Zillow and Yahoo Real Estate have signed an agreement so that Zillow will take over the real estate classifieds, handing over the job of promoting and selling of there advertising space at Yahoo Real Estate.

This is a very interesting move because in early 2002 Yahoo gave a strong push in the real estate section of their site, but later went unnoticed with the arrival of Redfin, Trulia and Zillow. Now they are trying to push back again with one of their competitors as a partner and giving an effort to better serve their real estate advertising channel.

In the mean time Zillow is setting up for a possible IPO and is in need of having relevant deals in their portfolio so they can justify an Initial Public Offering. Still I think we will have to wait and see some results from this partnership.

Right now the real estate market is centered in repossessed homes and housing that have been foreclosed by the banks. Both Yahoo and Zillow are not focused in this niche sector for real estate in the USA, so their main assumption is that housing sales will rise; there has been some speculation that the market is getting better, in NY there are some talks of an increase in home sales. But I would leave a few quarters to really see if the market is gaining momentum in the USA.

One possibility is that they will go into the foreclosure properties so they can increase their market share, which right now is the 2nd largest by Hitwise and comScoreon the Internet. The only thing that is not quite clear are the profitability numbers from Zillow, which have boosted to their account nearly 87 million dollars in investment and only an IPO can justify such money poured in to the company. They have seen a big increase in their revenue numbers and a push in their advertising services for display ads but also their Pay per Click service.

I see much speculation on this partnerships on both fronts. Zillow and Yahoo have seen some tough 2 years, where many critics have questioned their ability to generate profits. It doe not not surprise me that they are now working together. Like they say in Mexico – the need for food and hungriness have united them both – the market will tell if this partnership will do them any good.

Mexico sets the base for implementing a National Multiple Listing System.

We are entering a consolidation phase in the Internet real estate market. With the AMPInet initiative from Asociación Mexicana de Profesionales Inmobiliarios Nacional (AMPI Nacional) in creating an MLS for Mexico, Latin America is advancing in the right direction in professionalize the real estate market both online and offline. So that people can advertise their properties and give them a much needed promotion on real estate and home search engines with the help of a local professional realtor in Mexico.

This week the Inman Connect technology conference was held in New York, where every year the real estate industry gets together to discuss trends and the market. This has become more international as the years go by, when in the beginning it was focused for US realtors and now many global companies and real estate enterprises are seen in this event.

Inman Connect

The speakers are from the technology industry, but give their opinions on the real estate market and how they see it evolving for the coming years. So the industry listens to them from service providers, banks, real estate brokers, mortgage brokers, real estate franchises and government institutions, everyone in the same place looking to work together and find partners. We have seen this past years that working with a common goal as an industry we might stand a chance to stabilize the real estate market.

Next tuesday you can find the presentations from Real Estate Connect in the Inman site, during those days REBarcamp NY was held one day before ICNY. Where you could hear most of the speakers from the Inman conference so you could get an appetizer of their talk, but the most important aspect of it was that speakers and attendees could share their experiences in a lay back environment with out paying an entrance fee.

Realtor Social Network

There where parallel events to ICNY, like RainCamp and a workshop held by PropertyPortalWatch. Where the discussions revolved around important events and statistics of the real estate market, but also discussions on new tools to measure your reputation on the Internet or the effectiveness of your web initiatives.

RainCamp NY 2010:

• Twitts from #RainCamp
• A good post from RainCamp.

REBarcamp Ny 2010:

• Twitts from REBacamp NY o #rebcny.
• In the  Facebook Tweal_Estate there is a good ammount of information, nice work guys.

We hope that next time we will be at the event to provide more insights into what was happening during the those days in New York, for now Twitter will have to do…..just for now.

This past 5th of October some bloggers and realtors got together in San Jose, CA for the first ever unconference in Silicon Valley, so it was natural to call it REBarcamp SiliconValley.

Real Estate Barcamp SiliconValley

We where there to talk with real estate professionals and service providers about our niche market, but also try to get a first hand view as to what are realtors doing online, how agencies and brokers are working together. So we could pinpoint contact points with their real estate peers at the International border between Mexico and the United States.

It was very instructional for how real estate agents are leveraging web technologies to help them accelerate the process for generating leads. We had the pleasure of seeing some familiar faces like Brad Coy, Andy Kaufman from REBarcamp Seattle and meeting new people like Mike Mueller, Ginger Wilcox, Cindy Lin and many more.

Now that everyone is talking about Twitter and how social media is expanding into the everyday lives of people, enhancing the way they interact and communicate with the real estate industry. Propagation of our message and transformation of our contacts into clients, was a hot topic in conversations. We had a chance to analyse the Mexican real estate industry and we have seen a clear opportunity to start an educating process about these technologies like social networks and microblogging applications to real estate associations in Mexico.

But the great digital divide in Mexico is something that is deep rooted in realtors, because the majority have not integrated 100% the use of the Internet as a channel for marketing para real estate. Lots of real estate brokers and agencies do not have a strong presence over the Web, so many internet users do not have a digital “brand” to go for resolving their housing needs in the North of Mexico.

This creates a “chicken and egg” problem, since there is no central hub of information about real estate in the North of Mexico, more than the traditional media channels of printed magazines and news channels. The real estate industry does not adopt new ways that social media is offering on the Web, because they do not see a clear return of their investment (ROI).

The problem (that Mexican realtors have) is that if their is no “web listings offered and information backing it” on the Internet, it will be quite difficult to emulate the demand that US realtors are creating.

Case in point for real estate at the Mexican international border, it is providing lots of information regarding seaside view properties and beach housing, which is focused on middle and upper class population. Meanwhile housing in urban residential areas is minimal, because most are offered to the working class low income families in Mexico which the majority are handdled via INFONAVIT credit loans. This could be a potential market for Hispanics in the US, because these are inexpensive housing opportunities that could be quite affordable for their US salaries. But little of this information is focused to them.

On the other side we have new generations of potential agents and brokers not entering the real estate industry, because of their close group and difficult network to reach, there are some initiatives by the Asociación de Profesionales Inmobiliarios or Professional Real Estate Associations, to reach out to the general public to generate a better understanding of their profession and a better image of realtors in Mexico. This is to get University graduates interested in getting into the real estate industry.

These will be some challenges that the real estate industry will face so real estate associations, agents, brokers, public institutions and companies offering services to the real estate industry need to work together to have the same message.

We believe that REBarcamp will play a crucial role filling the gaps, that for the moment is not focused for the general public it could be used as a tool to reach our to prospects and future buyers. So we invite you to be part of the 2nd Virtual REBarcamp, that will be held today from 9 am to 4 pm PST. You can register here.

We hope to meet you there are the many sessions, or feel free to contact me. My username is Claudio.

We are just a few hours away from closing 2009, with a lot of positive and negative news, I would not be true to myself if I did not talked about both situations. The Mexican population has faced important events this year, many of them being negative, none the less the real estate professionals from Mexico have responded to such challenges with great initiatives to face such difficulties.

Swine Flu. This has been one of the main problems that the Mexican goverment has dealt with during 2009, controlling the H1N1 virus in Mexico City and on the international border with the United States. This generated a lot of controversy and we offered our two cents on the matter by keeping informed the general public with social media, specially thos interested in acquiring properties in Mexico.

Credit Crunch. This has been in every post or comment in the news and has shed light on the lack off management skills from part of international trade organizations and enterprises, affecting everyone globally. we have to stand out there has been real estate investment opportunities for local and international investors. Also the government has taken matters in their own hands and reducing considerable costs of their public institutions going as far as cutting 3 public organizations that where poorly managed. We gave our opinion and approved such actions, even thought this affected the real estate sector directly, but the benefits on the long run for cross border buying and selling real estate where a good compromise.

Violence increase. This will be a task that the Mexican government is facing by fighting the drug cartels in Mexico. The war against drugs has increased the rise of criminality on the international border of Mexico and the United States, this has created a bad reputation and terrorized their residents of these areas. At an international level it is widely know about the problems we are facing at the border and even all the efforts put by our governments, there does not seem an end to it. But we know that these are on specific areas of Mexico and we have to inform to the international public that the problem is not in every city of Mexico, that is if we want to recover what good image we have.

Communication and marketing initiatives by the real estate sector . The reaction by the Mexican real estate associations to all this challenges was an increase of information provided in traditional media like conferences, seminars and strategic alliances. For this we have to congratulate their members and organization committees that have not lost enthusiasm for their work, so they decided to promote cross border real estate transactions in the North of Mexico. A clear case was the Convención Estatal de Profesionales Inmobiliarios de Baja California, that took place in Playas de Rosarito, where the  National Asociations of Realtors (NAR) and Baja California realtors made an agreement to provide a framework to work together.

Keeping things in perspective, we know that the road to economic recovery and citizen security will be a gruelling one. But we must work together in order to make all our efforts pay off, creating opportunities to everyone, this includes real estate associations, brokers, lenders, real estate service providers and public organizations that interact during a cross border real estate transaction, not forgetting the people interested in buying real estate in Mexico.

Our compromise. We want to let everyone know that we will be helping anyway we can, so contact us if we can help you in any form. Our focus will be initiatives in the Mexican real estate market but also outside this circle, in this case the REBarcamp has been a key part in our interaction with realtors in the United States. Reaching to all the real estate agencies, brokers and realtors to help them out with all their technical requirements will always be one of our top priorities, promoting the real estate market for Hispanics in the United States and our Mexican Internet users goes hand in hand. With that we leave our last post for 2009.

We wish all off you a Happy New Year and a prosper 2010.

FronteraEstates Team.