SAN FRANCISCO –OBSNews- The real estate market in the US is in the midst of a historic transformation. Everyone who reads the news about buying and selling a home in the country is aware that prices for homes in many areas across the nation are falling as a result of the bursting of the housing bubble. Real estate industry watchers also know that the migration of real estate data and advertising towards the internet is creating deep unease and falling profit margins among newspaper businesses which are frantically struggling to reinvent themselves in the world of interactive media.

But there is another sea change that is occurring in the world of residential real estate and it portends ill for real estate agents and brokers accustomed to doing business in the old-fashioned way. According to the National Association of Realtors more than 80% of prospective home sellers and buyers use the internet when they look to buy or sell a house. Users of online real estate tools will often then work with an agent they know personally, but they are just as likely to reach out for professional help via the companies they interact with on the web.

What this means for the ordinary real estate agent and the traditional real estate brokerage companies is an era of new marketing alliances. In many cases, what was once a fierce rivalry between online marketers for real estate and the old guard has now become a mutually beneficial relationship with the technologists on the web finding and partnering with agents who have specialized local knowledge and industry experience.

Below are some of the leading internet real estate companies.:

1. www.RealEstate.com – Barry Diller’s Interactive Corp. (IAC.com) via LendingTree.com owns this site and late last year moved to create local real estate offices designed to compete with the Century 21® and RE/MAX® traditional brokerages.

2. www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com – This company provides home sellers with an opportunity to sell a house directly to a real estate investor. They also help home buyers find low-priced deals on houses in foreclosure and on bank-owned properties. They also refer home sellers to real estate agents and brokers across the nation to help people sell quickly when the houses do not meet their investment criteria.

3. www.HomeGain.com – This site is owned by Classified Ventures, a strategic joint venture of several large media complies (Belo Corporation, Gannett Company, The McClatchy Company, Tribune Company and The Washington Post Company). This site attempts to be an online matchmaker between sellers and buyers and real estate agents.

4. www.Trulia.com – This site is residential real-estate search engine that offers real estate information such as homes for sale, house listing and sale prices and market trends. Trulia is advertising supported.

5. www.Zillow.com – Zillow provides an estimated appraisal value for homes across the United States and provides a forum to homeowners, home buyers, and agents to create discussion groups. This site makes its money from selling ads on it heavily trafficked website.

6. www.Terabitz.com – This company provides yet another free service for real estate consumers. They attempt to aggregate large amounts of information about residential real estate that includes local neighborhood information, market research, schools, restaurants, crime and safety statistics, service providers, financial tools, and more. They make their money from targeted local advertising.

7. www.Redfin.com – Currently serving just seven major real estate markets across the US, Redfin is an online discount real estate broker that they describe as half electronic and half personal. They employ real estate agents directly and claim to rebate commissions to home sellers and buyers thus making their services cheaper than traditional agents and brokers.

8. www.Craigslist.com – Even though the by-now-classic website does not make money via real estate advertising, thousands of houses for sale and apartments for rent are listed in many different cities across the country. Craigslist has been a major reason why newspapers have been forced to re-tool their business models that once depended primarily on real estate and automotive classifieds for revenue.

Tags: , Barry Diller, Century 21, Craigslist, homegain, realestate.com, redfin.com, Terabitz.com, thehomebuyingcenter.com, Trulia.com, Zillow.com

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