Real estate is one of the country’s largest industries in terms of spending power, having spent nearly $27 billion on advertising in 2016, according to research firm Borrell Associates. Social media has taken a while to capitalize, perhaps intimidated by the industry’s sheer breadth. That changed dramatically in 2017.

Facebook recently upped its focus on real estate, and with its recently launched product Dynamic Ads for Real Estate, it aims to help residential brokerages expand their reach — a market that, until now, had been cornered by Zillow.

Facebook’s Dynamic Ads debuted in 2015, largely with a focus on the retail and travel industries as the network turned its focus on mobile revenue in recent years. The new tool is now available for real estate agents.

Facebook accesses search data from agents and brokers to understand the preferences of users who have visited their websites. The social media outlet then populates users’ feeds with ads for homes for sale or rent, featuring information such as images, price, address, property type, availability and whether the home is for sale or for rent. The ads will appear on Facebook and Instagram and link back to the agent’s site or app.

“Real estate is an area we’re betting big on as a company,” Facebook’s real estate and financial services chief Keith Watts told Inman News. “We think it’s content that consumers want to see.”

Trulia steps forward

Not to be outdone, Trulia, which is part of Zillow Group, recently debuted a new feature on its mobile application that lets users browse listings in a style similar to Facebook. Though it’s aesthetically similar to Facebook’s newsfeed, Trulia’s new feature doesn’t stop with ads — it includes original content from real estate experts, reports, data and analysis.

“We’ve seen a big shift in how people search for homes, with many starting their search on their mobile phones,” Trulia said in a blog post. “House hunters today are often looking up homes as they visit open houses, or powering up our apps to see what’s on the market currently near them when they’re out and about. This makes it all the more important to provide you with a personalized search experience on mobile.”

Punchbowl, Nextdoor join the club

Right on the heels of Facebook’s unveiling of Dynamic Ads for Real Estate were Punchbowl and Nextdoor, which both announced new efforts to tap into the housing market. Punchbowl’s new Modern Stamp product lets real estate agents send messages to potential homebuyers about future events, such as open houses.

Nextdoor, which started in 2010 as a place where neighbors could communicate with each other, a sort of semi-private network for which users are invited based on their address. When people move into new homes, they receive a postcard from Nextdoor inviting them to join the group and set up a personal profile.

The network recently announced it’s branching out by launching a platform on which real estate professionals can connect with residents of certain areas. Agents and brokers can create official business pages on the site and pay to buy branded listings that appear when someone searches for homes in the area and sponsor neighborhood sections.