DISQUS

Michelle DeRepentigny · 1 year ago

Aa a former C21 managing broker, who is now a pretty happy independent broker, I have to say I would seriously consider paying for a Zillow franchise or an Active Rain franchise - at least they get the web 2.0 world!

magnus · 1 year ago

Interesting post indeed.
The IKEA BoKlok concept is a great one and has for sure a market. However, to say it is 'trendy' is to push it a bit... at least for Sweden.

Btw, I'm all in for the Apple Real Estate, Mr Jobs already 'has' my living room... ;-)

Adam · 1 year ago

It'd be really interesting to see universities begin to offer real-estate packages. Imagine a scenario in which your son/daughter goes off to university, and you have the immediate option of instead of having your child live in a dorm to purchase an apartment/condo within walking distance of campus. Throw in some football and basketball tickets and a computer-lab and you might have a winning combo.

Another possibility might be to partner with developers to build properties that are centered around the game-day experience for alumni. Alumni moving back to their university cities, and they want to be immersed in the college culture.

David G · 1 year ago

Very interesting post; thanks for Joel;

The "related markets" piece is key to successfully expanding popular brands. New focus should compliment, strengthen and leverage existing products. Zillow Mortgage Marketplace is a classic recent example of this type of expansion.

RJ C · 1 year ago

What about a "Costco " real estate brand. They could offer incentive packages based around products they sell. On a different note, just as Wal-Mart has done in many urban areas (for different reasons, I understand) is turn people off, at least partially to their brand, which usually paves the way for boutique service providers willing to go above and beyond what's inside the big box.

daniel martin · 1 year ago

Google Real Estate - but they promised to play nice... for now (sinister laughter in background)

Hawaii_Real_Estate · 1 year ago

Joel, it's interesting that you mention this. Though we are just a small time Hawaii real estate company running a referral based website. We were bombarded with inquiries from brokers to take our brand to the streets.

Well, the money was finally right and we were sold by a persuasive young broker, and now HawaiiLife.com is a full service real estate brokerage.

The brand that we developed on the Internet crossed over to the real world very well and in our 1st month we secured $50 million in listing inventory. This might not seem like much, but considering this is for the island of Kauai only, we have grabbed a good share of the market. We are in talks with a broker from the Big Island next week (fingers crossed) and hope to have offices on the 4 major islands by years end.

You'll be seeing us in Cali soon ;-)

Arlington_real_estate_guy · 1 year ago

Very interesting Hawai RE. I can totally see how a dominant local real estate website can become a local brokerage. I've debated it myself but do not want to go through the admin hassle of becoming a brokerage. If you rank at G's top spots for the "city st real estate" search results you could send out a postcard to the region regularly stating this is best way to have your home get maximum exposure to kick off advertising the new brokerage...the message will resonate more and more as the years go by and more gen x,y homeowners agree and ask you to list their homes....

I could see a very dominant local interior design co. branching off into RE locally as well.

In fact a dominant individual with 2 or 3 websites that ranked tops for their searches could put together separate brokerages for each website that was only marketed to that niche. For example I rank #1 & 2 for Clarendon real estate -- an urban village within Arlington, VA. I could send out marketing to only the surrounding 2 miles for a clarendon real estate brokerage and push that sellers could get the most exposure for their listings by listing with the brokerage that all buyers find when looking for RE in the area....

j

MissSuperFiscal · 1 year ago

I'm thinking more along the lines of a spacey brokerage. Something star treky. You know, the kind of brokerage that doesn't charge you thousands of dollars per month, or take a hefty percentage of your sales for some snazzy business cards. Maybe even a brokerage that worked for its agents, provided marketing and technology assistance, or had some hiring standards so general consumers could have an idea of what they were hiring. Just a thought.

Pasadena CA Real Estate · 1 year ago

The company of the future will be found at both ends of the market, The huge corporations will continue to grow and acquire other companies. On the other hand the smaller independent with the service niche will continue to prosper. The reason is the internet, It will be the great equalizer.

Companies will not have to spend thousands of dollars on full page newspaper ads. They will only have to know how to market themselves on search engines to obtain top placement. The money will follow the consumer.

Aciator · 1 year ago

Check out www.condoVue.com for Apple like branding and user experience :)

Ann_Arbor_Real_Estate · 1 year ago

There are huge commission dollars out there that corporations would love to figure out how to extract from the individual entrepreneurial agents. The fact that the traditional commission model has hung on for so long says a lot about it. I like to think it will last.

How about Bank of America or Chase real estate. You could call customer service to get a listing appointment between 9 and 5.

derherold · 1 year ago

In my opinion it is decisive to shift the competence of a business to "real estate".
What does AcitveRain or Zillow or Apple "mean" ?

We uber-estimate technology and web2.0. Customers want to USE technology to find their home ..they don´t think that - for example - Apple owns any competence on real estate. IKEA will be bound to a special segment ... wooden houses. ;-)

Although the US are the living proof that everybody is able to sell real estate ;-) and therefore any skilled "retailer" is able to build a real estate brand, cross branding could be successful, if is used by a company with "similar" oder "connected" services... insurance, investment and commercial banks, S&L: Wells Frago, CapitalOne, The Hartford. Maybe Home Depot or a big builder.

As Sotheby and Christie showed, the concept of lifestyle could be transferred to special real estate markets. A gallery, an architect, a fashion brand is a possible nationwide approach: *Kenzo Real Estate" for high-class properties, *graft properties* for celebrities (and their special demands of re-construction)

Maybe you take a former brand of financial services: FirstBoston, Dean Witter.
*Drexel Burnham Lambert Real Estate* should be glamorous. :-))

I come from germany and most of the successful "bigger" real estate companies are connected with retail banks. Once upon a time ... every S&L and the most insurance companies had a "real estate connection" to support the cross selling of financial products.

mizzle · 1 year ago

wellll. THAT's and idea for Active Rain! LOL.

Bloodhound should be a real estate compa ... oh, they already are. They are already a crossover - just the other way.

homebuyerfirst · 1 year ago

I love social bookmarking and stuff. I find it great as a way to promote things. I enjoy myspace and I believe that when I get time facebook will be just as fun. Thank you so much for your time in this post to us, it was so helpful and refreshing.

http://first-time-home-buyer-s.com

chrishanz · 1 year ago

Great find on the IKEA concept!

I would love to see more discussion on the branding of major franchises. There is such little differentiation (in my opinion) between them in terms of who they aim to appeal to that its almost remarkable they are able to survive as such. The better homes and gardens franchise is interesting to me for that reason because it comes with a pre-attached target market. If that translates into success it remains to be seen.

Otherwise, as another user mentioned, i can see American banks getting involved in real estate...thats certainly the most logical extension of their business since they already finance the development or purchase of property and have existing retail locations and brand value.

Städ · 1 year ago

IKEA concept could work

Regards

James Bridges · 1 year ago

I love the aspect of speaking about branding. Personally agents put way too much thought into branding at the franchise level. Statiscally so few people choose their real estate agent based of the brand I am not quite suire why people would pay such big money for the name.
Focusing on area specific information and providing real value will get you alot more business then a name :)

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Real Estate Logos · 1 year ago

When i comes to choosing a logo for a company what I suggest is you look for a simple yet an effective design which calls for action. Your logo is the first impression you provide of you to all your potential buyers. Therefore it has to stand out from the rest of the real estate agent logos telling your customer why they need to pick you.