Posts Tagged ‘trulia’

In a recent survey of U.S. homeowners, real estate site Trulia and foreclosure site RealtyTrac found that only one percent of homeowners with a mortgage would consider walking away their first choice if their home were underwater. A total of 69 percent would plan first to modify their loan; 59 percent would never walk away no matter how underwater the property.

The online survey, conducted by Harris Interactive May 10-12, also found a significant decrease in interest in the purchase of foreclosed properties, although renters are considering foreclosure purchase more than they did last year.  Compared to the 55 percent of U.S. adults that were at least somewhat likely to consider buying a foreclosure this time last year, only 45 percent are thinking about it now. In contrast, however, fewer consumers think that a foreclosure carries stigma. In May 2009 85 percent noted downsides to foreclosure purchase, while this year’s figure is only 78 percent. Concerns include hidden costs, risky process, and loss of home value.

“For every borrower who avoided foreclosure through HAMP last year, another 10 families lost their homes,” said Trulia CEO and co-founder Pete Flint, in the announcement. “It now seems clear that government programs will not reach the overwhelming majority of homeowners in trouble. Combined with decreased consumer interest around purchasing a foreclosure it may take even longer than anticipated to see true health return to the real estate market.”

The survey also pointed out consumer expectations of foreclosure discounts, with 95 percent expecting to pay less for a foreclosed home that for a similar property not in foreclosure. 18 percent of adults in the U.S. expect a discount of 25 percent for foreclosures, while 36 percent expect to save at least 50 percent.

Of current U.S. renters, 57 percent are likely or somewhat likely to purchase a distressed property, and the younger they are the more interested they are. In the 18-34 age group, 65 percent are giving foreclosures some thought, as are 63 percent of those 35-44, and 54 percent of 45-54 year old renters. Of those 55 year plus renters, only 31 percent would consider buying a foreclosed property.

Trulia.com just released its May 2010 Price Reduction Report, announcing that 22 percent of property listings current as of May 1, 2010, have had at least one price reduction, a 10 percent increase over April. With a total dollar reduction amount of $25 billion, the average price cut remains at 10 percent off the original asking price.

Cities most severely impacted were Tulsa, OK, Omaha Neb., and the Southern Calif. cities of San Diego and Long Beach. Price reductions for these, respectively, were 62 percent, 27 percent, 39 percent and 22 percent.
 
“With more than a year of the federal government’s involvement, we are now re-entering the free market system,” said Trulia co-founder and CEO Pete Flint, in the announcement. ” We won’t know the true severity of the tax credit expiration until the conclusion of the peak home buying season in the summer months. Only then will we have a better sense if the U.S. housing market can stand on its own two feet.”

Trulia Inc., the real estate site backed by Sequoia Capital, might seek an additional investor similar to Facebook’s arrangement with Digital Sky Technologies, according to Trulia CEO Pete Flint.  Bloomberg just reported a conversation in which Flint said that an outside investor might let employees and owners cash in their shares prior to an IPO.  This is the process that Digital Sky initiated for Facebook employees.

“We get inquiries frequently, if not weekly, from people who want to take us public or invest in our business,” Flint told Bloomberg.com, saying as well that Facebook’s revenue expectation is for twice the sales of last year. While revenue probably won’t reach $50 million, the increase in ad dollars will be due to the recent addition of rental listings, and a planned ad campaign to contractors and other affiliates of the rental and real estate industry.

No timetable was offered for the launch of the new advertising strategy, and Trulia declined to enlighten us further. Here’s the complete Bloomberg article.

ForRent.com, anchor U.S. apartment-listing Web site of For Rent Media Solutions, a division of Dominion Enterprises, has announced a collaboration with Trulia.com. The team-up puts ForRent.com listings on the Trulia.com real estate and rental service site.  

“With more than 6.5 million unique visitors to Trulia per month, it is obvious Trulia is a well-known name in the real estate world,” says Terry Slattery, president of For Rent Media Solutions, in the announcement.  “After establishing such a strong name with Realtors and home buyers, we are proud to be working with Trulia as they expand their reach to renters. Integrating ForRent.com listings into Trulia’s site will put our clients’ properties in front of a new audience, ultimately generating more exposure and creating the potential for them to receive more leads.”

Headquartered in Norfolk, Va., For Rent Media Solutions provides a free customizable apartment search from more than 50,000 apartment listings nationwide. In addition to ForRent.com, the company publishes 100 magazines covering more than 190 U.S. markets, including For Rent magazine,  After 55 Housing & Resource Guide, and the Spanish-language Apartamentos Para Rentar; its sites include SeniorOutlook.com, CorporateHousing.com, and ParaRentar.com. For Rent Media Solutions is a division of Norfolk, Vir.-based Dominion Enterprises, a marketing services company.

Trulia’s December home price reduction report shows that 22 percent of homes currently on the market in the U.S. as of December 1, 2009 have experienced at least one price cut, the lowest level since Trulia started tracking price reductions in April, 2009. The total amount slashed from home prices also dropped from $28.1 Billion in November to $24.7 Billion in December, a 12 percent decrease. Trulia’s listings dropped 9 percent this last month.

Report highlights:

    * Average national price reduction slightly increased to 11 percent
    * Minneapolis, MN leads the nation in price reductions with 40 percent
    * Luxury homes listed at $2 million or more dropped in price an average of 14 percent ; while only 2 percent of all listings, these homes make up 26 % of the $24.7 billion in price reductions.
    
The South has the lowest levels of price reductions, with 19 percent of current listings experiencing at least one price cut; the Northeast suffers the most, with a drop in price in one out of every four currently listed homes. 

“We saw some of the highest levels of reductions last month, as home owners raced to sell their homes in advance of the November 30 expiration of the tax credit,” said Pete Flint, in the Trulia Blog announcement. “We are now seeing fewer reductions at the low end of the market as those sellers are increasingly in sync with market prices. With the expansion of the tax credit to repeat home buyers and extension to April 30, we expect to see an increase in price reductions at the higher end of the market in the first quarter of 2010.”

For the first time since Trulia started tracking price reductions in April 2009, one major U.S. city has reached 40 percent of listings with price reductions – Minneapolis. This is the second straight month that Minneapolis has held the top spot for highest percentage of price reductions.

Home sellers and buyers will be able to search for real estate listings from six Northeast Ohio counties on Trulia.com as the result of a new partnership between the real estate Web site and the Northern Ohio Regional Multiple Listing Service. Cleveland.com, the online home of The Plain Dealer and Sun News, reported that NORMLS is already collaborating with CyberHomes.com and Realtor.com, and says this is only the start of online collaboration for the MLS.

Carl DeMusz, president and CEO of NORMLS, told Cleveland.com that the MLS service is exploring similar deals to list properties on Google and Yahoo real estate platforms. “I would say it’s the wave of the future,” he said.

Do take a gander at the original story on Cleveland.com, and then look towards the bottom of the right rail and click on the Post Free Classifieds button. This will take you to an excellent free classifieds site. Do open up some of the listings to see all the bells and whistles. The folks at Cleveland.com have done a great job here. It just might give you some ideas.

The following Hitwise list shows Web sites for the industry ‘Business and Finance – Real Estate’, ranked by visits for the week ending 08/08/2009.

1. Realtor.com
2. Yahoo! Real Estate
3. Zillow
4. ZipRealty
5. Rent.com
6. Trulia.com
7. ServiceMagic
8. Apartments.com
9. Homes.com
10. RE/MAX Real Estate
11. Homegain
12. US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
13. AOL Real Estate
14. Apartment Guide
15. MyNewPlace
16. Century 21 Real Estate
17. RealtyTrac
18. ForRent.com
19. Redfin
20. LoopNet
 

Maponics LLC, Vermont-based provider of neighborhood boundary data, announced its launch on real estate site Trulia today. In the announcement, Maponics anticipated a significant expansion and improvement in property search and map display for Trulia’s 5.5 million unique monthly visitors.

“Feedback and research has shown that offering the ability to search and compare properties by neighborhood is absolutely key to our customer base,” said Emmanuel Fare, VP of product & user experience at Trulia. “As we continue to grow, we felt it was important to expand the number of cities with detailed neighborhood information.  After extensively testing various sources, Maponics provided the best data and solutions to fit our needs. “ 

Maponics specializes in location-based data and information for businesses, including neighborhood, zip code and carrier-route boundaries.  Local search, real estate, mobile, social media and marketing clients include Dun & Bradstreet, Google, Dominion Enterprises, Pitney Bowes, Zvents, and CitySquares. 

Read even more about Trulia on AIM.

The Houston Association of Realtors, the second-largest U.S. multiple-listings service, is joining with Trulia to publish its 50,000 for-sale property listings from 23,000 members in the greater Houston area.

Trulia already has similar arrangements with other U.S. MLS’s as well as tech vendors such as Point2 which provide MLS listings to Trulia.

The new Houston area listings will contain full property descriptions as well as photos and contact information for the listing agent.

HAR claims its Web site receives more than one million unique visitors per month, ranking in the top 30 most frequently visited real estate sites in the U.S. (Hitwise figures for June 2009 show that “har.com” was the 29th most popular search term.

Trulia has some new stats to boast about. In an e-mail newsletter, Trulia said its growth in 2009 included:

 – More than 5.5 million monthly unique users
– A 90 percent increase in total property views since January 2009
– 83 percent growth in page views across home listings, stats and trends, and Trulia Voices
– An 85 percent increase in contributions to Trulia Voices contributions in the first half of 2009 compared to 2008

PC Magazine has named several online classifieds sites to its list of “Top 100 Web sites of 2009.” In real estate, Trulia and HotPads took away awards. Simply Hired won a place on the list for an employment site. And, no surprise here, Craigslist also jointed the top 100.

PC Magazine said that it specifically chose sites that were not the flavor of the month, favoring “classic Web sites that we all know and love and new and/or undiscovered sites that you may not have heard of yet.” The magazine cited Twitter as a site it would not be including.

Other sites included: Comsumerist.com, Amazon.com and Etsy.com.