New Elliman Website, Not A Fan.

Started by nyfineman
over 14 years ago
Posts: 59
Member since: Mar 2007
Discussion about
I am disappointed with the new Elliman website. Seems like it is trying to load up too much at once and takes forever to load. Not real hot on the design either. Now, when I doing research and I see an Elliman listing I dread to click on it. Anyone else having this experience? I wish they would go back to the old format.
agree, reminds me of sotheby's site
And try to open it on a cell, fagettaboutit!
Agree with the criticism above. Looks like a beta, and reeks of never having been volume-tested under realistic production conditions. Maybe v.1.1 will perform better.
Not only slow to load, but looks awful when done. Those colors, the font, it looks all washed up, like a bad brochure from the 80's or some podunk real estate firm from Long Island.
What a mess. The poor saleperson's photo looks like her face is melting. Also, pix and floorplans in my saved area are now smaller. Seriouly, this is what I tell my friends to look at carefully before listing a property. It's still in the presentation above all as everything else is secondary.
What's with the locked listings? A search in Chelsea from $900K to $1mm pulls up a locked London Towne House listing (which is presumably the sponsor apartment) and 250 West 16th Street -that's presumably CORE, right?
but doesn't show, say, my firm's listing in Chelsea Gardens.
It's like a half-built VOW (virtual office website).
Maybe as a result, I've been finding the Corcoran website slow all day.
ali r.
DG Neary Realty
I also don't get the locked listings. Now they want you to "register" in order to see their listings? Do they really think people are going to do that?
ali - Just tried to cross-ref the "locked" listings with SE listings for some of the buildings. It appears that Elliman's "locked" listings are not showing up on SE.
Can you figure out what they are trying to do?
Are they somehow trying to cut out buyer's brokers by claiming the buyer is registered with them?
ph41: There it is. They are busted!
sleuthy!
when you register you get an email saying thank you, a broker will be in touch to discuss your real estate needs...
The whole thing with VOW listings (the locked listings) works like this... they can advertise other companies listings (much like how a Brown Harris Stevens broker can take their buyer to any other firm's listing) but they need to get you to register before they show you the info (this is by law, not because the firm wants to necessarily).
So instead of just saying, there are X other listings in this building, they need you to register in order to show them to you. By registering on broker "John Doe's" page he will get an email saying that you are interested in these properties and the buyer will get to see the other listings. That buyer will then probably get a follow up from John Doe to discuss/take you to those listings.
Saying that it is 'LOCKED' is just clever marketing (and I will admit that it is clever) to convince you that signing up will unlock them. Yes, you will then get to see the listings, but they could have just as easily said "Sign up to view the other two listings."
Most companies will support VOW's going forward, mine already does, but with sites like StreetEasy you can get all the info you want without having to sign up everywhere. The main idea is that it will help buyers go to one place and get all the info, and also help brokers (and their company)... and yes, it certainly should. But in this day and age when no one likes to give out any personal information and you have websites like streeteasy and trulia (etc, etc) that already give it away for free without signing up. I think that this VOW play is too little too late.
Dear Streeteasy Board,
I love you. Thanks for the heads-up about this - I had no idea. Elliman's site is now operating as if New York City real estate had a proper MLS. While REBNY does allow its members to co-broke under a blanket agreement, this is the first time I have seen any company actually advertise other brokers' exclusives on their sites. It's either illegal, or diabolically genius! Can't wait to find out which!
Tina
(Brooklyn broker)
@ tina24hour: It is completely legal and Elliman is not the only site doing it. While their site redesign certainly does leave something to be desired, their implementation of VOWs is pretty good actually.
@tina- I think this is exactly the idea of a VOW, although I didn't realize that a firewall of sorts was needed.
But, back to the original complaint, the site is slow as a snail. I hope they can fix it so the pictures can load in a more efficient manner.
Yeah, the new Elliman site sucks. They used to have a second-rate site, and they've now replaced it with a third-rate site. It used to be that the presentation was slighlty inferior to, say, Corcoran. Now, the presentation has been made worse, and the speed is much slower.
Is there anyone out there that actually likes the new site better than the old site? If we can't find someone to come forward with that here, it makes one wonder how Elliman could have released the crap.
MRussell - is BHS advertising VOWs in Brooklyn?
to me, the user experience is not that great. I always thought simplicity and clean is best versus 'coolness' of features or lots of sortable inputs that may confuse people when they go to use it. to me, people want to go to elliman to look at an individual listing - so the effort should have been placed on how BEST to present and show that one listing. It will be challenging for the VOW to replace the very useable SE site for aggregating manhattan inventory. I dont see people leaving SE to go to elliman as their desired site to find whats 'on the market'.
Just my opinion. I release a new analytics site very soon, at that is uber difficult to present charts and stats in a user friendly way. So, Im curious to as how we did when u guys start using it. For all I know, we did a terrible job in terms of UX
Wow - this is one of the things that make SE so cool. I found the new annoying Elliman site yesterday, as well - a day later, the "investigative journalism" Shame on You team lays it out. As a civilian who just has a bit of an obsession with real estate, I can't tell you how much I love this stuff. Thank you!
Helen
NB to Elliman: Yesterday I visited your site. When I saw all the locked listings, instead of enticing me to register, they made me leave the site asap.
Hey, Digs. Look forward to your new site! I just hope that you are using different software than Elliman to display pictures. I'm not sure what they are using, but it takes a bit to load while Corcoran and the rest are instant.
Another site that screwed up- Curbed. Same thing, too many images loading using whatever that software is, which slows the loading. Anyone else notice this with Curbed and find it annoying?
A. Fine
Just to be clear about the VOWs (Virtual Office Websites)... BY LAW all real estate firms need to make you sign up in order to see the other listings. After you sign up with any firm's VOW, you will/should be presented with search functions to search all of the real estate in Manhattan (and presumably any other areas your company does business).
What is the difference between VOWs and Streeteasy? Theoretically, nothing. You should be able to access all the listings, just like a broker would, through their VOW. However, the one thing you will NOT see is any other broker information. Anything you see through the VOW will be funneled to the broker who's page you signed up on.
As I mentioned above, this is no different than if you called a broker on his listing and he said "hey, I know a great listing that I want to take you to" that happened to be with another firm. The only difference is that you are the one finding the listings for the broker to take you to instead of the other way around.
Does StreetEasy already accomplish this? Yes, by leaps and bounds. You can get all the info, all the photos, get the broker's information and also look up sales history.
So why would I sign up for any firm's VOW? That is a good question. If you aren't familiar with the internet and don't know about streeteasy then it would be very useful for you. It isn't like the listings and information won't be presented to you, they absolutely will. But, the info will not be as robust. I really think it boils down to certain people simply not knowing about other resources that are out there.
You can expect firms to slowly embrace and implement it on their sites. To my understanding it has to be done for each individual broker based on if they want it on their site or not. This is why when you sign up for a VOW on a site you will get an email saying that a specific broker will be contacting you.
@ tina24hour: I am under the impression that the VOWs will allow you to search all the areas serviced by your firm.
@ urbandigs: Having cool features is great if it helps you. A certain firm has a 'Walking Score' that pops up for all their listings. I have never seen it below 95 out of 100, a "walkers paradise." If you didn't know Manhattan was a walking city, then you clearly have never been to Manhattan! Other things like facebook and twitter also have no place in real estate in my personal opinion, and I am incredibly tech forward.
nyfinemane - we will not be a VOW service. we spent 13, now 14, months data mining Manhattan RE to figure out the best way to be able to analyze and track the movement of Manhattan inventory; the market as whole, and submarkets of interest (as far as you can go without getting too granular - too little data, makes useless analytics)
So please understand we will NOT be the place you visit to see what is ON the market, we hope to be the place you visit to see what the market IS DOING! Considering the flaws, redundancies, tricks of the systems and errors in sharing system processing, Im glad we did the work to scrub the data to focus on the fresh stuff for analytics - Im more happy its over! It took us 9-10 months of data mining to discover, fix, and adapt a system to embedded flaws. The end result is a better real time tracking platform for this market.
MRussell - good to see your voice on these forums. One major thing the VOW, to my understanding, does not offer is complete listing histories, and all the useful information that a buyer can deduce from them. The VOW presenting site still, for the most part, designs a site that is best suited for the broker and the seller. In this day and age of transparency and the hunger for accurate information from the buyers out there, there still is room to improve on that front. We should start with repairing the sharing systems core so that brokers/firms can better maintain their inventory of listings w/ some level of enforcement for data breaches.
oops sorry, 9-10 months of data mining (scrubbing,building rules, flow algo) and 3 now 4 months developing the system.
but if the new Elliman website is a VOW, why aren't my firm's listings on it? They're on RealPlua, and they're on Streeteasy, where is Elliman pulling from that they're not getting them?
My firm has a strong presence in the Village and Chelsea, and it would handicap a buyer to look in those neighborhoods without us.
For that matter, I don't see Fox Residential's Upper East Side listings either.
ali r.
DG Neary Realty
member, Real Estate Board of New York
@front_porch: I have zero idea where the info is pulled from.
site is fail
Digs-
I didn't figure you for a VOW site, I was just trying to say that I hope you are not using the same image software that Elliman and Curbed are using. I gotta hand it to you, you have chosen a heck of a task and you are mastering it better than anyone in the biz.
Andrew
i hope you like it nyfineman...i expect competition if it does indeed work and get a following, and that is fine by me..the more sites to offer better info to you guys, is a win win for everyone.
ALI - I think REBNY members using the VOW can EXCLUDE certain firms if they choose to when it comes to what they present on their own site. I dont think there is any mandatory rules that make the VOW site show everything that is there
Digs, interesting. I don't know if it would help us or hurt us to be there. It's certainly a point in favor of streeteasy, showing more complete inventory than competing sites.
ali r.
DG Neary Realty
yea..again, I dont see people leaving streeteasy to go to other sites to browse whats available on the market. streeteasy is better designed for the user, the buyer/re junkie...so, I dont think it hurts you. If a buyer is looking to buy in that area, I have strong feeling they already know about your listing for sale and that is probably because of this site.
One other concern: Once before I signed up on a site to view the offerings and almost immediately began gettin innundated with emails from a specific broker. So while it may be good to be able to view everything listed by every broker, the pay-off is losing your anonymity. And I'm not sure that's a fair trade off.
Heh. And that should read "began getting..."
On a side note, I received a call from Trulia the other day asking me to upgrade to TruliaPro to drive more traffic to my listings. They cited the thousands of search results and hundreds of pageviews I had received. When I said I had never once received a viable client from Trulia, the salesperson said that was probably because I'm not a Pro and therefore my listings go to the bottom of the list. Um, what? The implication is that Trulia, which purports to be a consumer system, is grading its listings on a pay-to-play curve. And don't get me started on the idiocy of their discussion boards.
My company is too small to spend the kind of dough Elliman and Corcoran have on their site development, and while I can't wait to see what Noah has up his sleeve I'm pretty satisfied with the aggregation I get from SE. I actually use Streeteasy as a client interface - I appreciate an informed buyer, and if I don't work hard enough to keep my clients from going directly to another broker, then I'm not doing my job.