The Best Thing to Happen to Real Estate Since the World Wide Web

… or maybe not?

At agentgenius.com, one agent advises against hiring penguins to represent your home, using arguments such as:

Penguins believe that the Internet is a fad and refuse to make their presence here. (I know this because I guarantee that NO penguin will log on and actually dispute me. So, if you are a penguin, and you have embraced the internet as a tool in your business, please speak up … I’ll even email you a fish if you leave a comment here.) Do they not believe that over 80% of all home searches start online? Oh well …

Obviously Redfin believes that, and so entrenched in my webby world am I that I forget that once upon a time people would likely have argued that the Internet had no place in real estate.

So it is with this sense of open-mindedness and hope for the future that I approached the On Demand real estate channel. VOD Real Estate lists homes for sale on one of those high-numbered channels up near the music. Potential home buyers can view homes from the convenience of their own couch!

Intrigued by this new marketing avenue, I remote controlled my way through the menu to arrive at the video for Seattle homes under $500,000. The (criminally bad) music loop piped up, and a slideshow began. The first home was a condo, and the photos were crammed and stretched to fill the graphic template. Then the slideshow ended. One home, that’s it.

I tried the other category for homes in Seattle: Over $500,000. This time I endured the sound loop through three homes–in different price ranges and from different realtors–before the menu screen returned.

Do I think this is the next wave of real estate marketing? Hardly. Not without significant improvements. Like a broader selection: of choices such as price range and home size, and particularly of a wider selection of homes. Like, say, the Internet does. Oh, and, I don’t know, maybe someone to answer the phone during business hours when I call to ask how much this service costs would be helpful, too.

Integrating our televisions and our computers is a reality for more and more people. One day this point of distinction could become moot. But for now, the Internet certainly beats out cable on the quality of its real estate advertising.