Real Estate Networking, Online

Real Estate Agents and consumers have more and more options when it comes to connecting via the Internet. In the good old days agents would put their listings on their own websites or maybe their companies websites in hopes that consumers would look them up and make a connection with them. Then these listings began to find their way to sites like Realtor.com. Now the listings are being fed to local MLS sites like SBAOR.com and agents can now feed most if not all of the local Multiple listings to their own site through a system called IDX. What next? The last couple of years has seen a huge increase in online networking, Facebook and MySpace are probably a couple of familiar names. The real estate business is also facing the reality of consumers who want to get connected via a real estate networking site before they actually see homes or apply for loans. They have many questions and curiosities that cause them to seek answers. Some of the places consumers are getting answers are sites like Zillow, Trulia, Localism. 2008 will be interesting to see how Real Estate Agents market themselves on these sites as well as how the consumer use these avenues to get familiar with todays real estate market.