Nestoria Italia now live

They've been working on it for a while, but it seems like the site is now up and running. When I spoke with Ed a few weeks ago to congratulate him on Nestoria's second anniversary, he said they were celebrating by 'working';
but it seems like the hard work is beginning to pay off as is evident from the traffic numbers:

Ed answered a few questions I had on nestoria.it this afternoon ...

1) What has been the greatest challenge so far in launching nestoria.it?

With any new market there's a lot to learn. The geography is a big issue for example, in London people want to live in certain postcodes, a concept that doesn't exist in Italy. Just like in the UK and Spain, we'll learn as we go.

2) Will Nestoria's Italian service differ in any way from your other European domains?

In terms of user functionality there are no differences. We offer the same interface and the same tools like RSS feeds and a Facebook app. Of course we have a lot of learning to do though about the specifics of how Italians want to search for property. We'll be doing a lot of fine tuning in the coming weeks and months.

3) How many listings does your Italian site have at the moment?

We've been very fortunate to partner with most of the biggest players, brands like Casa.it, Repubblica, Immobiliare, Trovocasa, and several others, and of course we hope the list will grow with time. Right now we have over 250,000 live listings. Unfortunately we have
to weed a lot out due to data quality issues. For comparison, when we launched in the UK we had only 40,000 listings.

4) Who do you currently see as competition in Italy?
Have you noticed any significant differences in the way property business is done in Italy versus the UK and Spain?

Italy is more similar to Spain (indeed several of the big players are in both markets) in that the same house is listed with several agents. The quality of the data isn't always great, particularly the geographic information, as agents are scared that another agent will steal the seller.

Regarding the competition, I think the list of names of our partners shows that we are focused on finding ways to work together with others, not searching for competitors. Two of our partners (casa.it and Idealista) are big in our existing markets - casa.it is owned by REA which also owns PropertyFinder in the UK, Idealista is one of the biggest players in Spain - which I think shows that our partners are keen to grow and expand with us.
We're always looking for more partners, anyone who's interested should please get in touch.

5) What next for Nestoria and when can we expect it?

We'll be launching Nestoria Deutschland - http://www.nestoria.de in the coming weeks. After that we need to learn from the users in the new markets (and keep learning in the UK and Spain). In terms of new features the focus remains the same as always - help people find their next home as easily as possible. We welcome all feedback on the newest addition to the Nestoria family. And of course, for the Italian speakers we have a blog - http://www.blog-nestoria.it where we'll be posting regularly with updates.

A few screen shots, but as the site is live, why not check it out ...

Ivalio launches Retaggr

Ivalio Jordanov, founder of property search engine Zoomf, has launched a new service called 'Retaggr' and was this month's interviewee on the Nestoria blog.

According to the interview, Retaggr "enables active web users to link all their various online profiles into a single, always-updated, interactive business card that can be attached to virtually any type of content or interaction the user has on the web."
Mashable had some positive things to say about Retaggr a few weeks ago describing it as the "ultimate business card 2.0 for internet users" and the service also made the del.icio.us “what’s hot right now" front page.
Ivalio described the property search space as 'very competitive' and sees the main challenge for search engines as the competition for 'the attention of property hunters with players with significant advertising budgets':

If the state of the property market causes agents to cut their advertising budgets, it could have a negative effect on Nestoria’s revenues.
The freshness and relevancy of the results. Vertical search engines are dependent on the listings they get from other sites and often the quality of property listings is not great.

Migoa raises €1,000,000 for propety search

Congratulations to Gary Stewart, outspoken CEO of Migoa, the company behind Nuroa.com who crawl the web for Spanish and German property.
Migoa announced this afternoon that they have raised in excess €1,000,000 in VC funding from Higrowth Partners. Prior to this current round, Migoa had already raised over €1 million from "various business angels and government sources" including Dennis Bemmann, founder and CTO of StudiVZ, a German social network that currently has over 6 millions users and Spanish entrepreneur, Albert Armengol, founder of business social networking site, eConozco.
Migoa has also received non-recourse funding support from Spanish and Catalan agencies that support innovative start-ups.:

"migoa is without a doubt one of Spain's most promising start-ups with an exciting technology and an impressive team. That's why we have chosen it as our first investment in 2008." according to Ferran Lemus, managing director of Highgrowth Partners.

Launched in October 2007, Nuroa currently aggregates property ads in Spain and Germany and at present claims very near 1,800,000 listings. Like most vertical aggregates nuroa does not charge agents to list, and offers users the option to see all available property ads on one site. Migoa has been consistently regarded as one of Europe's most innovative companies in conferences such as Innovate Europe, Red Herring and Essential Web. The team's 18 employees hail from 11 different countries and currently work out of sunny Barcelona.

New search engine

Why is it that all these property search engines gotta have such weird ass names, nestoria, trulia, zoomf, zillow, globrix, the list goes on and on; and now we can add a new name to the list ... Hacienda.
Well at least the word hacienda means something, unlike most or all the others. The Oxford dictionary defines 'hacienda' as a "large estate with a house", originating from the Latin word 'facienda' which supposedly means ‘things to be done’. I guess if you have a large estate with a house a lot of things need to be done - hence the connection.
Anyway Hacienda apparently solicit listings direct from agents by traveling 'extensively' around the UK meeting agents, "listening and learning from them"; how sweet, but lets hope they don't run into this guy; seems like the credit crunch is taking a serious bite out of some people.
Unfortunately however Hacienda doesn't seem to offer anything that makes it stand out from the crowd and they're getting into the market at a really bad time. And unless somebody's got a proven track record, or seriously deep pockets, it's doubtful they're going to make it through this downturn, since the consensus now seems to be that we got at least another 18 months to go before anything changes, for the better or the worse, we still don't know.

Yes, Properazzi is coming to the US

Yannick Laclau, the respected CEO of Barcelona based Properazzi.com had a sitdown chat with Joel Burslem for Inman TV.
Laclau highlights that Properazzi is now serving 50 countries with 4 million listings and also confirmed that Prop will be entering the US market sometime in 2008, making it a "truly global platform". The site is already aggregating US listings, with over 600,000 listings, but all of the listings appear to be coming from one source hotpads.com

DotHomes' new look

Along with last years name change Byteplay is giving their search engine a more "grown up" approach, but I - like everybody else - is still missing the grass

Trovit in top 100 Euro start-ups

Mike Butcher has Red Herring's full list, I'm not sure how many or if any of the 100 companies are property related. The only name I recognize so far is Trovit, the Barcelona based search crawler that started about a year and a half ago. Trovit not only crawls the web for property, but also provide listings for cars and jobs.

International expansion of UK search engines

We're lucky to have an exclusive screenshot of Nestoria's upcoming German search engine, following on the heels of its highly successful Spanish version. Although Lokku (parent company behind Nestoria) haven't officially said anything yet, the company is actively seeking employees in Germany and Italy via its blog, which indicates imminent activity in those markets.

Elsewhere in the search engine world, Douglas de Jagger of dotHomes is now claiming over a million listings on its US site according to Sellsius. The ambitious duo see the housing slump in the US as an opportunistic time to enter the market as opposed to a challenge, representing an 'alternative model' to traditional broker listings.
However, competition is big in the US and dotHomes is up against some heavyweights. When Artemi and I last spoke he mentioned the challenges and admitted that if he didn't tackle them somebody like Google would. Zillow, Redfin and Trulia are practically household brands in the US, and they represent strong competition too. But the downturn in the economy is based mainly on housing and I have to wonder how many consumers are likely to really care about searching for property online or 'Zillowing' their house to see that it's now worth nearly half of what is was worth last year? Depressing.
Notwithstanding, Art and Doug are full of energy and ambition and Sellsius claims they have now teamed up with a service called RealtyTrac to integrate 400,000 foreclosure listings into the dothomes database. Positive news for some I guess, however, again, my question is who will be doing the searching and why. Most consumers in the US now aren't in a position to buy, with the credit markets drying up and the investment banks going bust, things are likely to get worse before they get better. The successful 2.0 company that's likely to weather the storm is the one that has the most resources at its disposal. Right now (outside of the 'big three' Google, Yahoo, MSFT) it seems like Zillow is in pole position, followed closely by Trulia. Again, I pay very little attention to the US industry, following it mostly via FoREM and Inman, so I don't know the ins and outs. but if I remember correctly, Zillow is sitting on close to $80 mill and Trulia has about $20 mill and is growing rapidly in traffic and brand recognition. Dothomes / Byteplay have nowhere close to that, but what they claim to have is superior technology. However they don't have exclusive ownership of that technology which can easily be duplicated and has already happened in the US with a company called Roost, launching right around the same time as they did.
Meanwhile, although Nestoria's European expansion has received much less media attention, one has to appreciate the dynamics of the European housing markets, particularly in comparison with the US. For the moment it appears that things are much more stable in European housing than in the US. That may change in some markets, particularly the UK. But Germany on the other hand has been touted by many international property experts as the safest short to medium term bet.

Mouseprice is serious competition for the big boys

A few weeks months ago I got an email press release sent to me from Selwyn Lim, Managing Director of Calnea Analytics, the team behind the Land Registry's House Price Index and the very impressive Mouseprice.net. Unfortunately the emails from the Calnea team got lost among other press releases and to be truthful, I hadn't paid much attention to Mouseprice ever since I first came across the site sometime last year. At the time (per my memory) Mouseprice appeared to offer a service similar to nethouseprices.com, essentially rehashing Land Registry sold prices data, information that was freely available at the time on the LR's old website. There a number of sites who offer a similar service for free including Hometrack and HousePriceReports.com.
A few weeks ago, some of my work colleagues (most of whom dont know / dont read / dont care about this blog) began raving about Mouseprice and how good it was, but I dismissed it, based on my previous experience, and of course as publisher of Renthusiast, I thought myself up to speed with every worthwhile '2.0' property service in the UK. Boy was I wrong.
Last week, for whatever reason while doing comparable research for a project we were bidding on, I went about my normal comparable research methodology, which starts with Land Registry data, moving on to Rightmove and finally Nestoria or Dothomes, depending on what mood I'm in. But I wasn't quite satisfied with the results from both sites and something told me "check with the Mouse" and I have to say I was impressed.
Not only does Mouseprice offer more up to date Land Registry Data than most of the other sites, but their free valuation tool is quite impressive (and fairly accurate) as well. In the coming weeks, I'm hoping to bag an interview with Selwyn Lim, but in the meantime, I'm sure I'll be using mouseprice.net more and more and also recommending to friends and associates. I may even engage in a little "property flirting" myself, who knows, I may even get lucky!

Globrix launches "developer search"

This is a great idea ... Globrix.com, the property search engine backed by Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp issued this press release this afternoon

" From today, Globrix will enable users to search across the UK for building plots, renovation projects, projects with planning permission or even specific house types such as Huf Haus. The new tools will give developers and self-builders a way of quickly and easily locating their next project or the site of their dream home. ... To see the self builder search tools in action, logon to www.globrix.com and search for an area of your choice (Sussex, for example). When the results appear click on the 'Type' menu and select 'building plot' or, for a different set of results, click on the 'Keyword' menu and select 'Planning permission'. New types and keywords will be added as the site develops, further increasing the power of Globrix's search capabilities. "

Traffic numbers: Nestoria/Dothomes vs Rightmove/Primelocation

I don't have a subscription to ComScore and I know that Alexa numbers are less than perfect, however, with the all the big news items flowing over the past couple of weeks, I decided to check out some traffic numbers for Dothomes and Nestoria, compared with Rightmove and Primelocation.

Interestingly, the numbers don't seem not to be moving upwards for Nestoria - at least not yet - inspite of the very major media partnerships with Channel 4 and The Independent. Dothomes.com did very well with the launch in America last week and did better than the UK website, which has been struggling for traffic among the 2.0 players. Primelocation seems to be treading upwards, probably because of their new TV advert campaign, which launches with their very 2.0 redesign. Rightmove is holding steady, still the dominant player in the game for whatever reason

Independent now pushing Nestoria

Very big news today in the world of 2.0 property search as Nestoria announces they're now powering The Independent property search on their just launched revamped website:
"It’s great to see a traditional brand embracing a web2.0 approach generally and working with a small start up like us," according to the Nestoria blog. So far to my knowledge this is the biggest media partnership deal for any European 2.0 property search engine.

This site is amazing!

Came across London Profiler via Nestoria this afternoon and I have to say that I think this site is absolutely amazing, and quite useful too.
In essence London Profiler works by permitting users to visualise a neighbourhood profile using different classifications through a Google Map interface. The classifications are mainly demographic and include a Multicultural Atlas of the city, E-Literacy, Education, Census Classification, plus a Deprivation and Health Index.
Most relevant to Renthusiast readers is the integration of Nestoria London search results for properties to buy or sell. The way the Nestoria results are displayed on London Profiler probably represents the way property search engines (and portals) will display search results in the not too distant future (at least I hope so!). Congratulations to the UCL Department of Geography for developing London Profiler.

Interview with Mike Carter of Zoomf.com

Last week Zoomf announced their long awaited nationwide rollout. Business Development Manager Mike Carter took time out to answer a few questions I had for him ...

What differentiates Zoomf from other online property search tools and applications?

Good question. Well there is a lot you could point to so it depends on from what point of view you are asking so I'll break it down;

1. front end
2. back end

1. On the front end we have visual search, the ability to draw shapes on maps and say that is my search area. We also have a draggable map that auto-populates. Our listings are postage stamps horizontally which we've not seen in other sites and we also have landing pages for properties which some of the other search engines do not have. It's still early days for all the new players, so I'm sure the front-ends will adapt as they see fit.

2. The Zoomf backend is a custom application built from open source including the Lucene product from apache. I suppose that is the biggest thing that differentiates us from the portals and other search engines. We are not a meta search engine (getting a feed from a portal then doing search).

What has been the greatest challenge so far

Raising money in the UK as opposed to the US and growing a cohesive team to fire on all cylinders.

What are the strategies for monetizing the service and how are those strategies being implemented?

There are a lot of monetization plans in place but our first live product is here: www.zoomf.com/geoads
Outside GEO ADs, you're going to see a lot from Zoomf in '08 as far as innovative marketing programs for agents and general advertisers.

What plans (if any) does Zoomf have for further expansion

We have international ambitions but for the first half of 2008 we want to get the UK right. By the way our national index is live
:-)

What impact is the credit crunch and housing market slowdown having on your business?

None as of yet. A housing slow down just means that capturing audience more efficiently becomes even more important. The internet is still the first port of call for property research. With the decline of print advertising and the cost differentials between online and print, there is still huge growth going on in the sector.

Thanks Mike for answering my questions, it looks like 2008 will shape up to be an intensely competitive environment for the vertical search industry and hopefully Zoomf's audience capturing strategy will prove successful for them.

Zoomf goes national

just in time for Christmas

Problems with Spanish property search

A few weeks ago, we mentioned the launch of Barcelona based Nuroa.com, the newest vertical search engine to enter the Spanish market. Other players in the Spanish property search game include Trovit, and Nestoria. One of the things we highlighted with Nuroa was the lack of a mapping system which has become standard on all vertical search engines that I know of in the UK, the US and elsewhere.
Victor Aloi, product manager at Nuroa, responded to our post via email, stating that the main problem in Spain is distrust among owners and agents:

80% of the agencies don't want to give exact addresses, because they usually don't have exclusives and don't want other agencies to get ring up the owners and try to get them to also list with their services. From the owner's perspective, the more, the better (within limits). She only has to pay the agency that brings a buyer. But from the agency's perspective, more competition is a bad thing. So they don't put addresses when they list with the portals or when they include properties on their own sites. That means that the mapping function becomes largely useless. We are speaking with agencies about ways to offer maps without losing their competitive advantage.

Victor highlighted that Nestoria also had a similar problem and suggested I read Nestoria's Spanish FAQ (English translation):

The Spanish market is peculiar in the sense that many owners who sell a property not sign exclusive contracts with a single agent. [The agents] in some cases prefer not [to] openly publish the exact location of the properties to minimize the risk that the buyer and seller close a contract between them without intervention by the real estate agent.

"Precise geolocation of the properties in Spain is a challenge," Nestoria's Ed Freyfogle told me via email, "agents don't provide accurate information. They instead say something like 'two bed flat in central Madrid'." Nestoria have come up what they think to be the best solution to the problem by providing maps on every search result page and by adding local information including train stations and local photos where possible. According to "J2" Nestoria's Spanish blog administrator:

... one of the strong points in mind when searching for a home proximity to a public transport station. While some Nestorians come from big cities, there are others to which the underground have not yet called to the front door, so we have to focus on our beloved renfe lines.
We have added a new list of train stations directly to the information related to each area. If you look for a home in Grenada and choose the option "Railway stations" below the map, you will see the mythical symbol of renfe at the point where the nearest station is located. [English translation]

So far Nestoria is approaching the problem from a technological standpoint focusing on pointing users towards the nearest train stations and other relevant information on their interface; Nuora appears to be taking a more diplomatic strategy by engaging agents to find a solution to the problem and Trovit appears to avoid the problem altogether by not even offering or suggesting any kind of mapping service whatsoever [see comments].
On a grander scale, it appears that the problems the Spanish vertical search engines are facing are probably part of a greater problem overall with the Spanish real estate industry. High profile political corruption and criminal activity is well documented . Urgent reforms and regulation is needed if the industry is to be taken seriously and expand on a global scale.

Rightmove redesigns website

Take a look at the new Rightmove, which some argue is a response to the growing threat of the new players in property search. The one thing Rightmove has - that all the other players want - is traffic, a captive audience and a huge marketing budget (actually that's three things). What Rightmove lacks and most of the other players have is the ability to innovate - and to innovate quickly

DotHomes (formerly Extate) launches valuation tool

This is hot and they're calling it Statistics, I didn't notice it this morning. First glance is very impressive. DotHomes is offering users the opportunity to compare property prices and "percentage return" for postcode specific queries. The percentage return graph compares FTSE 100 with the percentage return and timelines BoE interest rate changes. So far, it's the closest thing to Zillow outside of the United States. DotHomes have yet to release exactly how the percentage returns are calculated
The DotHomes percentage returns is unique in that it plots valuation data - as given by "interpolated hedonic sold-price data" coupled with asking price data and is not not plotted by sold-price data as given by Land Registry.

"Land Registry data includes no mention of property characteristics. So, if five 3 bedroom houses in 2003 and two basement studio flats are sold in 2004 then obviously the Land Registry average for the area will drop massively. This does not mean that prices have actually fallen. (Also, Land Registry data only runs from 2000.) ... It also rather happily provides property ROI plots (with rather interesting comparisons against other assets)," according to BytePlay Executive and co-founder Douglas de Jager.

The new service is not yet available on their South Africa website, but it's sure to be a hit with property professionals as well as webmasters and especially bloggers as DotHomes allows statistics to be embedded in websites.

Nestoria launches valuation widget

Been a busy weekend for the search engines as Nestoria announced the latest edition to its arsenal of powerful webmaster tools.

Extate changes name

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