While the realestate market is in a state of crisis offline, the online realestate market is showing steady growth in revenue and traffic.  Just as we have predicted in the Geo domain niche, the realestate industry is finally starting to show statistics of success by moving advertising dollars online.  Advertising dollars are going to slam the internet during the recession as realestate brokers find it cheaper to move their complete inventory and sales staff online.  They started to do this a couple of years back, but they did not truly embrace it.  This time, they will have no choice but to embrace it because it is becoming to expensive to do things the traditional ways with sales slowing down.  

And after the dust has settled, they will say, “How did we ever do things without the internet and technology”.  The realestate industry will never be the same after this recession.  A large portion of the industry will remain online and mobile as the recession proves the internet is the only constant in business revenue in times of a recession.  The traditional ways of doing business will be as useful as a record player.  This recession is going to make tech companys innovate new realestate technology at warp speeds.  

The recession and housing bubble bursting is going to force realestate brokers and agents to realize the importance of targeted geo domains for their business.  I predict the lightbulb will turn on as consumers embrace the services and technology to get their realestate transactions completed online.  Alot will be learned by these professionals in the coming year.  In the next couple of weeks, I will be discussing the realesate market and targeted geo domains.  Collectively, I feel we can complete a whole chapter on this subject.  There is alot of interest from geo domainers on this subject.  I was waiting for news articles and stats to be published before discussing it, so we had a foundation to build upon.  The proof is always in the pudding. 

I may be wrong with my vision I made above.  Time is the only element that will confirm the future of the realestate industry online.   What are your thoughts?        

 (via NYTimes)

“In September, we thought it was maybe the beginning of a very long downturn,” said Glenn Kelman, Redfin’s chief executive. “But for whatever reason, the last few months have been very strong for us.”

Executives of Trulia, Zillow and Terabitz said they, too, were encouraged by recent results. Online real estate companies, they added, could be today’s version of the online travel agencies that flourished after the Sept. 11 attacks: a cheap alternative for suppliers looking to market a product that is suddenly in low demand.

In this case, brokers and agents have seen their marketing budgets shrink in lock step with their commissions as they struggle to sell homes.

“There’s no doubt that a lot of brokers are feeling some pain right now,” said Pete Flint, chief executive of Trulia, a real estate search service based in San Francisco. “They’re spending less on advertising than they were, but they’re spending a significantly larger portion online, because it’s cheaper, and it’s where the audience is.”

Mr. Flint would not disclose sales figures, but he said traffic was growing more than 10 percent monthly, “and revenues are growing much faster than that.”