Bonzai Real Estate Blog

Another company on my watch list is Homegain. Not too long from now they will anounce some changes that I think are definitely in the right direction. Why am I concerned with companies like Homegain and Redfin? I don't know. It gives me something to do between clients. Actually I find it all fascinating. Some people hate change and some people love it. I love dynamism, esspecially in business -- I got hooked  many years back reading Peters, Drucker, Gilder, Senge and others as they discussed trends and looked to the future prediciting what might develope.

Some of the buzz materialized, some of it faded, but one thing is for sure, much about business has changed and I believe it will continue changing even faster. Not to say that all old methods will disappear -- I think many time-honored practices will be around much longer than I'm around.

Homegain seems to be a company that mixes the old with the new and doesn't buzz a lot; however, Louis Cammarosano's recent foray into the middle of the real estate blogosphere has created some buzz as he holds his own in the back and forth of the ongoing conversation about real estate.

Louis has shared with we a little about the direction Homegain is taking. It's a viable resource for agents marketing in the online real estate business, offering many tools that are ready-made.

Recently, I read about Estately on Bloodhound. I was vaguely familiar with the company but didn't really pay a lot of attention because of it's regional focus. While checking it out I noticed an emphasis on something I've written about lately -- a partnership between an RE site and vetted agents to promote quality agents in particular areas. I saw several times where they emphasized quality, not just any agent on a list, making a straighforward distinction, when making a referral.

I've wondered if this would work, whether consumers would appreciate the process of picking the best qualified agents to promote and recommend. It narrows the playing field and most likely will insult many agents who are not chosen. A company like Homegain has quality assurance built in through a consumer evaluation function, but this is different than being handpicked by Homegain after meeting requirements for acceptance based on strict criteria set by Homegain. I see the difficulties of handpicking -- how is the criteria decided and does it hurt business to narrow down so severely? Would it be beneficial business-wise to limit the agents to certain strict criteria or is it best to have consumers be the watch-dogs and handpickers? 

In an ideal situation, from the perspective of the consumer, it would probably be best for them to know that a site has carefully chosen only the best agents who've met strict requirements for inclusion, but the difficulties of doing this on broad-scale business model would be daunting. It's probably not going to happen with a nationwide company but Estately's approach is interesting and worth considering, at least building up the quality assurance efforts to give consumers confidence that who they do business with is being evaluated closely.

If online competition heats up in the future, as surely it will, the distinctions that set one comapny above another will be excellent service and delivery of the best. Price will be a factor, but I believe the determining factor of who profits and who doesn't will be based on the best service model. Like I said, from my humble perspective, Homegain is going in the right direction.