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Top 5 Highlights of Realtor.com’s New Beta Launch

by Suzanne on Jun 16th, 2010
in Tags: Realtor.com, Realtor.com beta, Realtor.com new beta, Realtor.com new beta version, Realtor.com's new beta site
Posted in Eye On The Agents, Text

There’s reason to celebrate! Realtor.com has just launched their newly updated, ultra tech savvy beta site for everyone to feast their eyes on. We wanted to be the first ones to bring you the exclusive inside look to the exciting changes they have made – both enriching the viewing capabilities of online visitors, plus the addition of the multitude of ways such visitors can now find you, the expert Realtor.

As the #1 visited real estate website, it is even more important for Realtor.com to keep their standards exceedingly high when it comes to their offerings and powerful tools. With this in mind, Realtor.com’s new beta version is primed and ready for your test drive. But first, here’s the top five highlights we found after our technical investigation:

1. Find Realtors – Front and Center

And that’s just the beginning!  With this new addition to the home page of Realtor.com, the availability to search for Realtors within a certain market area, with specific designations and even number of listings will now be available for consumers to utilize.

Realtor.com’s President, Errol Samuelson, was quoted as saying, “The goal is not only to put more information into the hands of consumers, but helping them find a real estate professional to interpret it.” This new addition to the home page of Realtor.com’s beta version certainly puts this statement front and center.

2.  Realtor’s Enhanced Profiles

It’s a known fact that if a potential client was impressed by your knowledge, experience and reputation, they will more likely work with you than with an agent that does not have these characteristics.  But what if, for instance, they forget your last name!?  Don’t fret!  Now, Realtor.com’s beta site allows consumers to enter simply “Janice” and the town they are interested in purchasing a home and all the “Janice”‘s will be displayed.    So, now the client has found you, your profile now can be equipped with a mecca of detailed information both about you, the Realtor, but also your current active listings, average listing price, and your designations and certifications.

View an example of a completed profile here.

These new profile pages also feature the market  areas the agent works within and any recent updates made to their listings.   Realtor.com has, of course, made the availability for all Realtors to “claim” their business profile and update it to include their bio, type of specializations (such as “short sale and foreclosure”) and direct links to their social networking profiles, such as Facebook, Twitter an LinkedIN for free.  (Note:  Should an agent wish to not publicize the number of active listings they have, they can be hidden from the agent’s profile.)

3.  Visual Map Based Searches

With the amount of Realtors we speak to on a daily basis, we have quickly learned just how important they have found a map based search is for consumers to visualize active listings.   With Realtor.com’s new beta site, this has become an integral part of the new search platform they offer which will surely be seen as an enormous benefit to buyers.

These new maps provide many new experiences for potential clients to peruse.   These maps have the searched neighborhood outlined (as shown above in this Miami Beach illustration) and each of the listings mapped out with flags – when a flag is hovered over with your mouse, the listing’s price, number of bedrooms and bathrooms pops up, for easy pairing with the below listed property’s detail.  (You’ll also note that the “Featured Homes” are still above both the regular listings and the new map.)  Users can also use the “+” and “-” buttons to zoom in and out of individual properties for different viewing perspectives.

4.   Exclusive HeatMaps

Now these are HOT!  Three options appear when a consumer hovers over the “Heatmaps” tab on the bottom of the new Map Search:

• Listings Prices
• Estimated Values
• Median Income

Each of these options gives the potential client to have some very visual looks into both the specific area they are interested in buying within, but also the surrounding areas.  Below is an example of what will be seen when the “Estimated Values” is selected, which shows the various color coded estimated values:

5.  Not Just Active, But SOLD!

Realtor.com’s new beta site has given some amazing new tools for the ever-increasingly savvy consumer to put to use, but this has got to be our favorite!    By pulling the information from each of the MLS system, potential clients can now get even more detailed information about recently sold properties within their area of interest too.  Of course, this is valuable information for both buyers and sellers and just another reason why Realtor.com will remain the best online resource for real estate.

Detailed information about the sale of each of the recently sold homes include what the property sold for, what day it sold and who the selling and buying agent were in the transaction.   This is really invaluable information for consumers today when considering their need for more information than what is normally provided to them, especially within a single website!

So there you have it!  We truly are very excited about this new beta launch and are anxious to hear your feedback and opinions too.   Let us know in the comment box below your initial thoughts and favorite new aspects of the beta site.

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