Zillow Buys NYC-based StreetEasy

The news made the homepage of the New York Times and just about every real estate publication in the country. Even our own Jonathan Miller was interviewed by real estate blog The Real Deal about this shockwave. It seems StreetEasy is going BIG by becoming part of Zillow's growing consortium and Zillow is finally going to have a strong entry point into the New York market (which has been a struggle for the real estate site). As Jonathan Miller explained:

“Basically one of the things about national aggregators and MLS systems is they’ve been particularly weak in presenting data for what I call vertical housing market. I see this as a template, starting with the biggest vertical market in the country, and being able to apply this to other donwntowns with a heavy concentration of condos, co-ops and rentals.”

Go here to read the full Real Deal article.

How BuyerMLS Helps Agents In A Softening Seller's Market

The American housing market has spent the past few months in the throes of a low inventory scenario with multiple offers and bidding wars being the standard way of doing business. That may start to die down some now that June saw a 'respectable' increase in listings. While it doesn't look like we'll enter a true buyer's market any time soon—for example: an agent I heard from this week said that last month they had two different homes sell with five and seven multiple offers, respectively—we just might see a softening in the advantages sellers have had this year. So how does a service like BuyerMLS fit into this new situation? It means it makes it even easier for real estate agents to do their jobs. Whereas in a strong seller's market BuyerMLS gives agents a greater chance of snagging a new listing because they can prove to the sellers that they have access to the buyers, a market with more inventory means BuyerMLS can make the matches happen faster. There might be less competition between buyers for the same house, but agents won't have to do as much work to woo them in. Since BuyerMLS provides a database of buyers ready to make offers the listing agents go there first. They scroll through the BuyerList before they invest in printing glossy brochures or expensive advertising. They can check and see if any buyers are a good fit for their listings in a matter of minutes—less time than it takes most of them to check their email each day. The softening seller's market is good news for those worried about possible price bubbles or market stagnancy but it is great news for agents in the BuyerMLS system since their jobs are about to get much easier.

BuyerMLS Has Arrived (at Times Square)

There have been so many milestones lately for this little start-up that could. First, we made it the final rounds of the prestigious Realogy Innovation Summit competition and now we're proud to share that a Times Square news crawl has BuyerMLS showing up on its screens. We've been piloting our product for the past two years, making sure that it worked well and adding upgrades like a BuyerList, heat maps, and a patent-pending matching system so now it's time to spread the word. Times Square, you're a dream come true.