That’s right you heard it here first. Craigslist, Zillow, Trulia, PropSmart and the rest of them waste the buyer’s time. 

Even the buyer isn’t aware of this. The buyer is happy as a clam running from the latest mashup site to the next, spending hour after hour mesmerized by technology. It’s the same repetitive syndrome we see time and again through the evolution of the Internet, people get caught up with the fascination effect and lose sight of effectiveness and efficiency.

The entertainment factor neutralizes the cost in terms of time and ROI.

Here is a minor point: How many Realtors® or real estate agents do you know that remove their listings from these sites when the property sells or is withdrawn from the market? How many buyers are wasting their time looking at property that is no longer available for sale?

Here’s the biggie in my opinion: The technology has been in place for years now and used successfully that allows agents to input a buyers exact criteria into the system. The buyer then receives email alerts when new properties are entered into the MLS that match their criteria.

The buyer isn’t wasting time with viewing properties that don’t match their criteria and the email notifications work to the buyer’s advantage by often giving them a head start to be the first one in line with an offer.

The big hurdle with the buyer, besides the fascination and entertainment factors, is getting them to see that this is a real benefit we as agents are trying to provide to them and that we (at least the three of us on The Harper Team) are not trying to trap them into some inescapable premature contract. We offer a Cancellation Guarantee to all of our clients through the entire process.

I was reading through Wired and Red Herring today. There were articles in each on Yahoo!’s continued slide. Something in there got me to wondering – given that there are 4 million people with real estate licenses and that over 80% of people who search online eventually use a professional real estate agent to work through the transaction process – why isn’t someone really catering to the consumer’s need.

The battle cry is FREE the Consumer!, but the average consumer doesn’t want freedom from the agent. They prove that time and again when after wasting hours searching, they pick up the phone and call an agent.

This battle cry is a savvy piece of marketing. It reminds me of The Bubble is Bursting, The Bubble is Bursting.

Why doesn’t some savvy business person put a system together that supports the client / agent relationship. From what I see here in San Ramon, Dublin and Pleasanton, the local MLSes lag about two years behind the techno curve if not more. It will be 2008, I bet, before they have a really good Google mashup going. There are several million professionals that would love to see a product that helps them help their clients in a real way.