What you may also know is that their phones – Evo, Aria, Eris and Incredible – are taking this industry by storm.

They’re kicking Nokia’s nuts and threatening Apple’s attempt to corner the market.

How is that happening? I decided to do a little checking. Seems they’re doing a lot right. More on that below. It also made me think it would be instructive to pull this brand through a cosmic wormhole and ask the question…

What would HTC look and talk like if they were a real estate company?

I imagined the Website. For starters their positioning copy might evoke the dream of making a phone call. Or attempt to convey, without substantiation, how much of a leader they are in the smart phone industry. They might even take a cue from a well-known east coast real estate brokerage and claim to have the best phone Website in the world. Or, maybe, they’d ditch positioning copy altogether in favor of dozens of square boxes filled with different fonts representing every department within HTC.

If HTC were a brokerage, their Website would have a marquee advertising the 70 years of experience they have that takes users to a page filled with large blocks of text about who they were before most users were born.

Their Website navigation would include things like “Calling” and “Answering” that point to pages containing content for users looking for indispensable advice on what a phone is. How to dial a number. There may be a starburst graphic highlighting “Muting.”

There would be links to features like texting. But real estate HTC wouldn’t call it texting. They’d come up with something clever like “Touch and Go” or “HTC’s Digital Word Send.”

There would be a page where users could search for HTC phone reps in their area with canned content about about every representative along with images taken by the reps themselves. Some images might be clear, others might not. Many might be representative of reps as they were years ago before life, age and wisdom left the indelible mark of honesty on their faces. Some might pose with phones. Others leaning against a tree. And of course, there’d be the oddball rep who cut-and-pasted their head onto a cell tower with rays of signal shooting out of each ear.

Users would only be able to view certain retail shops due to a bizarre policy about co-mingling information important to users.

If HTC were a real estate company, would you buy anything from them?

Macintosh apples to mandarin oranges

I hear the rumblings. “Davison, come on, you’ve gone too far. You can’t compare a real estate brokerage to a Taiwanese phone manufacturer. That’s apples to our oranges.”

Really? Well, step into my fruit bowl for a moment.

I can’t recall any college professor of mine ever segmenting any one industry from any other when it came to the high level mechanics of branding and communications.

In my time on Madison Avenue I never heard anyone cite the real estate industry as being so magnificently different that it must defy all the rules marketers hold dear.

I know everything you need to do right with digital marketing and branding is already on display across a myriad of industries.

You are not alone in your possession of internal greatness, historical legacy, and intellectual mojo. Just like you, HTC loves to tell the world how great it is. And they do, in a way that’s relevant to the customer.

What HTC really did

They took everything they are and compressed it down to one word.

The only one that matters.

You.

In a simple slide show on its home page, HTC tells a perfect story. You are the star of that story, a narrative of what HTC knows you want from your smart phone experience.

Superpowers. A bad ass camera. A fast Internet. A ridiculously big screen.

This is the conventional box of wisdom inside of which most of American business operates. It is the box too many in real estate resist entering. Sure, we spin tales too – of dreams delivered, awards won, pets loved, leadership amassed, legacy accumulated –  things that could carry a ton of meaning if we would simply clarify why any of it matters to the people with whom we wish to connect.

What did HTC do?

They built great phones. And they built a better gateway through which you and I can discover them. They’re driving a massive market response as a result.

You’re a real estate company. An apple. They’re a phone company. An orange. You’re both fruit

‘Nuff said.

But as of now, it’s even cooler.

In a nutshell, Google tweaked the display of its image search results, creating a denser tiled layout, instant scrolling of the results pages (very slick) and removed the annoying framed presentation of the source image with a light-box-style hover image.

So whether you’re searching for a city, neighborhood or even a product, searching Google Images gives you a broad, vibrant and instant peek at how the world sees what you’re looking for.

It’s pretty amazing.

But naturally, this got us thinking about real estate search.

It’s time to put away the map

In a guest editorial yesterday over on Property Portal Watch, Niki Scevak from Homethinking.com argues that the main reason Google has failed to have much of an impact in the real estate vertical thus far is that its real estate search play has been mistakenly tied to its Maps product.

The map, Scevak asserts, is a poor visual metaphor for showcasing listings. He writes, “Google will never be successful in real estate until they recognize that Maps are a poor cousin to other types of user interface designs for real estate.”

I agree with Niki. Maps provide great context to a search but relative location is not what home buyers are looking for immediately. Location is important, of course, but people are first and foremost interested in the home itself. What it looks like.

Unfortunately, if you perform a real estate search on most portals or real estate brokerage web sites, you are presented with pins dropped on a map and tiny, blurry thumbnails.

Not really ideal.

Who’s going to build the Google Image Search for real estate?

Zillow has done a pretty amazing job on its iPad app. Click on its gallery view and you’ll see a truly unique interface that simulates a stack of photos you can paw through using the iPad’s multi-touch screen.

It’s a novel approach. And as Brian hinted at yesterday, the mobile app arena is a wide-open search sandbox in which to experiment and test new ideas.

But despite mobile’s inherent advantages (multi-touch and location awareness to name just two) I do think we can bring some innovation back to the browser.

Perhaps we can take some cues from the Wine Industry about how to better merchandise product online. I’m thinking it’s time we lead with our best foot forward. Give users what they really want.

Big bold photographs.

Something like this perhaps?

We have the ability today to create truly immersive visual search experiences on the web. But we’re still stuck with search and search results metaphors (list views, map views, etc.) that seem increasingly archaic.

The new Google Images looks great. Real estate search is overdue for a refresh too.

It was perhaps the best Inman show ever, thanks to new Inman CEO Tim Smith and his team. The event has never been produced more thoughtfully.

This was my 13^th Connect SF event. This year, more than ever, I enjoyed seeing so many people who have, like me, hung around this industry through boom, bust, success, failure and years of work in a business environment that might charitably be called unique.

All because real estate just really matters.

It was a great week.

Below I’ve shared just a few of the things I took away from the event.

The online real estate category is overdue for realignment

The fact that it’s hard to make an online consumer play work in real estate has been plainly obvious for years. There were only three big Web success stories to come out of the first Internet boom (LendingTree, HomeGain and, for a time, HomeStore). The second wave of online real estate innovation – that which commenced in 2005 – is now overripe. Investors are eyeing the exit doors anxiously. No one’s killing it on revenue. The model of selling ads on top of listings promoted for free isn’t going to support 8-10 large Web properties much longer.

We’re going to see consolidation in the coming year. Some thinning of the herd.

The Zillow/Yahoo! Real Estate partnership is just the beginning. I initially dismissed this deal as a product of Yahoo’s effort to unload non-core properties to partners. It was this, but it’s also more. It begins the climactic battle between Zillow, Trulia, Move.com and a handful of others to write the denouement to online real estate’s Web 2.0 era.

I don’t know who wins this battle, but I think we will see casualties in the coming year.

MLS is where the action is

I realize this is like saying that the future of American fashion can be found at a Rotary luncheon. But here’s the thing: the MLS isn’t sexy, but at this point it’s just about the only thing that matters if you care about the future of real estate.

I have long thought of the MLS as the dorky kid on the schoolyard the cool kids pick on one day then sweet talk the next for help with their homework.

And now, after the internecine discounter battles, after the DOJ, after the RPR freak-out, everything – from the future of online real estate innovation to the real estate compensation model – hinges on the ability of those dorky kids to stay out on the yard.

This really hit home for me during the MLS session I moderated.

Mike Wurzer, an MLS software vendor, rejected the notion that the MLS system is broken, arguing that what we have now is the rational product of a free marketplace.

Joel Singer, the CEO of the California Association of Realtors, who spent the past three years trying to change what he perceives to be a flawed system only to fall short of that goal, made a gutsy and passionate argument that the MLS is inefficient to the point of jeopardizing the long term interests of practitioners.

But it was Simon Baker, an outsider, who crystallized the discussion. As someone familiar with real estate around the world, he pointed out that the American MLS system’s cooperative dynamic holds together a compensation structure anomalous in its plenitude and potential for conflict.

It was a moment that took the discussion just far enough outside the usual lines to make it clear what’s really at stake in the seemingly esoteric debate about the future of MLS.

The brokerage discussion is finally cleansed of political poison

The discussion about innovation and disruption in real estate brokerage reached its nadir on January 10, 2007.

It was on this date that Allan Dalton, who was then President of Realtor.com, “debated” Glenn Kelman of Redfin at Real Estate Connect New York. It was a showcase of real estate’s most regressive, insecure and irrational tendencies.

Dalton won the battle on stage but lost a lot of hearts and minds.

That was a good thing, because when Kelman appeared on stage last week in a discussion with Greg Rand of Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, he was able to participate in a useful debate about the brokerage business model.

Kelman and Rand talked about operational performance. Agent productivity. And the core value a brokerage provides. Imagine that!

There were some interesting moments. Rand argued that brokerage companies must purge their offices of unproductive agents while failing to explain the messed up incentives that keep almost all of them, including his own, in place. Kelman talked about customer service and trust while having to acknowledge that he hired a Russian spy.

The next day, Sherry Chris, CEO of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, a Realogy brand, stood on stage to highlight a new website she had built to index and explore just the sort of small, innovative brokerages the industry used to demonize.

These were moments of leadership and sanity.

If you want to innovate in search, forget almost everything but mobile

Yes, you and I both know it by now: “Mobile is huge!”

I won’t belabor that point. But I will share one observation: As a tech executive demoed his company’s latest mobile app (it’s fantastic, but still weeks from release) it hit me just how little time it took for the real estate search experience on the handset to become better than that on the desktop Web.

Think about it: How much difference is there, really, between the Realtor.com of 2000 and the Realtor.com of 2010? Aside from map mashups and some data overlays, the experience is basically the same.

But the mobile experience just keeps getting better, faster, than anything we ever saw on the big screen. I don’t think that’s going to change. I think it’s going to keep accelerating.

Mobile is “huge,” but it’s also going to be the platform on which the future of online real estate will be written.

More to come

I took a lot more from last week, but I’m over 1,000 words now and you’re probably fading. I’ll be working through other thoughts from Inman right here in the coming weeks.

If you were at the event, what did you come home thinking about?

Disclosures: I used to be president of Inman News and they are also a 1000watt Consulting client; Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate is a 1000watt Consulting client.

Further, the tagging feature — where homes get pegged as Cape-Cods, Traditionals or Moderns after they have received a certain number of “votes” from the crowd — will then allow Frontdoor to offer users the ability to search by home style.

This feature will be added later this year – presumably after the database has had a chance to populate.

I dig this idea a lot, because I think it starts to bring the search experience much closer in line to the way that we look for homes in real life – by looking for and evaluating properties by what they actually look like.

[Full disclosure: 1000watt consulting has performed consulting services for Frontdoor.com in the past]

But what’s especially clever about this idea is that it’s a really practical application of the “wisdom of the crowds” idea. It taps into the collective intelligence of Frontdoor’s audience to complete a task that is uniquely suited to the human being – namely, to assign an architectural style to a photo of a building – one that is almost impossible for a machine or algorithm to replicate.

The only thing missing to me is that it feels like there could be more incentive (or reward) given for participation. Perhaps assigning or awarding Foursquare-like badges (“I’m a Modern home expert”) and building deeper interaction with users’ social graphs (“I think this home is a Cape-Cod, what do you think?”) would really press this home as a winner.

It seems, after a longish period of hibernation, Frontdoor is finally getting back in the game, Normally, we wouldn’t be highlighting this many feature launches back-to-back, but what with its launch of content widgets last week, and now this, Frontdoor seems to emerging from its slumber and innovating rather quickly.

Hopefully, it’ll spark some more of the same from its rivals.

My take: Content creation is hard. Great blogging is tough. And the rewards remain fleeting.

So that’s why I’m calling it, on the eve of Real Estate Connect 2010:

The death of the real estate blog. July 9, 2010.

It’s over.

R.I.P.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

For every Phoenix Real Estate Guy, there are likely umpteen dozen soulless me-too real estate blogs in any given metro these days. Many are filled with meaningless “market reports,” meandering “community updates” – and most were last updated many moons ago.

These blogs float like drift nets on the web, hoping to snare the clueless web visitor who stumbles in through some long tail Google search.

And where it was once possible to get decent search ranking for a blog post, it is becoming harder and harder to do it solo.

We now see content farms like Demand Media starting to flood the search result pages. They use sophisticated algorithms and large networks of low-paid “producers” to create single pieces of keyword-rich pages they can load up with advertising.

Demand alone (through a network of sites like eHow) is cranking out over 4,000 pieces of content a day. And AOL (through its Seed.com initiative) and Yahoo (through its acquisition of Associated Content) are going to get into this game too.

These guys have industrialized content production.

Just like big agribusiness decimated the family farm, the content farms are beginning to seriously challenge the humble business blog for position.

To be sure, like in the real world, some hobby farms will continue to eek out an existence. But in the real business of blogging for Google traffic, the big guys wil be hard to beat.

Attention Shift

So what can we do about this? Here’s a few ideas:

Go Social. Facebook (through Facebook Pages) has become a legitimate publishing platforms by bringing to the table a massively engaged audience. If blogging for Google traffic is like casting a drift net, social sites like Facebook are like casting in ponds full of fish.

Best of all, It’s quick. It’s easy. And it’s cheap. Start-up costs are negligible so there’s room for rapid iteration. Witness the growth of “365 days in Community X” pages.

Tumblr is another emerging platform with an active, engaged community that’s well worth exploring.

Start an email newsletter. We’re bullish on email (hence our own 1000watt spotlight newsletter). The inbox is intimate, personal and perfect for immediate one-to-one conversation. Startups like Letter.ly are pushing the barrier to entry in this space even lower.

Create video. Try new media. Video blogging & podcasting in particular are poised for a big surge (or resurgence, in the case of podcasting). New devices like smartphones, tablet computers and Internet-enabled televisions are making it easier than even to consume this media everywhere and anywhere. There’s a reason why the big blogs are making significant investments in video.

I realize this topic is a controversial one, and my stance is a little bold. I debate this position fiercely even with Brian and Marc. And frankly, I still believe there’s room for a company “blog” (like this one). Blogging software continues to move in interesting directions.

But where there once were many, it seems now there are few. Beyond a few pioneers who’ve stuck it out, I don’t see much that’s new out there.

So the real estate blog as we knew it is dead. Which means the category as a whole is ripe for a rebirth.

Personally I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

This week we move from big to boutique. Surterre Properties is a small brokerage located in the most upscale areas of Orange County, California. We picked this site from the many submissions we received because it’s pretty darn good.

The design quality is generally good. It’s relatively uncluttered. A clear sense of place is established. And there’s a coherent visual brand expression.

But there’s always room for improvement, right?

We’ve used a cool app called Notable to present our critique. If you click on the “View interactive screenshot” link below you’ll be able to see our notes and the specific location on the page to which they refer.

Would you like your company site critiqued? Shoot us an email to info@1000wattconsulting.com.

Surterre Properties (surterreproperties.com)

View interactive screenshot | Download report from Scribd

1. This is a convention that we would suggest *not* breaking. Most users will expect primary navigation at the top of the page. Moreover, people tend to read web pages like they do a book – they start at the top left and move to the right. Lastly, placing the primary nav in the middle of the home page makes it next to impossible to maintain consistent navigation throughout the site, which always makes things more confusing than they should be.
2. This is an unconventional brand placement – and one that works here given the unconventional nature of the brand identity itself.
3. It’s clear that the company is trying to evoke a strong connection to place and an association with the upscale lifestyle it offers. And they largely succeed. However, when the user hits the page it’s a good idea to make it very clear to them where they are and why they should stay. This page is currently missing the mark on that score. Some sort of headline, positioning statement or value proposition should go here.
4. Form field labels should usually go above the field. This is a small convention that should not be broken. Think about how we read – top down.
5. Given the relatively small market footprint, offering search by neighborhood or subdivision would likely get more people to what they’re looking for more quickly – always a good thing!
6. It’s not a good idea to present a choice at this very important point of action. A simple “Show Properties” button would be preferable. In addition, in our experience, many users simply get lost in a map search interface. It’s better to present a “Map view” option on the search results page to accomodate those with the inclination and aptitude to view and refine results in this mode.
7. Great idea to call out value-priced properties, but it would likely see more clicks with a short description of what, exactly, these are. “The most competitively priced listings, hand-picked by Surterre agents” for example.
8. Generally not a good idea to call attention to the fact that you don’t have something people are inclined to want.
9. This is an interesting idea, but it distracts from the most important tool on the page: the property search function. The auto-complete on the form field is a nice touch when entering a property address, but that parameter could be added to the main property search function. A site search function is a good idea on most websites, but in our experience with real estate sites, too many users confuse it for property search and end up lost.
10. For a real estate site that’s all about selling luxury property, it seems odd that there are not photos or call-outs to some of the gorgeous active listings. People like to click on pictures – particularly great looking homes that are on the market. We’d replace this generic call-out with a filmstrip of active luxury listings in order to get people interacting with the site.

Her profession is one that is typically associated with apprehension.

Not for me.

These days, I love going to the dentist.

One of a kind

Katherine is a smart person.

She has great social skills and presents herself as a class act.

As far as I can tell, and based on her availability, Katherine has built a successful practice – no easy feat these days.

During my visit last week she noticed the 1000watt logo on the back of my iPhone. This segued into a discussion about what our firm does. During our brief conversation, her assistant commented on the need for better marketing in their profession. Like real estate professionals, dentists have their go-to visuals, slogans and promises. A lot of it is trite, callow stuff like this:

As the two women began jack hammering the inside of my mouth, I sat back, cranked up Pandora and thought more about dentist marketing – and the many similarities it has with real estate. The common marketing foibles are obvious and reflect a generally self-centered, uninspired approach to the marketplace.

And then I thought about Katherine, whose practice is anything but these things. She’s one of a kind. And that’s why I drove one hour each way for my hour-long visit.

It’s not what you say, but what I say

I’ve never seen any of Katherine’s marketing materials. Or visited her Website. But if she asked me to help her further grow her brand, I would take a much different approach than that which most dentists have chosen.

I wouldn’t ask Katherine to tell me about herself. In fact, that’s the last place I’d start. I’d start with her customers. And ask them what they think about her practice. Why they’ve chosen her. And what words they would use to tell their friends about her when making a referral.

Those words, and the feelings that accompany them, are the essential oils that serve to lubricate an effective brand message and smoothen the connection between business and customer.

This is too rare. The friction created by the dry hump of marketing without taking the time to understand those with whom you hope to create a relationship often gets in the way.

Katherine’s brand

Katherine’s brand is really built on my words. My feelings. My experiences.

Here’s a taste:

I never have to wait. My last appointment was at 3:50. I entered at 3:50. I was greeted by the receptionist and within ten seconds Katherine appeared and escorted me directly to the examination room.

From the hygienists to the assistants, everyone in the office is soothing, fun and professional. They succeed at taking my mind off whatever nerve-wracking procedure I’m there for. Within seconds of being seated, I find myself lulled into an unexpected calm. And this is prior to the administration of nitrous.

Every visit, Katherine begins with questions about my life. She asks about my wife. My children. My health. Work. And throughout she’s not using the conversation to then talk about herself or tell me about her work, kids, husband, etc. Unless I ask.

When seated, I often feel as if I am in the front row seat of a great performance. I don’t clamp my eyes shut but rather like looking up and observing her work. She’s graceful. Methodical. And magical. I’ve never once seen that needle that pricks my gums with Novocain. I marvel at that.

Her team is sensitive. Knowing that the bright overhead light is hard on the eyes, they have a special set of wrap around sunglasses that eliminates the need to squint.

Not a single ounce of ouch

Katherine escorted me out to reception on my last visit exactly one hour after I arrived. Right on time. We talked about my next appointment and had Candy, her receptionist, work out a time for a follow-up visit that fit my difficult schedule.

She gave me hug goodbye.

The next day around 1:00 p.m., my phone rang. It was Candy. Katherine wanted to know how I was doing and was I experiencing any discomfort. Despite an aggressive procedure, I felt great.

Not a single ounce of ouch.

After I hung up, I realized I never addressed Katherine as Dr. McFarlane. I feared I had slighted her. I made a mental note to correct this next time.

There are many, many dentists who fill cavities. Clean and whiten teeth. And perform root canals. Katherine does those things too. And if she attempted to build her brand on what she does, my feeling is her marketing would look, feel and sound like every other dentist in her market. And that’s it.

She’d float, adrift, in a sea of sameness.

In my words, what Katherine really is about is making people feel important. That’s the feeling I have when I leave her office. I matter. To her and to her staff.

And that’s a feeling I’m willing to drive two hours for and tell the world about.

What are your customers saying about you?

All submissions are reviewed by the principals at 1000watt Consulting before publication. Publication in the 1000watt Index does not constitute an official recommendation or endorsement, nor is any financial compensation accepted for inclusion.

• Realtor.com / iPhone Apps (US)
• Urban Edge / Real estate search
• Weezim / Real estate search (Intl)
• Portae / Real estate search (Intl)
• Mobile Real Estate ID / Mobile
• SpatialMatch / Mapping
• AgencyLogic / Marketing Tools
• Follr.com / Marketing Tools
• New Homes Section / Moving & Relocation

If you’d like to have your company or product added, please complete the submission form found on 1000wattindex.com

“I deliver dreams“

I called the number on the card. It had a 404 area code and I got voice mail. Nevertheless, I ordered two dreams. One with onions and mushrooms. The other half pepperoni, half plain. Then I went to bed.

I woke up as expected.

Hungry.

My real estate prayer

It’s often said that God answers every prayer. When you don’t get what you pray for, you still receive God’s answer – it just happens to be “no.”

I’ll accept that from God. But not from the real estate industry, whose marketing pen continues to dip into a saccharine, vapid well from which it refuses rescue. My real estate prayer – that we begin treating this profession with a seriousness commensurate to its importance - must be answered in the affirmative.

The history of bad marketing we must escape to make this happen is long.

Dreams of yesteryear

An association with the feathered pillow-laden world of American homeownership dreams was created during the 40′s and 50′s when visionaries like William Levitt conjured a world of placid domesticity.

Dreams only last a few minutes. But it seems real estate marketing is eternal.

By the late 1970′s, for many, home ownership became a mocking fantasy. Mortgage rates went through the roof. But the dreamy fumes from real estate’s exhaust pipe lingered like late-night “Honeymooners” reruns.

They say if you hang on to something long enough it will cycle back into fashion. And sure enough, by the late 90′s, after long seasons of wakeful struggle, people began licking the brown tabs of the real estate marketing blotter. In pursuit of dreams we bought mansions worth 20x our yearly salaries, accepted mortgages with no principal payments, and bought stupid things with stupid money.

The dream of homeownership was alive and kickin’.

But all dreams end. And we’ve been in therapy for four years now trying to recover. Yet despite everything that’s happened, those driving real estate’s marketing bus are still at the wheel, cranking out dreamy copy for Ozzie and Harriet. It comes across in the form platitudinous ads, Websites that do injury to both owner and user and drawers full of business cards bearing silliness.

Too many in real estate continue to make empty promises fashioned from dreams that have lost their power to transport us.

Maybe you think that’s the best you can do.

You’re wrong.

I know you can do better.

Here’s how.

The truth

Across the brandosphere, marketers have been busy re-examining their brand promises and humanizing their written words. Some turn up the volume on their claims. Buick did this with their “The new class of world class” campaign. Some soften it as BMW has in moving from “The Ultimate Driving Machine” to a newer “Joy” campaign.

For Buick, the higher volume claim worked because it was matched by the aggression Buick placed into building a better product. A jaded public beset by generations of bad American engineering would be inclined to view Buick’s claims as unbelievable. Yet this move resonated because it drove attention to myriad improvements that made the claims real. Sales have increased – the result of a company investing in something people really cared about and wanted: a world class American car.

BMW toned their message down after considering that “The Ultimate Driving Machine,” while compelling when every day was a Studio 54 bash, might be off key for the times. “Ultimate” made BMW owners seem frivolous. Insensitive. Narcissistic. Boorish. Today required different aspirations. A different dream.

In comparison, real estate’s persistent attachment to selling “dreams” fails for two reasons: First, there’s usually no investment made to make the delivery of these dreams exhilarating. By what conveyance will the woman whose business card I mentioned above deliver dreams? Her father’s Oldsmobile of a prehistoric website powered by a feeble IDX feed? A “marketing plan” not worth the color ink used to print it?

Secondly, unlike the desire Americans have to own an excellent American automobile, I would argue that few of us desire Realtors who deliver dreams. Most of us are hungry for skill, integrity and brains.

Turn on

The most savvy real estate marketers have long since unhooked themselves from the helium tank of real estate rhetoric. They speak in a saner voice, more direct, less hyperbolic. Take MRealty. No marketing hype there. Just great technology and decision support content. Visit Pedal to Properties. Their slogan, “A new way to buy and sell properties” sounds fluffy at first blush but is directly linked to the very new way they are in fact doing things – a truth that has been meet with considerable local fascination.

And of course: Redfin. Here’s the marketing copy from their website:

Experienced Agents

If you like our site, you’re going to love our agents. Search online. Set up tours online. When you’re ready, our local, experienced agents will get you into homes and guide you every step of the way.

If I had my own brokerage, I’d pen something like “Davison Realty: Helping you make a better real estate decisions.” Granted, it’s not very sexy. But it’s something I’d know I could deliver upon and it’s something I believe people want and need.

Simple, truthful expressions of what you really do, what you really provide and what you can nail consistently are a wiser path toward building your brand.

Home ownership is still a wonderful thing. But let’s wake up from the marketing dream.