John L. Scott Real Estate, a large Northwest Realtor, has launched a new tool to help potential home buyers share their listings with friends and families. The new tool, JLSConnect, has some merits, but also has some definite weaknesses.

Using JLSconnect, John L. Scott provides increased customer value during the process of shopping for a home. Users can log in to their Property Tracker account on JohnLScott.com, save homes they like as a favorites list, and then easily share those favorites with others. Users can also see others’ favorites that they have been invited to view, and can post and view comments on individual properties in both their own and others’ favorites lists. Users can see which of their contacts are online through integration with Windows Live Presence and can initiate a Windows Live Messenger session to collaborate with them at any time.

“We’re making it extremely easy for someone to find a property they like, share it with others, and get feedback—without having to cut and paste or share the same user name and password,” says Giles. “Not only does JLSconnect provide increased convenience, but it can help buyers to make faster decisions—potentially enabling them to find the right house and make an offer on it before someone else does. Although the solution is optimized for buyers, it’s useful to sellers as well, in that they can use it to keep an eye on other homes that are on the market.”  via Press Release.

Now the ability to have a list of homes that one can share with friends and family in one place is great. The ability to comment on the homes is also an excellent idea and has great potential. But the idea that this is a social networking experience is, ummm, dated.

Being built on a closed system and needing a Microsoft Live ID is circa 2004. We are in a world of Twitter and Facebook, not Live ID. That is what people think of when they talk about social media. Now I know John L. Scott has a close relationship with Microsoft, but lets face it, this solution is a very closed system using a dated concept.

For a much cheaper experience incorporate the listings with Facebook. Build an applet that allows people to post the listing directly to their Facebook page with a link to the listing. The potential buyer will benefit from this and their peer group will be able to interact. Or have a Tweet This button on the listing.

But the idea that people will try to convince their friends to sign up for a Live ID, or try to remember their old Live ID, is not how social media works these days.

I have to give kudos’s to the JL Scott team though, it is a solid effort. And I bet their relationship with Microsoft helped steer the product in the direction they took. But now I would recommend adding the Facebook and Twitter hooks.

That is the tool their potential buyers would like to see, and if my guess is correct, the tool that would drive market penetration and awareness significantly.

Oh, and if they do not add this feature, my bet is the competition will have it up and running in a matter of weeks. There are some great Facebook programmers out there who will work for cheap to add this integration tool. It would be a shame for a great idea lose out to a better implementation.

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