A property touch in InternetWorld Sweden

Was delighted to see not one, but two articles about the property related issues in an issue of InternetWorld Sweden.

Social media in a residential property company

An interview is conducted with Thomas B. Walden, Head of Information & Marketing at Henry Ståhl Fastigheter AB. A large regional residential building and property company in Norrköping, Sweden. 

The article describes how Thomas for many years has focused on making the communication from the property company more 'human' then just a lot of technical jargon. From the knowledge of new technology he understands that the power has shifted to the individual consumer,  so one has to be where the discussion is going on. 

One example is the residential project 'Knäppingsborg' where they also use a Facebook page, with 1100+ fans, on which there right now is a discussion on which retail shops should be included. 

This project is the first and is used as trial, but they are already started to plan for an extension. The future may also include mobile applications. 

Redesign of a residential property site

In each issue of InternetWorld a web agency is invited to come up with a better design for any website of their choice. In this issue InUse (which is the firm behind Hemnet's latest update) took on the site of StockholmsHem, a large municipality owned residential property firm. 

Their aim is to, through the site, save money for the company, increase the interaction between neighboures and create a suistanable future. The result looks like a crossover between Mint & the live feed in Facebook. 

The main idea is to add and connect sensors, like measuring energy, and making it visible and comparable using the site. A great idea. 

Sweden gets 'Zestimates' when Booli teams up with Ljungqvist Information

Booli, the challenger on the Swedish residential listing market, is once again pushing the the limits of end user experience when introducing 'market price' functionality. ('Zestimates' is a verb from Zillow in the US.)

The new functionality

The user is able to see (after two 'warnings' on how it works) the 'market value approximation' directly in the listings.

How it works

The service actually provides two different values.

Värderobot (translation 'ValueRobot')  
The value is calculated through a AVM (Automated Value Model) from the Swedish company Ljungqvist Information AB. The input to the model is a large number of comparable sales that is combined with data from each unique listing regarding parameters like location, size, monthly payment and so on. 

Mäklarindikatorn  (translation 'AgentIndikator')  
More of 'Mechanical Turk' approach letting agents not involved in the listing have a say about the value. The coverage for this service is much more limited.

When displaying a listing there is new page showing both values (if they exists).

 

My thoughts

I think this is a great move from Booli. It will create buzz and increase traffic. There has for a long time been a topic on the Swedish market (especially in Stockholm) regarding the low 'listing price' on objects. This will give more input to the analyze done by the buyer. 

However, AVMs also have a negative side to it, it's just an approximation and not an appraisal (external valuation) for the specific object. Read more on the topic of AVM downside here, here and here. Booli really tries to make the users aware of this. There is not one, but two, warnings you have to 'click through' in order to active this service. 

RICS Paper: 'CLOUD COMPUTING IN COMMERCIAL PROPERTY'

"Cloud computing has fantastic potential to increase operational efficiency and, in times of cost pressure, to save money. For those bold enough to embrace it, reduced costs and increased agility will almost certainly bring competitive advantage."   /Remit Consulting  

RICS paper on the 'cloud' 

Last week, at a breakfast meeting in London, the RICS paper on 'The role of cloud computing in Commercial Property' was released. A paper written by my friends Andrew Waller and Bob Thompson at the real estate management consulting firm Remit Consulting. 

 

The focus

The writers aim to both give a background, potential but also the 'dark clouds' of the cloud based services and at the same time give 'real' examples of cloud services used within the UK property market. 

For example, did you know that CB Richard Ellis has deployed Salesforce CRM and the Force.com platform to create their own management platform in order to simplify the management of a construction project? 

The launch

Unfortunately I didn't have the time to travel to London to be part of the conversation (I'm located in Stockholm...) but thankfully, there was a hastag for the event on Twitter! 

Great work @EEPaul. 

Read the paper

Take the opportunity to read the paper. Even if you're aware of the cloud trend, since the most interesting part is the examples. By the way The Financial Times write a piece on it.

The new Hemnet is in Beta

The largest residential listing service in Sweden, Hemnet, has their new version in Beta since a few days. Try it out here http://beta.hemnet.se/ (This is the second major overhaul within 18 months.)

New design & interface

The entire site has a much more modern look. Compare with the existing version (www.hemnet.se) or my post about it with its release last summer.

                 

When start writing in the search box additional parameters are displayed.

As marketed before, one is now able to search multiple cities or streets in one search.

The list of results is cleaner.

The new object information page.

For more details, the user is redirected to the brokers main page for the listing.   

New functionality

As far as I am concerned Hemnet has added following new functionality.

Search multiple addresses
Direct in the search box, see above.  

Displays the number of days on the market

Total cost of ownership
For apartments (Co-ops) a total cost, including a potential financing set up, is displayed.

My thoughts

For sure a more modern feeling using the service and it's more user friendly. However, I was hoping for more features, especially after been looking at the earlier mock-ups. Hopefully, there is more to come. 

There is soo much more that could be done to making the process of home searching more efficient. More on that topic in a later post.

On the other hand, I'm a bit impressed that Hemnet, having the biggest agent associations as largest owners, has started to display the number of days a listing has been on the market. I guess there were some discussions regaring that...  (It's has been done for some while by http://www.booli.se/) 

Hemnet launches iPAD app & focus on entertainment

Yesterday at the SIME conference (hyped Internet event in Stockholm with focus on media) Hemnet announced that they are developing an iPAD application to be released in spring. Hemnet is the largest residential listing service in Sweden.

Screenshot is from DagensMedia. 

Functionality

The development firm Apegroup will build the app (they've also built the iPhone and Android app for Hemnet over the last year).

"Focus will be on maps, large attractive photos, inspiration and to have all information accessible in the easiest way possible" says Anders Graffman, CEO Apegroup   (my translation)

An additional feature is that it will be possible to save photos on the iPad for inspiration for future decoration projects. 

Carl-Henric Borg, CEO of Hemnet, also points out that the iPad app will:  (my translation)

"... the iPAD app could also be used as a tool for the brokers/agents to present alternative listings during an open house" 

More about Hemnet

Following the SIME event over Twitter also gave some additional insights to the Hemnet business case:

• 1,4 million unique visitors per week    (15% of all inhabitants in Sweden!) 
• The growth of visitors per week has been +27% over the last year 
• 220 000 downloads of the iPhone App  
• 3rd largest referrer is Facebook
• 30% of the visitors use Hemnet for 'entertainment'  
• 150 000 listings per year 
• to list is free for the brokers
• fee to banks for referrals for loan 

And the final news item; a new version of Hemnet's website is to be launched "later this autumn"(?). Isn't that snow in the streets of Stockholm?   ;-)   

My thoughts

Having tried US based real estate iPAD apps like Zillow (residential) and Loopnet (commercial) I believe this move by Hemnet is a clever one. 

My suggestion would be to create a specialised version of the iPAD app for the brokers/agents in order to give them a great presentation tool in their meetings/open house with the clients. Take a look at this video for Zillows iPAD app (CEO Rich Bartons blog post about it) and read this success story and you will see the benefits.

At my day job as Product Manager at Datscha, I've used iPADs extensively over the last couple of months running short sales presentations at different events/conferences and it is working brilliantly. It's easy and almost invisible to bring with you, starts in a second and you can quickly flip through a presentation (mostly used PDF over Dropbox). 

I could just imagine how great it would be for a real estate agent with a dedicated iPAD app like above.