Trulia Unveils Snapshots
Trulia Unveils Snapshots
Today, Trulia unveils Trulia Snapshots, their new alternative browsing model for home buyers checking out listings. Much of the recent research shows that the most important thing to home buyers searching online is pictures and Trulia cuts right to the point and offers a way to surf pictures first and details later. Let’s take a quick tour by looking at (what else?) images of the new map search.
Get to the Point
Buyers can sort homes according to price and time on market- what is now perceived as their two most desired search terms. Trulia keeps it simple and allows a shiny alternative for buyers.
It’s a Match!
Navigation is easy and by hovering over any home image on the map or in the row of images ordered by price or time on market, the matching image will be revealed with a distinct green frame indicating the address and time on market.
Now Gimme Details
If a buyer thinks a picture is sexy, they can click in the row of homes below or in the floating images above and learn the basic details- address, size of home, etc. At the bottom of their potential match is an option to dive even deeper into the details.
Good Ol’ Fashioned Details
After a buyer has clicked for more information, they land back on the good ol’ fashioned Trulia page where they can learn the details of the listing they are interested in and find contact information for the listing agent.
Design
The new platform was designed by the San Francisco based studio, Stamen Design who specializes in mapping and data visualization. They are the creators behind Trulia’s Hindsight, and other major clients include MoveOn.org as well as BMW. We were excited to see that Stamen runs their site on a platform with formatting similar to agentgenius.com’s, so we liked them already and their design of Trulia Snapshots only solidifies our impression.
The Wrap
Trulia has created an incredibly clean, modern, and sexy map search that endeavours to delight internet home seekers’ visually while drawing them ever closer to the home seller. I am confident in predicting that Trulia will enjoy a skyrocketing rate of consumers’ time-on-site which ultimately benefits sellers begging for more creative exposure of their listings.
UPDATE: Mashable covers Trulia Snapshots- very cool.
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This article published on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 11:09 am | Contact the editor
Topics: Media Coverage
About this Columnist (Full Profile)
AGBeat Editor-in-Chief: Lani, named one of Real Estate’s 100 Most Influential, as well as 12 Most Influential Women in Real Estate, is a business writer hailing from the great state of Texas in the city of Austin. As a digital native, Lani is immersed not only in advanced technologies and new media, but is also a stats nerd often burried in piles of reports. Lani is a proven leader, thoughtful speaker, and vested partner at AGBeat.
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Finally! Someone is getting it. The consumer wants to search via map and see pictures. It’s like taking a drive through neighborhoods, and not spending the $4 per gallon!
Lani and Rudy sittin’ in a tree…
Great stuff, Lani.
Oh Jeff, I just work here, so if anyone is in a tree, it’s The Boss. And behave or I’ll threaten bad things.
Bob, that’s a *great* point- and it’s like Google Street View but way less creepy.
Lani;
The site is really sexy – I love the wavy photo things – they look like an octopus has grabbed the houses and is waving them in the air! Wait a minute – you thought Google Street View was creepy?
The new site looks clean and easy to navigate. As usual, Trulia is making it easier for consumers to find homes.
I think this a classic example of something that sounds great in theory and falls flat in the actual application. The idea that the average buyer would want to have a simple photo and map combo sounds great but in here is the reality: there are only 4 ways to search, most expensive, least expensive, oldest and newest on the market.
If you start with most expensive, in Atlanta GA, you have to look through hundreds and hundreds of houses before you get as low as $2,000,000. If you start with least expensive, you look through hundreds and hundreds of houses before you get as high as $39,900. The vast majority of the market is buried somewhere in the middle. We currently have 103,000 listings, so theoretically you might have to scroll through about 50,000 listings to find your desired price range!
You can’t search by zip code or price range or a whole multitude of parameters. Lots of flash and pizzaz but very little practical usefulness.
This reminds me of the new REALTOR.com which initially advertised “voyeuristic” images. Ouch!
In addition to Dan’s points, it seems to take a long time for all the thumbnails to load as you search further into the fields. The typical internet user wants the info quick and I,m not sure that Trulia is providing it quick enough. I didn’t see multiple photos of the homes either. Is there a way for interior photos to be displayed?
It’s shinny and it’s cool, but it’s function is lacking. I am 100% with Dan on this one. Beside Trulia doesn’t have enough of the listings to be highly effective way to search for homes.
Actually to follow up on the not showing enough listings to be useful I just ran a quick search. For zip code 60005 Trulia shows only 124 homes from $0-$500k while the MLS has 194 homes. 36% of the current listings do not show up on Trulia. That is a HUGE percentage of homes that a buyer would miss out on if they wasted their time on Trulia.
Worse the 124 homes isn’t accurate as it is including some condos even though I clicked single family homes only. It also includes the “listings” of RealTrac that you have to pay RealTrac to see the real information for. Think most people are smart enough to realize what those listings are about.
Remove the 3 Condo’s and 29 RealTrac listings (of which some are condos, townhomes, vacant lots, or industrial/commercial…I can tell by the street names) also some of the RealTrac ones are duplicates as the real listings from agents are also in there. With those removed we are actually down to only 92 real homes on the market, many without addresses. So you are seeing less then 50% of the listings and of those you don’t get full information. Again Trulia isn’t a useful way to search for homes and never will be.
Hi Lani! – Thanks for the great coverage. Consumers do love pictures
Hi All! – In this release of TruliaSnapshot, we included some pretty basic functionality. It’s a cool visualization tool and is not meant to replace our core search experience. Some have called it eye candy and real estate porn. It’s meant to be fun. The data on our site is becoming more comprehensive everyday.
We’ve had some fantastic responses and feedback from all over the net – more cool things to come from Trulia……
Rudy
Social Media Guru at Trulia
This is very cool, now if only the agent could brand it on their own website… hmmm
As this system grows, the listngs will come. Unlike MLS, I am glad to see some forward thinking in preparation for more content.
If nothing else, Trulia and Zillow are doing the R and D that MLS’s should be doing. Maybe they are just waiting to see what works and doesn’t and “provide a member upgrade” later