This is maybe not exactly what you mean with this blog, but I do think accurate information would do much to inprove them humanity of the online search.
-A
PS: MORE snaps for the Morrisey ref.
Actually Anna, this is very much a part of what I'm talking about in this blog. Thank you for your contribution.