Opportunity – Real Estate

I’m knee-deep in the home buying process, which has been rather stressful for me (and I rarely get stressed).  I think it has been rough because I’ve never been through this process before, and the decisions made will impact me for the rest of my life in a way that no other choice to date has.  Choosing a school and eventually, a job was big decisions but hardly stressful.  The home buying process has been far different.

There are many real estate sites (Trulia.com, Redfin.com, and Zillow.com), which have been very helpful.  They provide solid base information on properties, but they don’t have communities comprised of valuable members.  They don’t afford me the ability to ask a question and receive a trustworthy response in return.  Trulia has built a community aimed at providing Q&A and Advice. Still, the people on it don’t seem credible since every answer is accompanied by a phone number to a real estate agent begging for you to call them. I think there is a serious opportunity in this space to provide a valuable platform for users willing and ready to shell out major bucks.

This has led me to appreciate Quora.com more.  Quora is a Q&A site from a few ex-Facebook employees, which, as of now, focuses on technology (all aspects including law.  Several legal questions and answers, in particular, have been very helpful.

I was skeptical after I first tried it out, thinking it was just another Q&A site.  However, the site has grown on me with time. That’s because it has taken some time for people to learn how to utilize it best, and for it to provide value to visitors, it needs to have a valuable user-base (smart, educated, and experienced professionals) willing to share their knowledge. That’s precisely what Quora has now, and while its number of users has grown, so has the number of topics, questions, and answers. Quora is a fantastic, valuable tool, but I don’t think it’s because of the functionality they provide; it’s because of its members.

I don’t know how Quora gained such valuable users, but I hope to know soon by asking that same question on the site (click here). If Trulia had a comparably useful user base, I’d be far less stressed about the home buying process.