Yahoo Responds to Our Questions!
Based on my request for questions a few days ago, I put together a slew of questions for Yahoo to answer about their new real estate site. I must say that I was a little bit disappointed in the number of times they state “we can’t comment on future releases or upgrades”, but otherwise, I think there are some nuggets of gold in their answers. (Note that I also added a few questions in the beginning to get them talking about their service before I hit them with the agent-specific stuff. 
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1) What are the three best features of the new site?
1. Integration with Yahoo! Local & Maps:
Yahoo! Real Estate has added maps with satellite imagery so house hunters can easily see where homes for sale or rentals are located and their proximity to roads and other landmarks. In addition, integration with Yahoo! Local allows users to also see “inside information” about their potential new neighborhood such as the location of parks, schools, restaurants and read reviews written by other Yahoo! users.
2. Market research made easier: Users can now see a market snapshot of each community with average house prices and trends, as well as access local mortgage interest rates and feature-rich trend graphs so that they can make more informed financing decisions. In addition, users recent searches and recently viewed properties are automatically saved, making it easy for them to pick their online research up exactly where they left off.
3. Integration with Yahoo! Search: There are many new Search shortcuts, which means even users who begin their search on the Yahoo! home page can easily access important Real Estate information. For example:
- Search “San Francisco Homes for Sale” and narrow your search
- Search “Santa Clara Mortgage Rates” for today’s rates and trends
- Search “Home Values” and enter an address for home valuation
- Search by “PRU ID” found on a home’s for sale sign and instantly get home details on Yahoo!
2) Can you tell us what is in store in the future?
While we can’t comment on future releases or upgrades, we can say that we will continue to gauge what new features our users want and will find most useful. We feel that with this latest release, we have a great list of innovative features that we are looking forward to further developing for the benefit of our users and advertisers.
3) Are there any mapping improvements that you’ve made that you are particularly proud of?
Since Real Estate is an industry that is all about location, we are particularly proud of our integration with Yahoo! Maps. Yahoo! Maps’ satellite imagery helps house hunters easily see where homes for sale or rentals are located and their proximity to roads and other landmarks. Additionally, we are proud of our integration with Yahoo! Local whereby the maps that are presented in Yahoo! Real Estate incorporate local neighborhood information including most notably, user ratings and reviews on local establishments like schools, restaurants, parks and stores.
4) Who do you see as your biggest competition/threat? Mainstream portals (Microsoft, Google), the new players (Trulia) or is it the brokers themselves, many of whom are integrated web searches into their own site?
We do not view brokers, agents or other real estate professionals as our competition, in fact, we see them as one of our key constituents and partners. The online space is highly competitive; we believe that partnering with established real estate leaders such as Prudential Real Estate provides a superior experience to our users.
5) What can you tell us about the relationship between Yahoo and Prudential?
Yahoo! Real Estate provides prospective home buyers with access to comprehensive property listings including MLS listings via our partnership with Prudential Real Estate. In addition, properties listed with Prudential real estate may have a Yahoo! sign added to the traditional Prudential yard sign. The Yahoo! sign shows a unique “Pru ID” which is an alphanumeric identifier for that property. When a prospective home buyer searches on that Pru ID in Yahoo! Search or Yahoo! Real Estate, the user will be directed to the property details page.
6) Can a non-prudential Realtor use this resource to promote their personal brand or listings?
Non-Prudential Realtors have their listings exposed to Yahoo! users through the co-branded Prudential IDX/VOW national site. This means that if an individual, non-Prudential, agent is participating in their local IDX, then his/her listings may be presented. For additional opportunities, any realtor can submit their home listings to Yahoo! Real Estate, which will present their listings within a Real Estate Classifieds search.
7) If so, what are the requirements Brokers or MLS’ must meet to be included in Yahoo results?
To be included in “Agent / MLS listings” search results, the agent and/or broker needs to participate in their local IDX.
To be included in “Real Estate Classifieds” search results, please refer to this link:
http://realestate.yahoo.com/Sell_your_home
Do you have any plans to go international?
Yahoo! Real Estate is focused on the U.S., domestic market given the very unique rules and regulations that apply to real estate in the U.S. Although, Yahoo! Real Estate is built upon many core platform services like Maps that can be leveraged by international Yahoo! properties around the world. In the U.S., we share our product learning with our international colleagues as they strive to innovate in their local markets.
9) Do you have any plans for adding RSS based real estate searches in the future? How about an RSS feeds for mortgage rate information?
While we can’t comment on future releases or upgrades, we can say that we will continue to gauge what new features our users want and will find most useful.
10) Do you have any plans to include real estate blogs in your real estate headlines?
While we can’t comment on future releases or upgrades, we can say that we will continue to gauge what new features our users want and will find most useful.
On a related note, here are a slew of interviews I’ve published over the past year with some of the best bloggers around. If you’re new to real estate blogging, there is a lot to be learned from these leaders in this field.
About the Author: Dustin Luther
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That’s disappointing that they remained so tightlipped about their “future releases or upgrades”…
Overall, their responses feel less like a conversation and more like talking points from a PR agency, which is a bit of a let down.
Nevertheless, thanks again for doing this Dustin.
It will be interesting to see how this progresses and what Realtor.com, Google, etc do to compete.
My original question was “How can a non-prudential Realtor use this resource to promote their personal brand or listings (assuming the listing is not being shown through an IDX feed from Prudential)?”
The last part in the paragraph was left off, which probably doesn’t matter, because the answer would have been the same. Place the listing in Yahoo Classifieds. I did a few trial runs with clients and Yahoo Classifieds a while back. It was very poor return on investment.
Who out there thinks there is a similar relationship to Yahoo/Prudential that could be structured between a major broker and portal? I’m wonder RE/Max and/or Cendant are looking at this with their eye on a competing relationship. I also wonder if Brokers on a local scale have given consideration to similar relationships with powerful local portals? If I were a broker I would be looking at creative ways to leverage my IDX rights.