Customizing the search process orgranizes the "chaos" and keeps consumers returning
The real estate industry has clearly lagged other industries in customization possibilities for “real estate search and display.” Think about it.
On the web you can customize everything – my song playlist, my favorite videos, my bookmarks, my news, my friends, etc. etc. etc.
Customization exists in order to recognize individualism and make things personalized and relevant to each person.
But to date, only the search process itself has been customizable, and even then, only on select websites.
With that in mind, think about the current trends to give the consumer more and more data.
It’s not just the house – it’s also the neighborhood, the schools, the parks, the commute to work, the places of worship, and let’s not forget the one essential, where to get a decent cup of coffee to get you started to get to all those places.
In the absence of customization, there is simply too much information out there for a person to handle. Customization is a necessity.
“Help me narrow down all this stuff. Save what I need. Don’t make me start my search all over again.”
The programmers at SpatialMatch decided to tackle this challenge by adding a “Favorites” feature to its powerful lifestyle and IDX search engine tool (that embeds directly into an agent’s website).
Take a look at the screen shot below: Jane is looking for a home near La Jolla CA. It’s hard for her to decide which one she likes the best. She picks three potential listings.
To help her narrow her search, she also researches four lifestyle needs that are important to her – an elementary school, a gym, a hair salon and of course, a coffee joint.
Using SpatialMatch, she finds four locations that fit the bill – Allesandros Salon, a 24-Hour Fitness facility, La Jolla Elementary School and Café Mojoe.
With the new “Favorites” feature – Jane can save all of these locations on the user-friendly map. When she pulls them back up, they appear with brightly pulsating sonar circles.
Equally important, if Jane were comparing neighborhoods and looking for the same amenities “in any area,” she can save the entire search and apply it to any location.
Seems easy? It is. What’s important is the context regarding the volume of information in the background. The lifestyle database that Jane was easily foraging through contains a massive amount of data – 60 million homes, 12+ million business, 130,000 schools and countless other databases.
“It’s become nearly impossible for consumers to digest so much information in the short time they are on a Realtor’s website, and that’s why we added a customization feature for my.saved.searches,” said John Perkins, CEO of Home Junction Inc, which developed the platform. “There are an tremendous amount of factors that are critical in the selection of the right property. We wanted to give brokers and agents a way to show buyers how to sift through all this information…and then save it….and then edit it or reapply it, anywhere, anytime.
They can return to continually revise their results or email it out to friends and family for feedback.”
The functionality also has the major benefit of capturing that consumer and their activity as a lead.
How? Well, when users come to the site and create a custom “Favorites List” or a custom “Saved Search”, they must register first.
CaChing! There’s a solid, highly qualified lead waiting for you. Soon, the detailed criterion attached to the customization will be a part of the information passed to the agent with the lead.
“There’s no other real estate customization tool like this on the web today,” Perkins added. “And when an agent has this technology on their site, it puts them years ahead of the rest of the industry in a variety of ways.”
Sure, your website might have a bunch of information. But when I can tailor that information to my particular needs, then you got me.
