What a difference a few years can make in the world of online real estate! Just over two years ago, blogging in real estate was the source of some discussion, but little adoption. Industry innovators including Brad Inman led the way to mass adoption with the Inman Blog for industry insiders, covering just about every provocative topic on residential real estate you could think of. Lockhart Steele helped define real estate blogging by neighborhood with the launch of Curbed, now boasting an audience of “200,000 real-estate obsessed New Yorkers” plus readers across the country who talk and read about sales and rental prices, celebrity deals, new developments, neighborhood gossip and more. Agents and industry commentators followed with the introduction of regional blogs where people sound off ideas and observations on what’s happening at a local level in real estate.

And today, a quick search for “real estate blogs” on Google Blog generates roughly 815,800 results. Not bad when Blogging Systems Vice President of Marketing Paul Chaney reported to me that his most-asked question by agents last Fall at the 2005 REALTORS® Conference and Expo was: ‘What IS a blog?”

Now, the world of blogging gets super interesting when you have a top U.S. broker launch an internal blog to create a sense of community among its agent base. Enter Sherry Chris, COO of Prudential CA/NV/TX. Chris was an early adopter of Trulia.com to help promote her agent’s listings online. Word has it this long-time advocate of technology has just launched an internal blog to talk about strategic developments at Prudential, offer her more than 3,000 agents a companywide forum to discuss real estate issues and challenges, share success stories and get a pulse on what’s happening “on the street.”

We all know the challenge of avoiding one-sided communication when you’re interacting with a widespread network or team. Sounds like Chris is taking the idea of “neighborhood” to heart.

While it was Peter Townshend and The Who that recorded this infamous little ditty, it is actually The Rolling Stones that continue to be wildly successful amongst several distinct generations of fans since the band first formed in 1962 – over 44 years ago!

So, what’s their secret? How can the real estate industry be as successful marketing to each of the different generations that make up our current population of consumers?

This was by far the most interesting topic at the RIS Media Leadership conference we participated in last week in New York City.

John Ansbach from Recon Intelligence Services gave a riveting talk about the four generations of consumers in the market today, their core values and the key drivers that dictate how they spend their money. Whether you are marketing a home, a pair of jeans or a rock band, it’s important to have a message that caters to and resonates with all of them.

The four generations and their key values:

Civics: 55 to 58 million strong, Civics are consumers ages 61 and older. Their key values are dedication and sacrifice. The generation who lived through World War II and whose parents lived through the Great Depression, Civics are always saving for the next downturn. The goal is to help them feel ok spending their hard earned dollars.

Key Message — let them know “You have sacrificed long enough. You deserve to reward yourself.”

Boomers: 78 million strong, Boomers are ages 42 to 60 and have long been touted as the single largest generation in history. The key driver with Boomers is living life to its fullest. “Boomers are too cool to retire” says Ansbach. “You’re not selling them a home, but a home base or launch pad for vacations, adventure and new experiences.”

Key Message — your pitch should revolve around helping them transition into the next stage of their (very exciting) lives.

Generation X: 48 million strong, Gen X’ers are ages 30 to 41. Their key driver is fierce independence! As latchkey kids, Ansbach defines X’ers as “the group that believes that given enough coffee and access to Google they can learn to fly the space shuttle over a long weekend.” The worst thing an agent can say: “you need me.”

Key Message — tell them, “We know you could do this yourself given enough time, but we’re here to make your life easier.”

Generation Y: Ages 12 to 29, perhaps the most surprising revelation is that Gen Y’ers are 73 million strong! In addition to being the most tech savvy, their key driver is a need to feel special. As kids, their parents showered them with rewards for everything from loosing a tooth to winning a swim match. The Army actually changed their slogan for this generation from “be all you can be” to “be an Army of 1.”

Key Message — focus on how your product (or the home that you are selling) makes them feel unique, different and special.

Generation X and Y together represent 80% of all first time home buyers. So while we are spending all our time marketing to Boomers, their tech savvy children and grandchildren will increasingly have purchasing power to rival their elders.

Maybe the secret to The Stones success all these years is that they figured out how to rock each successive generation while The Who (who is great in its own right, but certainly not The Stones) was too busy talking to their own generation!

We often hear people ask why successful brokers such as Prudential Fox and Roach, Weichert, RE/MAX Equity Group and Keyes, among others, have decided to make Trulia.com their marketing partner.

The most recent spur of inquiries came after Realogy’s ERA announced a listings relationship earlier this month. The industry chatter will likely continue now that we’ve partnered with GMAC Home Services Company-Owned Real Estate to market their listings as well.

If you really want to get an unbiased view, don’t ask us; ask one of our many partners. Still, I’m going to share my biased opinion, because I believe in our model and our commitment to foster trusted relationships with our broker partners based on cost-efficient marketing value that’s incremental to their current marketing efforts,

When we first started Trulia, we enlisted a talented team of engineers to create a user–friendly online service for consumers to easily search through the vast amounts of real estate information across the Web. And we would do it by assisting real estate professionals in advertising their homebuyers’ listings online by pointing consumers back to their own Web sites.

As a new entrant into the market, we heard numerous strategies about how we should build our model to avoid the “traditional industry” vs “online vendor” battle. But we preferred to do things the old-fashioned way–by asking well respected industry leaders for their counsel. Our philosophy remains simple:

ASK what the industry wants in an online real estate company
LISTEN to multiple sources of input
TEST new ideas to see what is most effective
DELIVER on promises made

In the past year alone, we’ve learned an incredible amount through this model and will continue to do so in the future. With the input of our industry partners, we will continue to focus on scaling a solid, sustainable business model that will add clear value to consumers, brokers and agents alike.

If our business model and the value we can deliver are not clear to you, or if you have an idea that you think we should implement, please let us know.

I grew up in the Old World, where it’s not uncommon to run into 1000-year-old churches and 300-year-old farmhouses, and after my folks bought a turn-of-the-20th-century home with 2-foot-thick stone walls and giant staircases, I was bitten by the big-old-house bug. Then I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, which is crawling with gorgeous old Victorians, Tudor revivals and other old buildings, and I thought I’d share some of the architectural gems we have on the East Bay. Here are three of my current favorites, in celebrity-deathmatch style.

On the left: a lovely 1895 Vic that has Marcuse and Remmel’s fingerprints all over it (though I wasn’t able to ascertain who the architects were). Check out the lovely detailing. Current and past owners seem to have taken very good care of it.

On the right: an adorable early 20c Tudor revival with a pointy witch hat, brown britches and red suspenders:

In the center: a fantastic 1910 mansion on a huge lot that’s to die for:

I’m fortunate enough to see all these beauties every day on my way to work at Trulia. Beat the pants off McMansions, don’t they?