Will Amazon Be Your Next Real Estate Broker… Parked at Whole Foods?
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Amazon.com, the online, no-bricks-or-mortar, mega e-commerce consumer sales site that just bought Texas-based Whole Foods, may be getting into the real estate business.
Holy canoli — I just had a thought: What better place to advertise local listings than the local grocery store!
Inman reported yesterday that, on Tuesday, while we were all thinking of what to buy on Amazon Prime Day, Amazon very quietly debuted a new page called “Hire a Realtor.” It was under the Home and Business Services section. You clicked over, entered your zip code, then got a “Coming Soon” message.
But by Wednesday afternoon, the page had been taken down.
Facebook and Google, by the way, have hurt the publishing industry so much that newspapers have banded together to ask the Justice Department for a legal shield to fight them. The News Media Alliance is being created in order to negotiate with major online platforms like Google and Facebook, because they are killing it in the digital ad spending world. Which means, they are killing newspaper’s ad revenues. “A recent report from eMarketer estimated that Google alone will account for 40.7 percent of the $83 million that will be spent on U.S. digital ads in 2017, more than double Facebook’s share. No other company will come even close.”
Overall weekday circulation for newspapers declined from around 62 million in 1990 to an estimated 34.6 million in 2016, down 8% from the previous year, according to Pew Research Center. The media research organization also estimates that digital circulation for several major publications experienced flat growth in 2016. Advertising revenue for the industry as a whole totaled $18 billion in 2016, down 10% year-over-year. At its height in 2006, the industry brought in $46 million in ad sales.
“They are the first tech enabled brokerage to go public so it’s a pretty big event in my opinion if you believe that technology is changing real estate,” said Aaron Graf, CEO of New York-based brokerage LG Fairmont. “If the IPO is successful, I think you’ll see more venture capital money flowing into real estate.”
Trulia: 23 million
Yahoo! Homes: 20 million
Realtor.com: 18 million (owner by the National Association of Realtors)
Redfin: 6 million
Homes.com: 5 million
ApartmentGuide: 2.5 million
Curbed: 2 million
Remax: 1.8 million
Hotpads: 1.75 million (owned by Zillow)
Eventually I will use my credit card for 2 things:
1. All commerce goes thru Amazon- PERIOD !
2. Pay my estimated quarterly taxes.
Could this be the future?
I really hope so.
Jeff.
Come back to Princeton
We have the dirt and buildings you need or a whole town if you need one .