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Realtor.com Neighborhoods

Columbus Ohio Have you seen the new neighborhoods on Realtor.com ?

What do you think of it? Nationally Realtor.com has 34 markets now where they have neighborhoods. How does Realtor.com look in your market? How is Realtor.com Neighborhoods the same or different than what ActiveRain intended Localism.com to be?

Will you build neighborhoods for Realtor.com? Do you think consumers will build neighborhoods for Realtor.com?

Realtor.com has 88 Columbus neighborhoods listed so far. In Columbus Ohio some of what Realtor.com is calling neighborhoods are cities (suburbs) and some are Columbus neighborhoods. As they say in the video, it's a wiki. Realtors, community members can go in an define what neighborhoods are.

Inman Video about Neighborhoods being introduced on Realtor.com and more...

Real Estate Video by - Real Estate Blogger

I looked at one Central Ohio area on ColumbusBestBlog.com Worthington. On Realtor.com the neighborhood they are identifying as Worthington is the Worthington ZIP code so it includes part of the City of Columbus, Worthington School District but not all of the Worthington School District in the City of Columbus, just the areas in the 43085 ZIP code.

The average home price Realtor.com states for Worthington bears no resemblance to reality. They say it has an average price of $199,900. The average list price for the area Realtor.com is identifying as Worthington is $234,926. It varies greatly between the part of the ZIP code that is in the City of Worthington and the part that is in the City of Columbus.

The Average Rental Price for Worthington sounds crazy too but I have no way to check it out.

Much of the neighborhood info on Realtor.com neighborhoods for Columbus comes from Wikipedia. One of the city of Columbus neighborhoods on the Realtor.com list is Hungarian Village. I have always wondered when I see Hungarian Village in the list of neighborhoods in the Wikipedia entry for Columbus Ohio if it is someone joking or if historically there was an area on the south end of Columbus where Hungarians settled and someone would like to see Hungarian Village designated a neighborhood. Realtor.com gives a map of Hungarian Village and shows the homes that are listed in that area.

Hungarian Village Neighborhood Map - Columbus Ohio

I know I searched the Columbus Board of Realtors MLS (multiple listing service) once for listings and could not find anything listed as Hungarian Village. Columbus has a neighborhood named Italian Village and a neighborhood named German Village. I have never heard of Hungarian Village in Columbus except on Wikipedia. The neighborhood info Realtor.com has for Columbus all seems to be "Source: Wikipedia.org"

The Hungarian Village nieighborhood inrigues me... now this is outside of my area of expertise and I don't want to be Googlable for neighborhoods outside my area of expertise... but I believe I know some legitimate Columbus Ohio neighborhoods in the area that Realtor.com is identifying as Hungarian Village. Legitimate neighborhoods... I mean people say "I live in ____" or "I want to buy a house in_______" or "I have a house to sell in _____"

The price Realtor.com has as Average Rental Price for Hungarian Village seems crazy low to me....

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Posted by Maureen McCabe Central OH Homes on 11/20/2007 06:46 AM

Comments (15)

columbus ohio, central ohio, neighborhoods, realtorcom

Originally posted at: Columbus Ohio real estate : Realtor.com Neighborhoods

This post has been included in Ohio Information Franklin County, OH Information

15 Comments on Realtor.com Neighborhoods

NOV

2007

Maureen,

Seems to look good..but in my opinion out of experience usuing both premium and non premium services in the past with Realtor.com...i never got anything out of it personally myself. I'm sure oit works for some but Ive been more successful using other venues for leads. But I understand the concept.

What's that old saying, ALL REAL ESTATE IS LOCAL??

It naturally follows that real estate information is best obtained by LOCAL REALTORS and not folks sitting at a computer in Chicago.

Realtor.com invested in what is cute, not what is accurate. What a waste of resources and not helpful to "on the ground" REALTOS at all because not only do we have to gain the confidence of buyers, we have to oversome innacurate information coming out of Chicago.

Thanks Neal and Lenn for the comments.

They want YOU and me and the people of the Hungarian Village neighborhood in Columbus Ohio and other Central Ohio 'hoods to step forward and post it.... you of course with your expertise in the MD and VA markets, Lenn ...Neal your expertise in Western Florida....you both value Localism, get business from posting neighborhood info to ActiveRain / Localism, could you see Realtor.com Neighborhoods with all it's traffic being a valuable place to a real estate agent?

I don't know if data can be accurate for the Central Ohio market because of the way school districts and municipality boundary lines don't mesh with ZIP codes. Often when you use ZIP codes to define areas in the Central Ohio market you get a mishmash of useless information IMHO. It's the same with Trulia and others...

The average rental prices on Realtor.com that I've seen are wild in our area.

Thanks for pointing this out, Maureen. Guess I don;t pay too much attention to REALTOR.com except when I have a listing. Not surprised to see this - after all there is neighborhood info n lots of places - eNeighborhoods, Zillow and so on - someother sites provide much more information. Data seem to be consistent for the towns I checked with what you see in most of these sites. I suspect the data are off in some cases - certainly the census is old (2000). Can't comment on the rents but some of the numbers they report seem very high.

Sipz in our area can sometimes work well, but many communities have a variety of neighborhoods that vary dramatically in terms of housing types and prices, and other factors. And, like Ohio, the school boundaries do not mesh with the town boundaries and that gets very confusing I imagine there are errors just like on Localism, where some neighborhoods are list that are not even in the towns where they are listed.

Our MLS now has a blog to collect info from agents on the neighborhoods they want to be used for the searching in pull-down menus that will be added to the zip code search. Some neighborhoods, say a subdivision, are well defined but many are not and it seems to depend on what the locals say, or want to believe. Should be interesting.

Jeff

we are going to no mls areas as of January 1, 2008. I gotta work on my saved searches for clients. I wonder if agents who are uncomfortable with pinpoint mapping will go with ZIP code and school district... to set up searches at least until they get comfortable with identifying search areas by map. As I understand it, that is still an option.

We kind of had the ability to search by map but it had to be rectangular and was not all that accurate before.

Someone in my office who used to work IT was giving the one member of our MLS committee who works out of our office an earful about what is wrong with the direction our MLS is headed. I worry about agents who are set in their ways... we knew the MLS areas, what was in an MLS area.

It will be interesting. Thanks for the comment Jeff.

Hi Maureen - thanks for the heads up on this. I'm not too keen on the notion of US building REALTOR.com like they're wanting us to. I have an enhanced presence on there, and I populate my listings fully on there with the enhanced package, but I don't think I care to help them build their site so they can turn around and charge us a small fortune to actually be able to be found there.

I have not watched the video as yet, but I will. I just got a little incensed at the thought of them expecting us to build up what they're doing now. Isn't that what they get the big bucks for??

Ann

but Ann if they build it is not participatory, it is just a static website, so they have introduced Realtor.com blogging and now Realtor.com neighborhoods for us to participate with the public on their site and build more traffic for them. They do have lots of traffic, maybe gung ho community members will build the neighborhoods for Realtor.com

I keep wondering if I need a disclaimer that I am not a Realtor.com fan... probably not.

I had not noticed. I spend as little time on R.com as possible. But it does sound like they are trying to get more seo friendly.

Parked, to go explore and then come back to comment.

I don't go to Realtor.com if I can help it. I saw it on Inman. I don't understand what he (Samuelson?) is saying at the end of the video about the addresses being Googlable but the content not being on Google?? I will have to listen to it again to see whether I can understand it. I assume that is for SEO... and all I can say is ITS ABOUT TIME! I guess the blogs and the neighborhood Wiki will make Realtor.com get spidered. Thanks for the comment MF.

Let me know what you think about it Michelle. Does your market have neighborhoods on Realtor.com? Accurate?

NOV

2007

Maureen, I've noted a trend on Realtor.com enhanced services posts from other Realtors. Hardly anyone seems to see the value for the money spent. Maybe Realtor.com is struggling worse than we thought to bring in more revenue. I know their web traffic has been declining which, to me at least, was surprising. Thanks for all your research into Neighborhoods.

Gary do you do the enhanced services from Realtor.com?

I don't think I knew their traffic was going down, that surprises me. I know they have competition from the Zillows and the Trulias that they did not have two years ago and the market has changed.... I watched another Inman video, Joel Burslem interviewed I want to say it was someone with NAR talking about the supremacy of their site (and I believe he was talking Realtor.com in comparison to others on the web...) more traffic.

I did a post on my real blog this morning about another Columbus neighborhood on the new Realtor.com site. The blurb about the neighborhood, Clintonville identifies it as a village in Summit County (Akron area) not an area on the north-side of Columbus in Franklin County. I am sure they will get that fixed... just a little oops, it could happen to anyone who does not know Ohio... The description is taken from Wikipedia. I am pretty sure there is an extensive entry about Clintonville on Wikipedia because I have quibbled with it before. The description of the village in Summit County is for Clinton.

For Clintonville the Realtor.com site again has a crazy low average rental price. The average price for the Clintonville homes for sale is low too because it looks like they averaged everything in an MLS area to come up with the price, there are a number of more affordable neighborhoods on the periphery of what is considered Clintonville.

Thanks for the comment. It will be interesting to see if the Neighborhoods on R.com become an area where people participate.

NOV

2007

Maureen, It looks like Realtor.com is pulling its information from Wikkipedia. The description that they have provided for Raleigh comes straight from Wikipedia. In addition, they've piecemealed a few surrounding towns. The information isn't perfect but it's definitely a start.

Thanks for the comment. All the neighborhoods I've seen in Central Ohio were Wikipedia too. I found another suburb where they said a Central Ohio suburb of Columubs is in a county that is down near Cincinnati.

Would you post a neighborhood on Realtor.com Tracy?

NOV

not able to get into the neighborhoods on R.com anymore.

Got in still the same 90 Columbus neighborhoods, still Wikipedia descriptions!

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