SAN FRANCISCO, May 28, 2009 – Trulia.com, www.trulia.com, the best place to start a real estate search, today released the results of a survey conducted on their behalf by Harris Interactive® showing that U.S. home buyers* are twice as likely to use online sources than print sources to find open house information. 62 percent of U.S. home buyers reported using/planning to use online sites to find open houses, compared to 53 percent who use/plan to use information from real estate agents, 36 percent who use/plan to use neighborhood signs and less than one-third (31 percent), who reported using/planning to use print sources, including newspapers and local flyers to find open houses.
“The real estate section of the weekend newspaper is no longer the go-to resource for open houses,” said Sami Inkinen, co-founder and COO of Trulia. “Home buyers are increasingly going online to not only search for the most up to date listings but also to obtain rich information about the neighborhood, schools, and local shops. Both the Trulia.com site and our iPhone application allow home buyers to search for open houses in neighborhoods that interest them, plus they can sign up for email alerts on our website letting them know when new open houses are listed. The print newspaper can’t offer that type of experience.”
“We used to see home buyers walk into open houses with a newspaper in their hands,” said Aman Daro, VP of Integrated Marketing at McGuire Real Estate in San Francisco, “but now they walk in with print outs of their search on the Web. What’s more, consumers are walking in very educated from their online research – they know details about the property and the neighborhood, and are more highly engaged in the process than the causal lookers of years past.”
Key Survey Results
• Key sources for open house information: 62 percent of home buyers reported using/planning to use online sources to find open houses, compared to 53 percent who use/plan to use information from real estate agents, 36 percent who use/plan to use neighborhood signs and less than one-third, 31 percent, who reported using/planning to use print sources, including newspapers and local flyers
• Online as primary resource: 41 percent of home buyers cited online sources as their primary resource, 14 percent cited print sources as their primary resource
• 91 percent of home buyers attended/plan to attend open houses during the home buying process
Trulia began displaying open house information in March 2008, enabling consumers to filter search results and set up free email alerts for upcoming open houses. The number of listings with open house information on Trulia grew by 65 percent from January-April 2009; usage of Trulia’s open house filters grew by 39 percent over the same period. Home buyers can also see upcoming open houses for areas in which they been looking on the Trulia.com homepage newsfeed. Making it easier to find open houses on the go, Trulia’s free iPhone application allows users to filter for open houses in either their current or other specified location for the same day or the next weekend.
This April 2009 survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive via its QuickQuery(SM) online omnibus service on behalf of Trulia between April 23-27, 2009 among 2,715 U.S. adults aged 18 years and older, of whom 192 purchased a home in the past 12 months or plan to purchase a home in the next 12 months. Results were weighted to be representative of the total U.S. adult population on the basis of region, age within gender, education, household income, race/ethnicity, and propensity to be online. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact Katie Wickham at Katie@trulia.com.
*For the purposes of this survey we have defined “home buyers” as U.S. adults ages 18+ who have purchased a home in the past 12 months or who plan to purchase a home in the next 12 months (n=192).
About Trulia, Inc.
Trulia, Inc., has revolutionized real estate search by offering a rich, intuitive user experience to help consumers find homes for sale, track local price trends, compare properties and neighborhood data all at the hyper-local level. Trulia Voices, the largest real estate community on the web, allows home buyers, sellers, agents and real estate enthusiasts to ask questions, receive advice and blog on topics such as the buying and selling process, foreclosures, refinancing and more. Trulia’s user-friendly search can also be accessed on more than 170 websites as a result of our media partnerships. Trulia has received a number of awards, including the 2009 Webby Award for real estate. For more information, visit http://www.trulia.com/.
About Harris Interactive
Harris Interactive is a global leader in custom market research. With a long and rich history in multimodal research, powered by our science and technology, we assist clients in achieving business results. Harris Interactive serves clients globally through our North American, European and Asian offices and a network of independent market research firms. For more information, please visit www.harrisinteractive.com.
