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President of BlueRoof360.com, an online real estate platform that offers a truly unique solution for Realtors and brokers. Custom websites, lead and business management systems, and a community area for networking and learning.
Home searches on a phone are a fun idea, but not practical with such small screens. The process of using a map-based search could be more cumbersome with all the scrolling and trying to make sense of the maps. It is a cool app, but most people do their searching during lunch hours at work or when they first get home from work, not while they're driving around. I wouldn't call this a game-changer anymore than video has been. It is a cool app though, and I agree the iPhone's screen makes it fun to use. Have you used that new HP desktop touch-screen? Looks pretty cool but I've not used it yet...
I know the feeling of starting my own brokerage after leaving one of the big guys. It is tough and exciting... Best of luck Kris and Steve!
Marc, You say, "50 pics are not enough. There are cars and guitars for sale on ebay with more pictures than that. Shoes on Zappos show with 8 pictures" but that is because those sites are trying to actually sell you those items from the website. Home buyers don't typically see a house on a website and put in their credit card number and purchase it. You need enough photos to show its spaces and features and get people to go look at the house. That's where they see the neighbors and the get a feel for the space, not from the photos. Whether you have 50 or 5000 photos, homebuyers will want to go to the house before they are going to buy it. And of course it's great to ask clients about their hobbies and things they like, but putting those things into search is not rational. Search for a home for "people who like yards where they grow parsley" is not a realistic search perameter and even if it were it wouldn't work because Realtors and home sellers alike will claim that thier home has a wonderful yard even if it only has a 5x5 patch of weeds... It comes down to this- the purpose of home search is not to get the "buy", it's to engage the visitor to want to visit the location based on the home meeting the basic criteria needed. Glad to hear your hand is healing- send one photo and I'll check it out when I see you next (smile)...
