Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Google's Play into Real Estate

Google's foray into Internet domination continues. Watch out Craigslist, Realtor.com, Ebay, et al.

It was announced yesterday that the company is teaming up with Trulia, one of more interesting online real estate plays today, to host real estate listings with a company called Realogy. It makes sense to me.

Real estate listings are a big draw for consumer eyeballs and this type of hot inventory is the way to start building momentum on Google Base, their searchable database. In online real estate, it's not easy for any ABC company to scale listings nationally due to the fragmented nature of the MLSs. MLSs are essentially little fiefdoms across the country who still control the distribution of property listings within their "jurisdictions." (That will slowly erode over time.) It's this reality that allows Realtor.com to maintain its hold as the #1 property listings site because of their special relationship with the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Google's partnering with Trulia who already uses their technology (Trulia is a mashup) and a Realogy who has a base of core listings allows Google to put in a stake in the ground on real estate content.

This does beg the question of how much market power and reach Google will eventually achieve in all categories and verticals on the web. They've upped the ante in the game for online real estate players who's focus has been building a consistent pipeline of traffic to their site - giving consumers another choice/option for listings while building another channel for their advertisers to reach such consumers.