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Attending Real Estate Connect in San Francisco This Week
Ed Kohler
Later this week, I'll be in San Francisco for Real Estate Connect. A huge conference for the real estate industry where the big wigs come together to discuss where the industry is heading.

Each year, the conference has a theme used to tie together what's happening in the real estate industry. This year the theme is: Open Source, Open Data, Open Debate

Which will be explained in the welcoming address:

The real estate process is being turned inside out as data, social commentary and simple APIs overhaul the arcane process of buying and selling real estate. Learn what is hot and what is not from the leading real estate observer, Bradley Inman, Publisher of Inman News.

Real Estate Connect LogoA year ago, Zillow was the hot topic as their automatic home valuation tool had been on the web for a few months and was drawing tons of attention and interest. How were real estate agents who've traditionally generated leads through personal home valuations going to adjust to the reality of publicly available home valuations? While it's still not clear, it does seem clear that the genie is out of the bottle on that type of data.

A year later, the industry seems to understand that the web will continue to be the a source of new forms of easily consumable data by agents and consumers. In some cases, this will be data that's always been available becoming presentable in more palatable formats. In other cases, it will be the creating of new types of data.

Blogging is one case where agents are starting to see the positive PR and marketing benefits of presenting oneself as a neighborhood or city expert in the field of real estate. However, this is still very immature. For example, I live in a metropolitan area of 2,000,000 people and know of four real estate bloggers. I wouldn't exactly call that crowded. Perhaps Hugh MacLeod will connect with more than a few bloggers at Connect about the power of blogging for business.

One issue I haven't seen addressed at Real Estate Connect, but may see someone mention this year is: "What happens if Digg gets into real estate?"

How would the real estate industry change if every home consumer could vote up or down every listing in their market? If they could comment on every listing? If they could easily blog every listing?

Would the quality of the average listing improve? Would home sellers freak out to their agents if their homes received little or no Diggs while comparable properties with more photos and better descriptions rose in popularity? How would the industry respond to such an open marketplace like this? Is this good or bad? Preventable? Inevitable?

Also, I'm considering sticking around SFO through the weekend. If you're in the area, send me an email so we can meet up.



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Comments

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2. Posted by: Drew M from Zillow on July 30, 2007 10:49 AM:

I'm looking forward to being in san francisco this week - I'd love to meetup at during real estate connect at some point. I'll be in and out of the demo pod area both wednesday and thursday.




3. Posted by: Drew M from Zillow on July 30, 2007 10:52 AM:

I'm looking forward to being in san francisco this week - I'd love to meetup at during real estate connect at some point. I'll be in and out of the demo pod area both wednesday and thursday.




4. Posted by: Joel Burslem on July 30, 2007 4:15 PM:

Looking forward to seeing you at Connect, Ed. It should be a lot of fun!




5. Posted by: Matt McAllister on July 31, 2007 12:31 PM:

Hmmm...interesting idea on Digg, Ed. I wonder if any startups are already working on it? I'll see you at the show!




6. Posted by: Keith Gregory on July 31, 2007 5:49 PM:

Another site to check out is Trulia. Zillow got $50MM in venture, Trulia got $10MM.

Zillow, when they launched, basically pissed off realtors- Trulia works with real estate agents- and if you know anything about the real estate biz, realtors are these dinosaurs that just refuse to die out, regardless of what tech innovations come along.

I believe both Trulia and Zillow have blogs/discussion boards for commentary by users- when I've checked them out- its largely populated by a few super vocal incented users (brokers pumping themselves and their sites).




7. Posted by: Malok on August 18, 2007 8:24 AM:

You should be back from the conference by now. What happened? Any insights you can provide? We are all waiting in anticipation. :)




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