RISMEDIA, Oct. 13, 2008-Trulia has created a new business development group to form partnerships with Multiple Listing Service providers. According to the company, the move is in response to growing interest from MLSs and Association of Realtors® who want to assure their members’ listings are available and accurately represented to consumers searching for real estate online.
Mark Weiss, director of business development for real estate, has been hired to lead this new initiative. Weiss is an Internet marketing veteran with companies including Yahoo! HotJobs, Federated Media Publishing and Eurekster, where he led business development making partnerships with Fortune 500 companies such as Forbes.com and Time Inc. Trulia has also retained industry veteran Lloyd Graves, president and founder of RealAlliance Consulting, LLC, as a consultant to assist in building the new MLS/Association of Realtors® Partnership division. Lloyd brings 33 years of real estate industry experience with Supra Products (now GE Security), NWMLS and HouseValues, Inc.
“Mark’s success record of growing vertical search companies is outstanding and combining his talents with Lloyd’s 33 years of real estate industry experience provides a powerful duo to lead our new group,” said Sami Inkinen, COO of Trulia. “Consumers want the most complete and accurate information possible when searching for homes online. Combining new MLS partnerships with Trulia’s user-friendly interface will allow consumers to have the best real estate search experience on the Internet.”
Trulia offers MLSs and Associations several unique marketing and educational benefits, including:
– Syndication of listings to Trulia.com, with 5 million unique monthly users and 250% annual traffic growth, at no cost
– Trulia’s partnership with Threewide (ListHub) and Point2 make syndicating listings an easy process for both MLSs and their members
– Free consumer facing search functionality for MLSs and Association websites. An example of this can be seen at http://www.silvar.org/
– Free website tools for your site that includes innovative new applications like Trulia Stats, TruliaMap, TruliaVoices, and Trulia Searchbox. More information on these tools can be found at http://www.trulia.com/tools
– Free reporting tools and online profiles to help MLS and Association members boost their online presence and brand
– Valuable educational classes in a variety of online marketing topics, including how to rise above the competition in the crowded online real estate space, and how to make the most of free opportunities to connect with serious buyers and sellers online.
“With the fear of the Internet now put to rest, our agents and brokers realize that the name of the game is maximum exposure,” said Russ Bergeron, CEO of SoCal MLS. “At SoCalMLS we have made it easy for our customers to be able to syndicate their listings to sites like Trulia. Via ListHub they can easily control the destinations of their listings, and in return get back statistics on how effective their advertising venues are. The increased number of eyeballs has resulted in increased website traffic for our listing brokers. SoCalMLS is pleased to provide services like this because we recognize the value of sites like Trulia.”
According to the company, over 15 MLSs and Associations are now providing member benefits through Trulia, including: Silicon Valley Association of Realtors (SILVAR), MLS Property Information Network (MLSPIN), the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), Southern California MLS (SoCalMLS) and TheMLS.
For more information, e-mail MLS@Trulia.com or visit www.trulia.com.
