{"id":2214,"date":"2007-11-12T08:59:21","date_gmt":"2007-11-12T15:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=2214"},"modified":"2007-11-12T09:05:45","modified_gmt":"2007-11-12T16:05:45","slug":"stifle-those-yawns-cyberhomes-is-coming-out-of-beta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2214\/stifle-those-yawns-cyberhomes-is-coming-out-of-beta\/","title":{"rendered":"Stifle those yawns: CyberHomes is coming out of beta"},"content":{"rendered":"

Q: Is there room in the Realty.bot business for a third major player?<\/p>\n

A: What business?<\/p>\n

Joel Burslem<\/a> came to Phoenix last week, and I had a chance to spend a few hours with him before he flew back to Portland. Because I live and breathe real estate and because I’m casually cruel in a thoughtless kind of way, I punished him with real estate tour — major commercial developments with side trips into residential neighborhoods. Joel’s observation: “There sure are a lot of ranch houses.”<\/p>\n

It’s one of my life’s goals to be a kinder, more thoughtful person, but dramatic differences may require a reincarnation or two. Even so, I didn’t just make Joel look at houses. We had plenty of opportunities to talk as we meandered. One of the topics I wanted to discuss was the profit potential for Realty.bots like Zillow.com and Trulia.com. Zillow has firmly embraced the Google.com business model of delivering advertising based on targeted search. Trulia had just moved to a business model pioneered by Realtor.com — milk the listers.<\/p>\n

My question is this: Taking account that I myself am impervious to advertising, how is any of this going to play out in the long run? People will pay for clicks for a while, but sooner or later they’re going to try to account for those clicks in converted sales. If the impact of advertising is not demonstrably cost-efficient, then why do it? I’m not saying this will happen, but as media consumers become more and more like me, it seems to me to be more and more likely.<\/p>\n

Into that steaming cow-pie steps CyberHomes<\/a>, about to emerge from a year-long beta period<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That’s not auspicious, but who know what tomorrow will bring.<\/p>\n

But, more importantly: Who cares?<\/p>\n

For now, CyberHomes is Yet Another Map-Based Automated Valuation Model. Punch in your address and you get a wild-eyed pricing guess based on tax records and statistics and having no material connection to the actual house, which, as I have demonstrated in the past<\/a>, may not actually even be there. So far: Big yawn.<\/p>\n

CyberHomes hopes to dominate the hugely unprofitable free-AVM market by having access Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Q: Is there room in the Realty.bot business for a third major player? A: What business? Joel Burslem came to Phoenix last week, and I had a chance to spend a few hours with him before he flew back to Portland. Because I live and breathe real estate and because I’m casually cruel in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,5,19,25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-disintermediation","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-real-estate","9":"category-technology","10":"category-zillowcom","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8802,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/8802\/mr-inman-less-advertorial-content-please\/","url_meta":{"origin":2214,"position":0},"title":"Mr Inman, less advertorial content please!","author":"Eric Blackwell","date":"June 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Ok...I have tried to stay off of this topic for a LONG time, but I keep seeing stuff that brings me back. Brad, errr..Mr. Inman? I have never met you. I know you have a lot of power in the real estate news sector, because InmanNews reaches many agents and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":79,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/79\/o-for-a-young-and-money-hungry-web-programmer\/","url_meta":{"origin":2214,"position":1},"title":"O, for a young and money-hungry web programmer…","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Joel Burslem The Future of Real Estate Marketing cites ShackYack.com, but I don't think we're seeing the same thing. What he sees is another manifestation of what he calls Real Estate 2.0. What I'm seeing is a particularly user-friendly interface to an IDX system. In other words, this is not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1997,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1997\/oh-good-grief-he-went-to-jared\/","url_meta":{"origin":2214,"position":2},"title":"Oh, good grief! He went to JARED…","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Joel Burslem cites a Glenn Kelman quote from a comment to John Cook's post this morning, but I think this one is more interesting:By the way, no matter how many times the real estate industry insists that we're JARED (Just Another Real Estate Discounter) we can't help but add that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":629,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/629\/links-for-a-very-busy-saturday\/","url_meta":{"origin":2214,"position":3},"title":"Links for a very busy Saturday . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm selling at least two houses this weekend, so I'm catch as catch can. I want to write a very involved Realty Reality story, too, so my Saturday is much enriched. Here are some other riches: Realty Thoughts ponders the differences between the Inman shows and NARdiGRAS. Here's one that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":499,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/499\/where-the-babies-are-and-where-they-arent\/","url_meta":{"origin":2214,"position":4},"title":"Where the babies are — and where they aren’t . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"There's a decently if not very deftly balanced comparison of Gilbert, Arizona, to Portland, Oregon, in the Christian Science Monitor today. The star of the piece is urbanologist Joel Kotkin, so Gilbert doesn't suffer the usual big-city-dweller's I-just-don't-get-it sliming. The issue of fecundity is touched upon without any mention of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18128,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/18128\/overnight-news-the-secret-to-zillows-flavor-of-ibuying-sucking-at-real-estate-helps-them-sucker-real-estate-agents-which-is-where-the-real-money-is\/","url_meta":{"origin":2214,"position":5},"title":"Overnight News: The secret to Zillow\u2019s flavor of iBuying? Sucking at real estate helps them sucker real estate\u00a0agents \u2013 which is where the real money\u00a0is.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote the other day about Zillow's losses on its iBuyer \"investments\" \u2013 incomprehensible losses considering that this is one of the few times when it is possible to make money on non-producing real estate. The losses on iBuyer \"investments\" can be stupefying from the point of view of any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}