Fri 28 Jul 2006
Diversifying your real estate business
Posted by Marlow Harris under Real Estate
With an increasingly shrinking real estate pie, many companies are looking for ways to diversify their focus so as to cover more bases, get more eyeballs, attract more customers, make their site more “sticky”, and perhaps retain customer loyalty.
We’ve seen Realtor.com, Zillow and HouseValues branch out from real estate into financing and mortgage services. Local real estate firms are offering mortgage and escrow services under one roof. What other businesses have done the same thing?
There’s news out of Napa Valley, CA that Intero Real Estate Services franchise owner, Mike Bolen, has opened Mike Bolen Fine Art, a New York-inspired urban art gallery adjacent to his downtown Intero Real Estate office.
Several “Real Estate Cafe’s” have emerged, whether or not they serve real or virtual coffee, it’s a cute gimmick…. Both Good Earth Real Estate and Real Estate Cafe serve it up hot, and Seattle Realtor Louise Maxwell hosts Seattle Real Estate Talk with the byline “Double Tall No-Fat Real Estate Chat”.
And then, unrelated to real estate but it’s got the coffee thing goin’, there’s Seattle’s Espresso Dentist…….. (I guess they clean the coffee stains off your teeth….) And who could forget Sit ‘n’ Spin and Suds & Duds, businesses here in Seattle that combined beer and laundromats?
Claudia Ault notes a New York broker who managed to combine real estate with matchmaking and introduced a real estate client to her future fiancee…. a trend in real estate?
Then there’s MyHalfHouse.com . This is a web-based business model dedicated solely to connecting individual investors from around the world, together for the purpose of creating real estate investment partnerships. Think of it as a web-based dating-service, but instead of matching singles, we’re matching real estate partners.
And here’s a story from New York Magazine on another kind of real estate romance…..
How to become a professional matchmaker.
6 Responses to “ Diversifying your real estate business ”
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August 8th, 2006 at 11:45 am[...] Marlow Harris [360° Digest] Diversifying your Real Estate Business Chistine Forgione [NYHouses4Sale] Time Machine Needed [...]
July 29th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
The resistance to RedFin is the experience of the past that professional agents have with discounters and rebaters. It is easy and not too time consuming to fill out a listing agreement and post it in the MLS. But being there for the rest of the story is pretty commonly non existant. I get tired of the complaining they do when I know the track record I had experienced as an agent. LarrY Cragun
August 3rd, 2006 at 9:00 am
Some of those are very creative indeed. The funniest, I think, is the the espresso dentist. If that’s what he really does (coffee and a clean), it’s truly ingenious.
What would be the equivalent with real estate? “I’ll sell your house and I’ll let you buy one through me.”
August 14th, 2006 at 9:58 am
No question is changing at a rapid pace.
There are also many great blogs posted on RealBlogging.com on Zillow, Google, MLS and FSBOs.
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:53 am
I remember a long time ago around 1998 or so seeing a beat up old truck that advertised live bait and underneath the logo they added with stickers ..& Web Site Design.
The day Microsoft Launched Front Page, the web became a much uglier place.
February 18th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
What about creative real estate investing systems like the one one the infomercials. I always think it’s a bunch of hype, but some of the stuff advertised sure sounds tempting. I’m reluctant however, since everything I’ve never personally met anyone who’s had success in real estate by way of ordering an infomercial product.