NYC REALTY CHECK
Property Shark
1-28-10
Realty Check updates market developments, then correlates, examines and evaluates the business models of web based NYC real estate listing services in three of its primary aspects: Target market, functionality and monetization:
Current volatility in the residential and commercial real estate market has placed a greater premium on contemporaneous data supplied by the on-line real estate value estimators such as Property Shark.com, Zillow.com, Trulia.com, forsalebyowner.com, olr.com and streeteasy.com.
Which site is most in synch with the audience of buyers, sellers, brokers and real estate professionals? What are the tools each uses to communicate with that market? Which aspects of the current real estate market data is each most suited to address, analyze and disseminate?
A useful measure of real estate market trends is the annualized comparative quarter metric. Peak seasons are Fall and Spring, with valleys occurring in August and December. Comparing peak-to-peak and valley-to-valley can offer a more textured comprehension of those trends.
Manhattan residential listing inventory in the 4th quarter of 2009 declined by 24.6%, slipping to 6,851 properties on the market from 9,081 listings
in the 4th quarter of 2008.
Average sales prices declined by 12.7%, falling from $1,485,102 in 4th quarter ’08 to $$1,296,156 in 4th quarter ’09.
In seeking to differentiate itself from its competitors, Propertyshark.com tracks these trends in the following manner:
1. Target market
Property Shark.com provides a resource for buyers, sellers, brokers, and researchers surveying the market for currently available residential and commercial properties.
The audience of active buyers creates an additional target market for Property Shark of brokers seeking to advertise their (usually exclusive) listings.
If the property is a FSBO (for sale by owner) the buyer may contact the owner directly; if the property is listed with a broker, the buyer or broker may call the listing broker to arrange an appointment; if the property is a foreclosure, there is a tabbed section to research the property; and an advertiser link to place a bid.
Potential buyers use Property Shark to locate listings and compare property values in preparation for a more informed bid; brokers conduct property searches to arrange viewing appointments on behalf of their customers; builders, developers and attorneys research property lineage and current ownership to background their calculations, certiori and court cases.
2. Functionality
The Property Shark site features page - top “For Sale
Also tab – accessible are property reports (including sales history, school district and crime areas), comps, foreclosures, and lis pendens.
Harvesting data and listings is the Property Shark equivalent of Amazon’s shopping cart, with users saving “favorites searches” for future access.
The mapping, population, transportation, tax lot and building outline overlay functions create a visual and density context for more informed use of the retrieved data.
3. Monetization
It is necessary to register and establish an account in order to use Property Shark. Accounts are free, but there is a paywall beyond a minimum usage of 4 detailed property reports, after which a paid subscription is required. Free – riders may, however, conduct comp searches, view property ownership data and employ mapping functions.
These latter functions may thus be viewed as “inducement categories,” which invite the web visitor in, permit him to view the banquet, but do not provide him with a plate and fork to partake of the bounteous spread – unless he returns to the door and tips the doorman.
The average buyer visits more than 4 apartments in person and many more on line, so the “four for free” appetizer merely whets the appetite for the main course of many more fee-based available listings.
Property Shark thus recognizes that its audience seeks broad –based as well as in-depth information about the real estate market.
Some information is virtually useless unless a subscription is purchased. Foreclosure properties, for example, are listed with some data displayed, some data redacted and no addresses indicated. It is necessary to subscribe to obtain the address of a property in foreclosure, surely a prerequisite to placing a bid.
Buyers may avoid the (four plus) fee – based searches by going directly to web sites of individual brokerage firms. A serious buyer will undoubtedly explore that avenue as well.
Sellers and brokers, however, are more likely to become subscribers if they have no web site of their own or choose to supplement their own web listings with ad postings on Property Shark.
In order to create a double income stream, Property Shark also displays border ads.
By giving a lot of information away, Property Shark creates an appetite for even more information. Once it becomes the go-to source of data and establishes a reliance on its accuracy and comprehensiveness, it can sell more subscriptions and attract more advertisers.
-Everett Sherman
B8699-025
Marketing & The Internet
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