In 2005, at Google, we acquired an analytics company called Urchin. Urchin, now Google Analytics, was integrated into Google Adwords and was meant to allow advertisers to track conversions across all online sources. There were and are some challenges however with the accuracy of some of the reports. Here are a few examples: 

 

• Javascript Code was added incorrectly on advertiser’s site
• Users clear their cookies and can’t be tracked
• Ad filtering programs can block the script
• Script could slow down site causing a higher user abandonment rate

All of these issues could lead to inaccurate reports where the marketer thinks one source or various keywords are performing poorly. Tracking conversion is an essential part of any marketing program within any industry. However, making marketing decisions based on bad data could hurt marketing performance.

 Specifically in the apartment industry, leases, many times are attributed to the wrong source. At a recent NMHC event, the panel warned: 

that properly sourcing leads is a big problem in the industry. One analysis showed that 70% of leases were attributed to the wrong source.

As the apartment industry becomes more sophisticated on what leads are converting into leases by using third party lead-to-lease services, I am seeing many of the same data tracking errors that I saw at Google. Recently, we compared internal lead data to multiple client lease data and found a 10-12X discrepancy in what leads actually turned into leases and what their third-party data was telling them.

Here are a few apartment marketing tracking challenges I see:

• Dead tracking numbers
  • Surprisingly, sometimes marketers forget to change out tracking numbers and potential residents go to a dead number
• Improper parsing of email data
  • In some cases, parsing of name, email, phone-number may not be parsed accurately from the third-party
• Manual over-ride of source data
  • Psychologically, we tend to favor sources that make us look better. One REIT shared with us that walk-ins and “Internet Other” dropped 50% when they started to track via a call center.
• Revenue Attribution
  • Who should receive the lease attribution? The first source, middle source, last source, or all sources?
• The Network Effect
  • More and more leads are coming from the long-tail of sites. “Internet Other” option is becoming a larger portion of lease sources.
• The Human Element
  • Lack of accurate lead collection data at the community level may lead to larger discrepancies.
• Different phone and or email addresses presented when signing the lease
  • Many potential residents search while at work. Did their work email and phone show in the lead reports but their home information show in the guest card / lease software?

As an industry, we are getting closer to accurately quantifying apartment advertising spend but we are a long way to perfection. Would love feedback, thoughts, suggestions on how we as an industry could improve the accuracy of this data.

Have New Yorkers outgrown CraigsList?

by Honeycrisp on April 20, 2010

The 101 on avoiding the traps of using CraigsList in your apartment search

CraigsList used to be the #1 destination for New Yorkers looking for apartment rental deals.  Nowadays, the venue has become a minefield of pitfalls to avoid, sending wannabe tenants to StreetEasy.  Here’s a bit of a breakdown of how this wondrous list of lists works in the world of NYC real estate.

• Traffic galore: So many eyeballs land on CL, that it’s almost impossible to avoid the site from a broker’s standpoint.  The sheer amount of traffic that this community gets from apartment hunters is astonishing, with everyone looking to get a deal and find that hidden gem or diamond in the rough.  It’s no wonder that hundreds of ads are posted on the site daily, with frequent double and triple posts of the very same apartment.
• Ring ring: Brokers clearly try to capitalize on this volume, with their primary goal of making the phone ring. (Note: apartment ads on CL costs the broker $5 – $10, so these are dollars clearly going towards getting business.) Unfortunately, many are trained to do only that: get the phone to ring no matter what.  This means often creating “Frankenstein apartments” for the desperate tenant to drool over: a picture of a bathroom from an UWS 2-bed, the kitchen of a Financial District studio and the roof-deck of a Gramercy condo, slap an attractive price on it and … voila!  The perfect apartment now exists.
• Inflated Expectations: Clearly, brokers know that no one will call on a $5k 1-bed … the lower the price, the more calls they get.  Everyone is incentivized to advertise only their cheapest deals or else make them up. The result is an inflated sense of the number of “bargains” out there, and therefore a very skewed sense of what is realistic to expect.  So what happens when you call? “I’m sorry, this apartment is rented but I have another 1-bed you will just love.”
• For rent by whom?: For those of you looking to go the “for rent by owner” route thinking you can avoid all shadiness, ask the voice on the other end if s/he is a broker.  If the answer is anything but “No”, there’s a significant likelihood that the answer is yes, as 50%+ of owner listings have an agent behind them.

So how do you determine whether an ad is real and an agent worthy?  Here is a question-driven litmus test to guide your way:

Question:  Where is the apartment located?

• Bad Answer: It’s in West Chelsea
• Worse answer: The landlord prohibits me from giving the exact address.
• OK Answer: It’s located at on 5th Avenue, between Y and X.
• Ideal Answer:  It’s at 625 Fifth Ave, Apt. 2C (agents often find it hard to share if it’s not their exclusive listing, though)

Question: Tell me more about the apartment: where is it facing? what is the bathroom like?

• Bad Answer: What are you looking for?
• Good Answer:  It’s facing north; the bathroom was renovated 3 years ago and has a stand-up shower (not tub), etc.

Question: What size bed can I fit in the bedroom?

• Bad Answer: You have to just see the apartment; come to my office to register.
• Good Answer: If you have a queen, that would work well. Frankly, a king just wouldn’t fit unless you eliminated all walking space.

Question: When is it available?

• Bad Answer:  I’m not sure, let me check with the landlord and I’ll get back to you.
• Worse Answer: When are you looking to move?
• Good Answer:  The tenant’s lease expires in the middle of June and the apartment is available for occupancy on July 1.

If you do choose to conduct your own apartment search, do so with your eyes open and your expectations adjusted.  If it sounds too good to be true, chances are that it is.  Otherwise, go the broker route if you want to avoid these hassles altogether.

Have New Yorkers outgrown CraigsList?

Move, Inc. MSN Network is the largest real estate network according to everyone but Zillow

By Benn Rosales on November 8, 2010 | 11 Responses

This Sunday from New Orleans, we broke the story regarding questionable Zillow claims (via collateral produced by Zillow as ComScore data) being passed around the halls of the 2010 National Association of Realtors trade show floor. The claim in question was Zillow and Yahoo! real estate network being the “Largest Real Estate Network in the World” above and beyond Move Inc./MSN real estate network by nearly 6.4 million unique visitors. We’ve never disputed Zillow/Yahoo! traffic claims, only their representation of competitor traffic, and that of being the largest real estate network.

(This is a followup story to “Zillow dupes Realtors, investors and consumers with flawed claims.”)

Immediately, we noted the Zillow claim that the Move Inc. traffic stats included the 6.4 million uniques when according to other sources, it had not. Zillow’s CRO, Greg Schwartz responded that his contact at ComScore had verified the Zillow numbers to be accurate and requested a retraction- we decided to take it a step further and actually just settle the matter once and for all… who is the largest real estate network?

We went directly to ComScore (the source of both networks’ claims), and simply asked for an independent analysis (specifically avoiding any possibility of tricky math) of what is called deduplicated or “unduplicated” traffic (a fancy word for unique visitors) and the following graph is fact, according to Sr. Director, Industry Analysis Andrew Lipsman (well, we made the graph, he gave us the numbers). We also took it beyond that to show not only July, but also September numbers to settle the old versus new data controversy as well, and here is what we found…

What’s most interesting is that Move Inc. is not only larger, but from July to September (60 days) Move Inc. with MSN Real Estate actually grew 1.8 million uniques or 10.7% while Zillow and Yahoo! only inched up around 200k, or 1.3%.

The bottom line is that we want an apples to apples comparison and we’ve delivered one, however, Zillow’s Schwartz is still “reluctant to concede” any problems with their numbers. When we spoke to Schwartz by phone, he insisted that he had verified with ComScore Sr. Sales Manager, Jill Leedom that their numbers were on par and their flyer compared apples to apples, and went as far as emailing AgentGenius the very carefully worded statement from Leedom as follows…

Attached are two reports for September 2010:
1. Audience Duplication Report for Yahoo! Real Estate + Zillow: 14.458 Million UVs
2. Key Measures report for [P] Move Network: 13.398 Million UVs
Per these Media Metrix Reports, the data for Zillow is rock solid and correct. Zillow’s intent was to point out the one included URL”realestate.msn.realtor.com” and not the entire MSN Real Estate Category.
ComScore Sr. Sales Manager, Jill Leedom

You’ll note this email does not address the July numbers that are in dispute, and you will also notice the difference in reports filed. One report is a Duplication report, and the other is a Key measures report where Ledomm clearly states, “Zillow’s intent was to point out the one included URL”realestate.msn.realtor.com” and not the entire MSN Real Estate Category.” (emphasis ours)

Clearly, Zillow is selling its partnership with Yahoo! real estate, and enthusiastically created collateral to sell their new value proposition, but failed to compare apples to apples. We personally don’t believe they had malicious intent, it is our suspicion that apples (Audience Duplication Report showing Zillow/Yahoo! in a flattering light) were compared to oranges (Key Measures reports showing everyone but Zillow/Yahoo! in a less flattering light) which Schwartz will not confirm as a possibility. However, Move, Inc. and it’s MSN partners did compare apples to apples and they can, because they simply are the largest real estate network.

Does this mean it will last forever? This remains to be seen. The fact is that Move, Inc. and its competitors need one another to continue to push the envelope forward in technology. Zillow combined with Trulia and other players in the space have pushed traditional to become untraditional, rethink longterm strategies, build new alliances, and look beyond today in service offerings to Realtors and consumers. After all, 14.3 million uniques is not a number easily dismissed.

August 15, 2010

The Likelihood That an Agent Will Sell a Listing? Less Than 50%

A couple of weeks ago, Redfin engineers got together for a hackathon to prototype features we’d like to see on the site. One team, featuring Jane Nemenman, Jamie DeMichele, Dane Brandon and Llewellyn Botelho, built a Redfin.com widget for each listing that showed the listing agent’s track record: how many listings he had on the market, what his average discount to list price was, how long it had been since he closed a deal.

It was a great idea. But it didn’t all come from the engineers. The original insight started with our San Francisco agents, who like to size up a seller’s agent before deciding how to represent a buyer in a negotiation, on the theory that negotiating strategy is often influenced as much by the listing agent’s state of mind as by her client’s. Some agents are chronic over-pricers, expecting to give part of that away at the negotiation table. Others stand firm. And still others just need to get a deal done.

Jane, Jamie, Dane and Llewellyn wanted to give everyone this information, so that anyone using Redfin’s site could know what she was up against going into a negotiation. Then we dug into the rules that govern how we use listing data, and decided that using the broker’s database of listings to embarrass brokers publicly wasn’t a fair use of the data.

We’ll still build this into the tools our agents use, so we can help all of our customers know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em. We’ll also share with everyone the listing stats for our own agents. In the meantime, what I haven’t been able to stop thinking about was how the engineering team reacted as Jane demonstrated the widget, showing the dismal stats for one seller’s agent after another.

Folks were flabbergasted. At first, people thought it was just one agent having a tough year. But after a few minutes of  clicking from one listing agent to the next, everyone began to recognize the truth: that in 2009 it was very hard for any agent to sell a home.

So when we got back to our day jobs, Jamie DeMichele — the man who also created bracket-tracking software for March Madness — looked up the numbers for all the listings put on the market in 2009, to see how many had sold by August 11, 2010. The answer? About half. He emailed me the table below, which summarizes the success rate for broker-listed properties for sale in seven major markets:

County Name	Listings Activated in 2009	# 2009 Listings Sold	% 2009 Listings Sold	# Still Active	% Still Active
Cook County, IL	134,710	44,789	33.3%	7,893	5.9%
Fulton County, GA	27,089	9,941	35.8%	1,329	4.8%
King County, WA	51,252	21,500	42.0%	1,729	3.4%
Los Angeles County, CA	130,326	68,564	52.6%	3,079	2.4%
San Francisco County, CA	9,289	5,259	56.6%	112	1.2%
Maricopa County, AZ	137,647	81,204	59.0%	5,008	3.6%
Suffolk County, MA	15,763	5,682	36.1%	393	2.5%
7-County Average	506,796	236,939	46.8%	19,545	3.9%

We shared the data over the weekend with the Wall Street Journal, which just published its own analysis. As we’ve argued in the past, the basic problem is a stand-off between buyers who expect the world, and sellers who have already taken more losses than they can bear. When no one will compromise, and the banks have been slow to foreclose on overdue mortgages, listings don’t sell.

What does this mean for you if you’re trying to sell a house? Primarily: don’t hire the agent promising the highest price, no matter how flattering that may sound. Hire the agent with the best track record. If 2010 is anything like 2009, odds are that the property won’t sell at all, or at least  not  at the originally promised price.

(Picture of Jamie used with his permission, at his insistence that I use one where he’s wearing cowboy boots)

Posted by Glenn Kelman on August 15, 2010 10:20 PM | del.icio.us | Digg

Posted on Sunday, August 15th, 2010 at 10:20 pm by Glenn Kelman under Redfin in the News, The Science of Real Estate, Uncategorized.

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Google Reveals Top Real Estate Sites

June 1, 2010 by Alice Allan 

Google has just released a list of the 1,000 most visited websites on the Internet, and the highest-ranked website in the real estate category is China’s soufun.com.

Overall, soufun.com came in at number 141 on the list, which is based on unique visitor numbers as measured by Google Ad Planner. soufun.com had 18,000,000 unique visitors, a reach of 1.2 percent, and 250,000,000 page views for the month of April 2010.

Google has classified a number of other websites in the “real estate” and “rentals and referrals” categories, including China’s koubei.com, which came in at 398th place, and the Ukraine’s yandex.ua in 698th place. However, the two websites focused specifically on real estate to make the list are both from the US.

realtor.com came in at 786th place, with 5,100,000 unique visitors, 0.3 percent reach, and 340,000,000 page views. In 934th place was zillow.com with 4,200,000 unique visitors, 0.3 percent reach, and 310,000,000 page views.

The number one website on the list was facebook.com with 540,000,000 unique visitors and a reach of 35.2 percent. Google says the list excludes adult sites, ad networks, domains that don’t have publicly visible content or don’t load properly, and certain Google sites.

ShareThis

1. Google Reveals Real Estate “Vision”

   Since Google first began adding real estate listings to Google Maps in mid-2009, the world of online real estate has been monitoring the company's every move. Each upgrade brought more speculation on how Google was planning to change things for property portals, real estate agents, and property hunters. Now, we have a clearer idea of where Google is headed....

2. Real Estate Added to Google Maps – What it Means for Australian Property Portals

   In Australia and the US, Google has added properties for sale to its mapping site – maps.google.com. Users of Google Maps are now able to see a selection of homes for sale and rent plotted on the maps. These homes for sale seem to be sourced from Google Base – Google’s classifieds engine. It is free for anyone to upload a listing and this can be done through an online interface or through an XML data feed. The inclusion of property listings from Google Base onto Google Maps has some parts of the Australia real estate world abuzz with thoughts of the end of market leaders’ realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. However, while this launch is new and innovative in the Australian market, a lot has to fall in place before realestate.com.au and domain.com.au are truly affected by the “entry” of Google into the Australian real estate advertising scene....

3. Google Real Estate in Europe – What is All the Fuss About? Lessons from Australia

   The news yesterday that Google was “entering” the UK/European market sent the share prices of Rightmove and Seloger into a tailspin. The Seloger share price closed down 5.7% at €23.50 while the Rightmove share price was hammered a whopping 10.3% to 499.9p. So let’s look at what happened. An article by the Financial Times (Dec 2 titled “Google set to enter UK property market”) seems to have set the cat amongst the pigeons. The article stated that Google is in talks with British estate agents and that “experts” say that an entry by them to the market could pose a serious threat to existing property websites. The article didn’t talk about what Google was going to do and Google didn’t comment. So there is really not much to go on. So the only guide we really have as to what Google may do in the UK and Europe is what they have done in Australia. Did Google really have that much impact on the Australian market?...

4. The Challenges for Google Real Estate

   The launch of Google Real Estate search on Google Maps in Australia, the US and New Zealand has shaken the property portal world. It is expected that Google Real Estate will make an appearance in the UK and German markets shortly. Last week we published our initial thoughts on what the launch of Google Real Estate will mean for the existing portal sites in Australia. These thoughts are equally applicable for portal sites around the world. Having followed the debate about Google Real Estate and its potential impact on portal sites, we thought it would be good to outline what we believe has to fall into place for Google to truly impact the property portal market leaders around the world....

5. Google Rumoured to be Hiring Online Real Estate Sales People

   Rumours emanating out of Sydney today indicate that Google is aggressively looking to hire a field sales team to target the Sydney real estate market. Sources said that Google had approached a number of sales people from domain.com.au in an effort to hire them as field sales people for the Google real estate initiative. Sources also believed that Google may be initially targeting the Inner West region of Sydney. If these rumours are true, is Google entering the traditional online classifieds space with a traditional online classifieds model?...

Filed Under: Featured, Other News
Tagged: google, realtor.com, soufun.com, zillow.com

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