Since my last year’s predictions post got a lot of views and comments, I thought I would give it another try for 2008.
- There will be little or no acquisitions in 2008. None of the sites in the housing rental space I track will be bought by large companies.
- Since Rentals.com TV ads did not work out for them, look for Primedia investors to get impatient with CSI management. Don’t get me wrong, I think the online rental advertising industry will still grow in 2008. I just think that the investors see a largely untapped crowd of owners not using CSI with the TV play gone and will want CSI to come up with another idea to get the word out.
- Rentals.com will fall from its top traffic spot and RentalHouses.com will take the lead going into the summer time when advertising hits its peak.
- RentalHomesPlus.com will stay at the #3 spot and we will see them again lower their prices from $49.
- RentalHomePros.com will come out of beta in March of 2008. I predict a very slow start for this NARPM backed company in getting NARPM members to switch from their current advertising methods to their new system.
- Look for prices to stay the same across the board (except for RentalHomesPlus). However more and more volume discounts will be handed out by the top 3 in the $15 to $20 range to property managers.
- RentVine will drop in traffic a little for the month of January, but will steadily increase traffic for the remainder of 2008.
- House.info will get hit with having too many subdomains and buying links, and will fall in the rankings.
- Look for HotPads.com to run out of funding and sell to a company that wants them just for their Flash mapping actionscript code.
- I will still be working part time on this site and loving every minute of it!
If you have a prediction you would like to share please add it below.
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12 users responded in this post
I predict:
FirstCoastRentalAds.com to dominate the Jacksonville market! He has already cornered 25% of the market. And gaining every month!
Look for this small “regional” website to grow very fast by mid 2008! I think this guy has a few tricks up his sleeve
Prediction #2 Jacksonville Jaguars win the Superbowl!
TO ROBBIE
i have just moved to the jax area from out west kansas city and if you mean the trick of listing all your rentals on craigslist.org as a few tricks to get them rented for the people who listed them on your website to think people have went to yours and view them wow i am impressed ! NOT ! i guess though that’s a good way to get fake traffic to your website so paying customers can think people really went there to your site and looked at their listings that they paid for but really saw the listing on craigslist for FREE i have nothing against what your doing listing it on craigslist as another form of listing the home i see some were in your ad where you tell them can be listed on ON OTHER SITE JUST WONDERING IF YOU TELL THEM THAT YOU WILL LSIT FOR FREE ON CRAIGSLIST ALSO i guess they dont know of other free services that will list it on there for free and tell them how many people looked at it and list it on GOOGLE BASE OODLE EDGIO AND RENTOMETER FOR FREE ALL AT ONCE
i think i counted 22 listings on there
like :
$ 795/2br-Riverside/Avondale 2 Bedroom Apartment(Riverside**FirstCoastRentalAds.com**)
iamdanareynolds,
That is what you call “marketing” Craigslist.org is one of the largest vertical websites in the world! Why would anyone not want to post ads on there website?
And Yes, My website will dynamically list my database of listings to oodle,vast,google base,hotpads…And that is only to mention a few.
And the greatest part about that is…I don’t charge my customers “extra” like some websites do!
At the end of the day….Here are my numbers in traffic percent:
70% Google search (I rock in search engines, Just in case you did not already know that)
20% Yahoo, Msn search
And the last 20% of traffic to my website is from….drum roll….
Craigslist, and the others I listed above.
So as you can see a large portion of my traffic comes from Google. The #1 search engine in the world! It has taken me years to take the spots I have in google. As a matter of fact I will even take that statement one step further.
I drive more traffic from google and craigslist and the others I listed above more than “any” other website in my market.
So, Anyone in my “regional” market that runs a business model like mine would be a blind fool not to post 20,30,40 ads a week to craigslist.
You should see the look on my property managers face when I tell them. “No problem, You don’t have to sit in your office and post ads to craigslist anymore, We do it for you”
That is what you call “closing the sale” Why do you think 90% of my customers use to list with “other” websites but now only use me for advertising there homes?
I will tell you…..Because I know how to drive targeted renters to my website…I don’t pay bloggers to write a post about my website, I don’t use “backdoor” pages in search, I use “nofollow” tags on craigslist, I don’t “buy” backlinks to my website, I don’t fool search engines with subdomains, I use what you call good marketing skills and ethical search engine tactics so my site ranks well in search.
Oh, I forgot to mention the HUGE word of mouth my company gets in my market. About 25-35 searches a day for the term “first coast rental ads”
That means people have heard about my company from other “renters”
Any questions?
Happy New year!
Robbie
A.K.A.
The big dog in Jacksonville!
Sorry, My percentages are
10% from craigslist and others.
My other prediction is:
Redneckrenter will start a leading blog!
Come on man, have some faith and make this blog a full time thing…. You can make a living from it.
Utah Renter,
Thanks for stopping by and saying hello.
I will make it a full time gig once both my girls are in school. I am having too much fun with them right now being a stay-at-home dad two days a week.
How about NARPM raises sponsorships by another $5000 a piece this year for the convention…..
Harold,
Is NARPM raising sponsorship prices? I wonder why?
My predictions are :
Dave will once again make a video with popsicle sticks
raising the cost of popsicle stick’s as high as gas prices due to other websites trying to get in to the action of making their own video’s and all ice cream makers will be forced to use waffle cones
Super,
I think your prediction will come true.