Prospering Amidst the Real Estate Meltdown: Trulia CEO Pete Flint (Part 4)

SM: You were also providing information regarding the price surrounding properties had sold for. Where was that data coming from?

PF: Initially it was coming from listing agents who said they sold a property. They were promoting the fact that they had sold the property, so we simply tagged the property as sold and gave the credit to the real estate agent. Soon after we started licensing that data from county assessor offices, and we publish from there now.

SM: How much coverage were you able to build up over time? Did you start on a state-by-state basis?

PF: We initially launched in California. We then went to New York, Florida and Texas.

SM: Do you have America fully covered now?

PF: Yes. Every single state is covered. We have the vast majority of properties for sale in every market in the US.

SM: Aside from listings and price information, what other information do you provide and where do you get it?

PF: The evolution went from search listings of individual properties to cities and neighborhoods and the data side of real estate. If you are wondering if you should buy in Menlo Park or San Francisco, you really need to understand the data side, the dynamics. They are very different on a qualitative level. We give the data behind the individual markets.

The next evolution was then to community. No search engine or database at the time could ever answer some of the community questions. Everything from schools in a particular neighborhood to first-time homebuyer stimulus offers in certain areas. We even got into questions of whether a new store being built in a neighborhood was going to increase or decrease prices. We put those questions out to the community in 2007. We launched a Q&A service, which offers a way to answer those community questions in a way nothing else can.

SM: Is it like Yahoo! Answers, just specific to real estate?

PF: Exactly. There are many Q&A services but the differences are around the depth of knowledge. We categorize by location. If I just want to know about questions in my neighborhood, I can look them up by ZIP code. I can also receive email alerts for specific questions asked in that neighborhood.

SM: On the business model side, is it a pure search engine model?

PF: It has evolved a lot. We launched at the same time Google was going public, and they had a phenomenal model. Initially we were very keen on the idea of cost by click. It appealed to our analytical nature. It has since evolved very differently.

Today we make revenue from selling ads on an impression basis to local companies or national brands. We also sell subscription services to professional users. If you are a real estate agent you can buy Trulia Pro for $39 a month, which gives you a marketing solution. It provides feature listings, agent spotlights, premium positioning and agent directories.

SM: How many real estate agents are there in the United States?

PF: There are 2 million licenses but about 1.2 million who are realtors with the National Association of Realtors. There are even fewer who are practicing.

SM: What percentage of that total addressable market have you been able to penetrate with your pro service?

PF: The pro service is very new. It was listed just six months ago. It has been an early success, but we don’t look at it in terms of market penetration yet. We do have around 350,000 real estate agents who are using our services. They have created profiles within the site. That is a market we can conceivably monetize very well.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Prospering Amidst the Real Estate Meltdown: Trulia CEO Pete Flint
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