Time to fall back.

Don’t forget to reset your clocks tonight….EST (eastern standard time) officially begins Sunday morning at 1am.

Enjoy the extra hour of sleep!

Enjoy your trick or treating!

Remember to throw on the porch and yard lights- and watch out for all those candy snatchers….

Earlier this week, a real estate broker asked me, ”Can you game the Trulia search results ranking?” The answer is simple: Yes - the more interesting you make your listings to consumers, the more exposure and home buyer inquiries your listings will get.

Everyone has heard about the Google Page Rank and algorithms that Google uses to rank their search results. Individuals and businesses spend a considerable amount of effort to understand what it takes to climb up the rankings. Therefore, it didn’t come as a surprise to me that we’ve started to receive an increasing number of questions about how we rank or prioritize real estate listings in the Trulia search results. I take this volume of questions as a positive sign of Trulia’s growth and ability to drive meaningful results to our partners. That is why I think it is important to address this question here on our blog.

First, while the exact details of ranking listings involve complex algorithms, the principles we follow are simple:

Associate each listing (along with the home buyer inquiries from that listing) with the actual listing agent or broker, not to the highest bidder or a random third party.
Since the very beginning, we’ve always followed the simple mantra of “your listing, your links and your leads.” Unlike some third party (e.g., online lead generators with a broker license and thus access to MLS IDX listings) or broker operated IDX listing web sites, Trulia has always credited and linked to the actual listing agent (or broker or franchisor) web site from the listings in our search results. There is no bidding or auctioning of leads from Broker A’s listings to Broker B. We think this creates the best consumer experience; who would know a home better than the actual listing agent who has been at the house with the home seller. Of course, we realize that consumers can benefit from a buyer’s agent during the purchase process, but we want to provide a direct connection between the consumer and the best source of information for each listing.

Build the best-in-class consumer experience in online real estate.
We track consumer behavior religiously on our site and know what type of listings they gravitate towards in each search (hint: they like more photos!). To meet their needs, the initial search results (aka “the default ranking”) that consumers see before any custom sorting are ranked to surface the best content first.

Build the most partner-centric company and cost efficient online advertising solution in the industry.
This may sound contrary to the principle number one, but it isn’t. By surfacing content and listings that consumers want to see first, we ensure that the exposure listings receive is highly valuable. We do not “force” home buyers to sift through dozens of listings they are not interested in even though it could artificially increase our page views.  Our goal is to maximize the real value we deliver to our partners.

Of course, our quest for excellence is never ending. The principles above haven’t changed over time, but our knowledge of user and partner behaviors has changed and does impact the exact way we prioritize listings.  Since the algorithm is constantly updated and involves a bunch of long mathematical equations, it’s best to focus only on the most important factors that positively affect both listing ranking and how we select the right listings source if we receive one listing from multiple sources:

• More listing data (especially multiple pictures, agent emails, descriptions and open house information) attracts more consumers and thus increases listing ranking on Trulia. More data = more leads.
• Fresher content, which means newer listings and more frequently updated feeds, increases exposure. Fresher listings = more leads.
• We apply the same principles to “paid listings,” too. The more likely a consumer is to click a listing, the higher it appears even in “featured” results. Premium listings with the best data = most leads.

Essentially, the cream rises to the top and the least comprehensive listings are most likely to be found on the bottom.

Now that you know the secret to gaming Trulia’s search results – making consumers happy - make it happen!

Looks like we have a NEW plan to consider on the extension of the home buyers’ tax credit.   Seems Baucus/Reid/Dodd/Isakson team has come to an agreement to merge their proposals into one.  Media outlets are all reporting different income limits, but this is what the Congressional Quarterly reported as of late last night:

• $8K tax credit — amount remains the same for first time home buyers
• Extension — will be for sales contracts entered into by April 30, 2010, and escrow closed in 60 days
• Homeowners included — $6.5K tax credit for existing home owners as long as they’ve been in their homes for 5 consecutive years in the past 8 and meet the income limits
• Income limits increased — Single $75K–> $125K and Married $150K–>$250K
• AND - the White House endorsed the plan a few hours ago this morning.

My questions:
1) Why extend this to “step-up” buyers? Ultimately, I’ve read that something like 97% of all Americans fall into the income limits.  Assuming that 60% of them are homeowners, then roughly 58% of all Americans can potentially qualify.  How much is this going to cost?

2) Will this bring more instability to home prices as the flood gates are now open on this tax credit — this bill is looking more and more like the “cash for clunkers” program.  If inventory moves thanks to this stimulus, will we experience a drop off in demand come April 30, and resulting dip in home prices?

As far as I can tell, it’s unclear how this proposal will move — as an amendment to the unemployment insurance legislation (HR 3548) or as a stand alone bill.  No matter how it progresses, in order to be effective, the plan must stabilize home prices, drive increased spending for consumer products and help revive communities faced by foreclosure.  Once those three areas are addressed, we’ll have a much healthier market.

We’ll keep you posted!

There are a number of strong opinions on the extension of the $8K first time home buyer tax credit. Ultimately, the debate is about whether or not it is creating long term value for the economy, versus a short term artificial prop up for home prices.  In my view, and the view of many on Trulia Voices, it’s a logical step in bringing long term stability into the market.

Given the fluid nature of Congress, who knows what the final proposal that hits the Senate–>House–>Obama’s desk will look like.  But today’s Reid/Baucus plan which includes an extension of $8K credit to the end of 2010, with a $2K/quarter phase out starting March 2010 seems to make the most sense.

Here’s why:

1) Stability - there is little debate on whether the tax credit has been successful in spurring sales and contributing to what looks like a stabilization in home prices nationally.  Real estate was the first plank in the stool to fall with this economic downturn, and it will take a real estate recovery to stabilize the overall market.   This bodes well for the economy.

2) Foreclosures - the glut of foreclosures across the country has driven down home values across communities.  These are trashed homes that are now being purchased for cash by investors, updated, and ultimately sold to first-time home buyers.  We all know the negative externalities like vandalism and crime are tremendous and the only thing that will reverse this trend is home buyers invested in these homes and communities to bring values back.

3) Consumption - Trulia conducted a study last year which showed that consumers on average, spend $30K within the first six-months of their home purchase.  New homeowners buy furniture, paint, rugs, lawnmowers, hot water heaters, kitchen appliances and tiles, etc.  This spending contributes to stimulating the economy and ultimately job creation around the whole ecosystem of housing.

But government actions are always paired with warning:

- Let’s phase out the tax credit, and not stop it cold turkey.  Lessening the dependency on the tax credit will help avoid a major drop in prices.  The economy is generally on a recovery path - over a long enough period of time, withdrawal of the tax credit will be countered with increased spending power from the individual and decreased unemployment.

- Congress needs to be wary of too aggressively expanding the program.  What we don’t want to see is a drop off, like we did with the cash for clunkers program — where people who were planning to buy a car rushed to jump in and take advantage of the stimulus, then promptly dropped off leaving sales where they were before the program began.

- Now that the tax credit can be used for down payments, 1st time home buyers should not be tempted to buy a house beyond their means.  That would only put us back into what caused this mess to begin with.

What do you think?

Taking some time off- going fishing for a few days.

As Trulia has evolved, we’ve worked hard to stick to a couple of core principles by which we make decisions. In the early days, it was just a couple of guys sitting in a university library coming up with ideas about how we would improve the online real estate experience based on our own personal research. Since then we have developed a much more advanced approach to understanding what our users want. Now that we have many millions (more than 5.5 million, to be precise!) of users visiting Trulia.com every month, we have many more people helping us make the product better. We constantly ask for feedback from our users both privately and publically, run dozens of A/B tests every month on minor product updates, have internal brainstorms about new feature ideas, tap into the significant brainpower and expertise of our Broker and MLS Advisory Boards, review other real estate sites and analyze data from our website logs. Ultimately we use all this information to figure out how we best evolve our product and user experience on Trulia with one simple aim: to make our users happy.

As a company, we have multiple important users. We not only have a large audience of consumers, we also have a large number of agents and brokers that use Trulia to help them achieve their business goals. Agents get introduced to new home buyers and sellers, and we are delighted to hear success stories from agents and consumers every day. We also have advertisers who are interested in promoting their products to our audience, and shareholders and investors who are looking to build a profitable and sustainable business. All these groups are very important to us and we work hard to make them as happy as possible.

Every decision made considers the needs of multiple constituents (consumers, agents, brokers and our employees and shareholders). Every online real estate company knows that it is a balancing act between delighting the consumer and managing the interests of many participants in the real estate ecosystem to build a successful service. To manage this process and constituents, we use a simple prioritization, which we have stuck to from inception. Our first priority is the end consumer; our primary focus day to day is delighting the home buyer, seller or home owner. We’re constantly building tools and services to improve the website and invest millions of dollars a year in improving our technology to figure out how to make these consumers happier.

Next in our order of priority is the real estate community: agents, brokers, franchisors and advertisers.  Our goal has been and continues to be to be the most customer centric company in the industry. We are focused on making agents and brokers happy when they come to the site by delivering a great range of free and premium tools. We have always believed that Agents and Brokers are essential to the current and future real estate process and we will continue to build products that they ask for and help them connect with consumers. While not everyone likes to be #2 in priority, I speak to many agents and brokers and while they are also focused on building their businesses and watching the bottom line, they tell me that their number one focus is delighting the home buyer and seller as well. They say that’s the best way to ensure great repeat business and to build their franchises. Sure agents and brokers want what’s best for them, but they recognize that they can be better business owners and ultimately more successful by focusing in on what’s best for the end consumer. The same goes for Trulia.

Third in our priority list are our investors, shareholders and employees who are all part owners of Trulia. We have an amazing group of employees and investors who have been with us along our short life.  While we are laser focused on making our people happy, we are also a commercial enterprise that must generate a return for our shareholders. We don’t ignore our investors, but we think that they best way to make them succeed is to make our users (consumers and the real estate community) happy – which, I’m happy to say, is what our investors think too.

Ultimately we think that our relentless focus on making our users really happy and sticking to our focus on consumer first, real estate community second and shareholders third will help to turn Trulia into a resounding long term success.

So send us your feedback; we carefully read every single item of feedback so that everyone at Trulia can help to make you happy.

Today is National Breast Cancer Awareness Day, part of the larger Breast Cancer Awareness month.  Breast cancer affects many women and their families; a woman has a 1 in 8 risk of developing breast cancer during her lifetime.  And that’s exactly why Trulians are doing our part to raise breast cancer awareness and to support Susan G Komen for the Cure.

For every Trulia Pro premium marketing subscription purchased through the end of the month, Trulia will donate the first month’s fee to Susan G Komen for the Cure.  Just use code PINK at billing to make sure your money is donated to this fantastic organization.  In addition, Trulia has donated on-site ad space to the cause and has launched an employee donation program.

Other ways you can do your part to support breast cancer awareness and help find a cure:

• Donate to a national cancer non-profit or to a local cancer treatment center
• Encourage women to check with their doctors about when to begin regular mammograms - then do them!
• Write your member of Congress to say that early detection and treatment programs be included in any national health care legislation.

I’m happy to say that my mom is a breast cancer survivor.  Let’s all do our part to make sure more women are survivors, too.

Agents: what other causes do you support in your local area?

On Thursday November 5th, 2009, Trulia, along with Trulia Mayor Carl Medford and the home sellers, is hosting a free educational, social networking and wine tasting Open House event in Fremont, California. When it comes to social media, some people refer to it as an online cocktail party. Well, we’re bringing the online connections that have been made, offline for a little party of our own.

You see, the back story here is that the home seller of this fantastic Victorian home located at 38580 Goodrich Way in Fremont, California found his real estate agent, Carl Medford, on Trulia. As one of our first 5 Trulia Mayors, Carl’s idea was to host a Trulia Voices real estate networking event at the home of one of his Trulia clients. After a little brainstorming, we decided to incorporate some educational marketing material and Wine tasting into the open house as well. So if you are from Fremont or the surrounding areas and will be in Fremont on November 5th, please stop by, we’d love to meet you face to face.

Here are the details:

• Date: Thursday November 5th, 2009
• Time: 3-5 pm - Broker and Agent educational & networking session
• Time: 5-8 pm Networking event open to all - Home Buyers, Sellers, local businesses
• Address: 38580 Goodrich Way in Fremont, California
• Meet some Trulians
• Meet Carl and the home sellers
• Learn some online marketing tips that can help you and your business
• Learn how being proactive on Trulia’s real estate social networking community can help you connect with home buyers and sellers
• Carl will share how blogging on Trulia has helped him create a significant online presence that has transformed his business.
• Meet other local Trulia Voices from Fremont and surrounding areas
• Network with Fremont area real estate agents, brokers and other professionals
  
• Enjoy the free Expresso Bar and hors devours
• Free Wente Wine tasting

If you plan on attending, please leave a comment here or register on our Facebook event page or on Eventbrite.

Trulia and CNBC have put together a list of Hedge Fund Homes with some pretty large price reductions. If you’re looking in the New York City area for an ultra high-end home that could be had at a significant multi-million dollar discount, please check out the hedge fund home slides how here.

According to CNBC:

“These lavish homes in close proximity or actually in New York City are typical of the Wall Street elite, and are also examples of some of the most significant price drops in the area over the past several months.”