Bringing Web 2.0 to the real estate industry

I've been working with a local real estate agent lately, trying to get his website optimized for search, and it occurred to me that most real estate sites are not utilizing so many of the dynamic user interfaces that would help their business.

Most of the sites out there use cookie-cutter templates that, although optimized for the real estate professional (as of a few years ago), they are not optimized for lead tracking or search optimization. It seems like real estate site builders could take some of the ideas used at social media sites, for example, and put a real estate spin on them to make their website more competitive and appealing to the user. This way, even if there isn't a home that the buyer is interested in right now on that broker's website, they can expect that buyer to come back because the site is user friendly and seen as a unique valuable resource. When we were shopping for your last home, we constantly visited this certain broker's website to check listings even though he wasn't our buying agent. Our reasoning was that his website was easier to use, and updated more frequently.

I've been playing around with some of the Google map coding options, for example, and it is truly staggering how many different things can be done with Google maps to integrate house hunting trips with MLS listings on a real estate website.

I would also think that having live online chat could assist in closing the deal with prospective buyers. How many real estate offices have a receptionist or phone person that may be able to take on this extra responsibility when they aren't as busy? Or, this could be something that is tied in to their VOIP system and the agents could be polled to see who is available for a live web chat with potential customers. The only thing that I have seen lately on some real estate sites that may be considered more advanced is the ability to sign up for an account and save your favorite homes. But this isn't all that useful when you're house hunting in a hot market with homes selling fast. Now, if we could take those saved homes and develop a system that automatically notifies a user when new homes come up, that might make things a little more user friendly. Sure, you could start out with someone entering in all of their "desired" features in a home (price, square footage, location, etc), but it seems to me that every time we have looked for a home we end up changing our mind as the hunt continues.

Think of how useful it would be for someone to develop a system that can recognize those subtle changes in your house hunting preferences, by your slight decision and interest changes, and start making new suggestions to help you along your house-buying way.