• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer, November 6, 2014

In line with the “sort of, kind of” recovery in the rest of the economy, the real estate market is rebounding-ish, at least in some places, moderately, raising hopes that it will continue to gain some momentum and bring more new listings on the market. In any event real estate brokers are laying the groundwork with a new social platforms that allow realtors, buyers, and sellers to connect and share information about properties on dedicated forums.

This week Coldwell Banker Real Estate unveiled a new social platform that enables sellers to take a more active role in marketing their homes by sharing photos, videos, and personal stories on their listing page. On the other side the platform also allows buyers to rate the accuracy of shared content, write their own notes about property, share listing feedback with friends and family, as well as with real estate agents and sellers.

Coldwell Banker senior vice president of marketing Sean Blankenship explained: “Seller participation fills a void in the real estate process. Up until now, digital real estate platforms have lacked the tools to truly capture a home's character and personality. Our new platform will now solve the age-old question ‘What if the walls could tell a story?’” Coldwell cited the results of a survey of 2,013 U.S. adults which found that 64% would like to be able to share this kind of content with potential buyers.

Social media in general is playing a bigger role in home-buying decisions, with over three quarters of homebuyers using it during the process of searching for and buying a home, up from 52% in 2011, according to a new survey of homebuyers by the California Association of Realtors. 

Overall 44% of homebuyers said they used social media to get buying tips and suggestions from friends, and the same proportion said they used it to gather information about neighborhoods from their friends and 42% looked for an agent’s Facebook page. Meanwhile 35% used social media to get agent referrals, 33% to gather information on a neighborhood’s “lifestyle,” and 31% researched neighborhood amenities. A somewhat smaller proportion, 20%, looked for an agent’s YouTube page.