If you’re on a desktop, how many tabs do you have open right now? More than six? Me too. In fact, I have about 20 open at any time, and you probably do as well.
Each time a new tab opens in my Chrome browser, the Momentum app shows me the time, a gorgeous high res image of some far off land, the temperature, and my to do list that I never fill out. It’s beautiful. In fact, when I’m leaving my desk, I simply open a new tab so it’s beautiful when I return.
These are missed opportunities, guys
But each of these is a missed opportunity for the real estate industry. Imagine every time someone opened yet another new tab, their screen is filled with a home that meets their pre-determined specifications like zip code, price range, and home size. Very simply, each new tab load could be a result from all of the big search portals, or one of the portals could steal this idea and implement it overnight (or they all could independently do this).
The psychology and data behind this is simple: home buyers begin their search online, months in advance, and a great deal of dreaming goes into the process, breeding thousands of “lookie lous” each year (which is the nexus behind Zillow Digs and Doorsteps Swipe, by the way).
What we imagine the new tab would look like
(Click any image to enlarge.)
The features are ridiculously simple
We’ve lovingly dubbed it “HouseLuv” which is probably taken, but being used for this story as a placeholder.
HouseLuv launches automatically when a new tab is opened, and the app is hosted in the Google Chrome store as a free extension.
Clicking the yellow button saves the home to the person’s account, be it on realtor.com or in a running list of links on HouseLuv which can be edited elsewhere.
“Click for more home info” takes you directly to the listing, wherever it is hosted, obviously, and the arrow on the right will load another result if someone feels like browsing.
Now it’s your turn
We think the Doorsteps team would dominate at this since they’ve already produced Swipe, but anyone can pick up this idea and run with it. In fact, multiple brands could do it simultaneously, or some brainchild can pull in data from the big boys.
We’ve done absolutely no due diligence on this, so it could violate all sorts of patents, but we doubt it, so if this tickles your fancy, feel free to steal the idea and let us know when you have so we can cover it.
Good luck!
