Roost: A High-Flying Real Estate Search Engine
January 23rd, 2008
In the tempest of the current housing slowdown, the last thing you’d expect to hear is the launch of a new real estate technology startup.
Nevertheless, today marks the unveiling of Roost.com, a venture capital-backed consumer real estate search site, whose model will rely on advanced and thorough multiple listing searches, as well as partnerships with local Realtors, agents and MLS boards.
I was privy to a little advance notice of this service because my brokerage, Advanced Real Estate Services (and a select other few here in Portland) is participating in Roost’s public beta. So, if you choose Portland in the Roost interface and drill down for detailed property information, you will likely be directed to the areshome.com site to view the property details–and hopefully, engage an agent to assist in your homebuying experience.
Unlike Trulia and Zillow, Roost’s listings come from the local multiple listing service, meaning that users are seeing the actual inventory in each local MLS system. Besides Portland, Roost opened searches for Atlanta, Baltimore, Boise, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis, Orange County, Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Diego, and Washington, D.C.
Roost would appear to appeal to the independent agency market, like us. Many large brokers have their own search tools, but smaller agencies and individual agents cannot afford to build their own. Roost’s revenue stream will come from brokers buying click-throughs from Roost based on geography, akin to Google’s AdWords.
Roost’s launch was well-covered and analyzed this morning by real estate industry bloggers Joel Burslem, Dustin Luther, Greg Swann, plus TechCrunch.
I’ve provided a couple screen captures below, but you should try it out yourself at www.roost.com. The search parameters (image above left) are easy to modify, using the sliders we’ve come to see on sites like Trulia and others.
The search results are displayed rather quickly.
Hovering over a thumbnail of the attached photos pulls up a larger image. Very slick.
Technorati Tags: roost.com, startup, real estate, 2.0, mashup, IDX, Realtor, Trulia, Zillow, listings, areshome.com
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Entry Filed under: National News
13 Comments Add your own
1. Is Roost.com roosting on &hellip | January 23rd, 2008 at 2:06 pm
[...] Elsewhere: TechCrunch, Joel, Dustin, Jay, C|Net, Ron Ares. [...]
2. Jeff Bernheisel | January 23rd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Hey Ron,
Prior to reading your post I had seen this on the FoREM site and poked around on it a little bit. I like it… But, after trying probably 5 or 6 times it kept taking me to the Sadle team’s page from JLS. So, how does the system work? Does it rotate through based on $$ each agent pays for exposure, or is it just luck of the draw?
Thanks,
Jeff
3. Ron | January 23rd, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Sadle and Advanced are a couple of the Portland offices partnering with Roost during their beta, so you’ll get one of a handful of us each time you access Roost’s page.
Just like Google’s AdWords, Roost’s post-beta model will be to offer CPC (cost-per-click) pricing by zip or city to agents. So, the more popular the search (Lake Oswego, for example), the higher the price per click.
Agents will only pay if the consumer clicks out from Roost’s search results to the detailed pages on the agent’s site.
4. Jon McDermott | January 23rd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I know you probably aren’t in charge of quality control for Roost, but…
- It looks like it forces me to city-based searches? i.e. I want to search western Washington County, not Beaverton, Hillsboro, Forest Grove, Banks…
- When I did a FSBO search for Hillsboro, OR, one of the FSBO results was in New Mexico, one in Oregon, another in Florida.
Having said this, I’m intrigued by the place in New Mexico, does it rain all the time there too?
Jon
5. Ron | January 23rd, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Jon,
The FSBO data comes from a ForSaleByOwner.com feed, but either the data is poorly managed or the feed isn’t mapping correctly to the standard broker feed format (IDX).
City and zipcode search is all Roost offers for know. Perhaps the Map View tab can help with your zip search. In any event, I’ll pass your comment along.
6. Real Estate/Buisness News&hellip | January 23rd, 2008 at 4:25 pm
[...] Original post by Ron Ares [...]
7. Albuquerque realtor | January 23rd, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Oh my goodness, that is seriously one of the cutest logos I have ever seen! LOL!
8. UtahLuxury.com | January 24th, 2008 at 10:01 am
I think it is a decent site. It may need some more refining to actually pull good data from the fsbo guys. There is also word on the streets that the NAR is going to standardize the way the every MLS functions so that streaming that info accross all networks will be easier… and wont that be nice!
http://www.UtahLuxury.com
9. lil7 | January 25th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Good luck with timing the market.
10. James | January 25th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Why are properties sitll advertised on the RMLS with the old 2006 property tax amounts? Even new listings have old amounts, and the 2007 taxes are higher than 2006. Prospective buyers have a right to know.
11. David Winans | January 31st, 2008 at 10:53 am
We are partnering with Roost.com in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The company and staff are easy to work with. The consumer likes the simplicity of how the site is to surf. We think they are a standout in the national companies that aggregate.
David Winans GMAC Real Estate
http://www.texasmls.com/
12. theAve | February 13th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Hmmm…
This might be just what I am looking for. I’ll need to check it out.
13. Portland Oregon Real Esta&hellip | May 27th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
[...] service) data with Google maps and a first-rate search interface, Estately.com joins the ranks of Roost and a very small handful of local brokers with truly Web 2.0 house-shopping experiences using [...]
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