Finding a Home on the Net

By Bill Fick

The fluid and ethereal world of cyberspace has become an important new medium for down-to-earth marketing of real estate.

The potential of the World Wide Web to showcase properties for a huge on-line audience using a mixture of text, photographs, drawings and floor plans has brought hordes of realtors in the United States to the Internet, with a growing contingent of international firms following close behind.

Industry specialists argue that the emergence of a real on-line home buyers' market in the United States has threatened the traditional information monopoly of the National Association of Realtors, or NAR, and its local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) boards by providing an effective mechanism for individual brokers to reach consumers independently.

In order to remain relevant and keep membership dues flowing, the NAR has launched its own impressive Realtor Information Network (http://www.realtor.com). Association members from participating MLS boards around the country can enter their listings into the site's central database, which effectively offers "one-stop shopping" with a massive selection of options for home buyers nationwide.

Given the sheer number of realty sites on the Internet and their variable quality, this kind of central listing provides a very useful service, although it lacks the flair, depth, and individuality of a good local site. For a more varied sampling of real estate on the web, two of the best places to begin surfing are the International Real Estate Directory (http://www.ired.com) and the PikeNet commercial property index (http://www.pikenet.com), where you can find links to individual agencies organized geographically.

The International Real Estate Directory also offers an extensive array of links to industry news sources as well as ratings of individual sites, a monthly "top-ten" list, and a series of thoughtful texts directed at estate agents who are contemplating an Internet strategy.

I sampled random sites for several hours, and while I failed to find any that I would consider outstanding, several are worth a look for their ability to provide virtual walk-throughs to potential clients, including the (California) Wine Country Real Estate Reader at http://www.rereader.com, a British agency called Chestertons (http://www.chestertons.co.uk), and a sample listing at Estates Gazette Interactive (http://www.egi.co.uk/topprop.htm) which is almost better than seeing the property in person.

Virtual property marketing has only just begun in Russia, and judging by the enthusiasm among brokers, the potential for growth seems impressive. Jennifer Shenkenberg, Director of Marketing for the Moscow Office of The Western Group * ONCOR International, reports that they already receive "several serious inquiries per week" from their modest website (http://www.russiarealestate.com).

The Western Group's home page is an excellent example of a low-cost in-house effort done well. Despite an unremarkable design with gray background and uneven resolution in photos and graphics, the site effectively establishes the company's name and authority by providing up-to-date residential and office market surveys in an easy-to-navigate structure. With relatively few local players on the web so far, this kind of effort is a good stepping stone to build more sophisticated on-line marketing strategies for the future.

Their ONCOR colleagues in St. Petersburg, Atlantic Properties (http://www.arcom.spb.su/users/atlantic), have a website which goes further in highlighting specific properties on-line but it can be distracting and slow with its enormous graphics and gaudy color scheme.

Blackwood realty's (http://www.mlstone.com/blackwood) promotion of its home page using linked advertising banners on high-traffic Internet sites such as Russia Today (http://www.russiatoday.com) is unique among Moscow agencies. Given this kind of investment, it seems strange to me that Blackwood does not include its URL in print advertisements and still uses a subdirectory of somebody else's Internet address as opposed to "blackwood.ru" or "blackwood.com". The site itself contains interesting descriptions, pictures, and price ranges for apartments of different classes, although the English sounds rather odd at times and the ragged graphics and dark woodgrain background can strain the eyes.

Claremont Construction (http://www.claremontusa.com) faithfully prints its URL in Moscow Times classifieds, which is a must for serious sites, although a visit offers little more than a brief text about each of the company's business activities. The homepage for Stiles and Ryabokobylko (http://www.snrmoscow.com) is graphically sharp but seems to have been neglected since autumn, with many sections empty.

Aside from these local efforts, DTZ International has obviously invested significant resources in a professional-looking global homepage based in Sweden for its offices worldwide at http://www.dtz.se. The problem with such central planning, however, is that information about their Russian operations lies buried several layers below the surface and does show up in web search engines.

My survey has been far from comprehensive, and I have left out sites catering primarily to a Russian clientele including http://www.aha.ru/~tolk and http://www.realty.ru, which contains a large, searchable database of apartments for sale.

All of these sites offer something interesting beyond what you will find in the newspaper classifieds, but at the same time seem to lack an overall strategy or focus on what consumers might really need or find useful.

In order to make use of some o fthe conclusions reached after hours of surfing through net estates, last week my company launched an Internet directory and news site for the Russian real estate market (soon to be bilingual) called "NetDvizhimost" at http://www.realestate.ru. Services include a directory of agencies, market news, listings, and a search function for property-hunters to solicit offers from multiple brokers by sending a single e-mail message.