Real Estate Agent Web sites are dead. Google and Trulia will be where you go to find a house. You may not even need an agent of your own. You will know the price, you will know how much you should pay, and you will need an agent to prep the paperwork. But before this can happen (and it really should), Google and Trulia need to step up. They need to lay the ground work for a nation wide Multiple Listing Service (MLS).

An MLS is:

actually a database – an extremely convenient way to know what is available for sale at a given moment. That is why real estate agents developed the MLS. Quick knowledge of home inventory made agents more productive.

Google and Trulia already want to index these databases full of data. Google has a section called GoogleBase. Real estate agents are fighting to get their listings into GoogleBase. Some companies exist soley to push properties into GoogleBase. So why not start the nation wide MLS with Google. Google would need the following action to take place:

1) Google builds an extensive backend system for Agents and Brokers. This backend allows for property information and image uploads. Agents and Brokers start adding properties to the DB and can also manage the DB via their user account (to remove or edit listings).

2) Google purchases one major existing MLS provider – somewhere in Los Angeles or San Francisco. Then they integrate the existing data into their GoogleBase product. Basically showing the rest of the Real Estate world what is possible. Once the properties have been transfered and are searchable on Google, no one will ever want to post their properties to some useless local MLS service.

3) The general public starts looking to Google for property searches. Your home search does not start with “Los Angeles Real Estate”, but rather with “3 bedroom 2 bathroom 90066 (Zip Code)”. All the properties that fit your search query are displayed on a Google Map. You choose which houses you want to visit and the order of the visit and Google gives you turn-by-turn directions to those properties. Complete with details and agent info.

So where does this future leave a company like Agent Image or Advanced Access? Agents will still need a web presence, but they will not need a fully functional web site with properties and communities. Instead, the Agent will need to rebrand themselves as a resource of real estate and the community. There will still be people who want to know exactly what you have to offer. The best way to display that is through blogs and video content.

Companies like Agent Image should concentrate on basic web presence: name, photo, phone number. For the bold agent who “get it”, they can offer branded blogs and custom video presentations. We won’t build web sites, rather we will build a portal that will pull the video, blog, and RSS resources that will show just how much of an expert you are. We will need to be the media experts for your company/business. We can perform local market media buys. Our services will be media, not web sites.

…These are just my initial thoughts…to be continued (and edited)

UPDATE: 2008-01-28

Found this company called http://www.dothomes.com/

They are in the UK and trying to build a national DB – I hope it works.