Say hello to "HotSpots"

HotSpots combines a broad housing market overview with individual property insight, taking visual search to a whole new level.

The colored price points dynamically recalibrate based on zoom level and location, making it simple to see relationships between location and price! Each colored dot is an actual listing you can click and view pictures, property details, and send an inquiry.

The dark red points represent the most expensive properties and the light blue points represent the least expensive ones on a cost per bedroom basis. Marking a property as a "favorite" changes the point to a star, making it easy to come back to your favorite properties. Points which have already been previewed shrink in size, helping you discover new properties even faster.

The ability to see hundreds of properties on one screen, categorized by price and location, significantly reduces the time it takes to spot and send an inquiry to a hot property...give it a try!

-->

Sample Faceified Seal

Promote your brand, enhance your reputation with customer reviews, & cross-promote & track performance of all of your listings on Craigslist, Backpage, & more. Simple & FREE.

 

 

Buyfolio just launched a collaborative listing search tool between brokers and clients, similar to Streeteasy's Folders.  Buyfolio searches the entire REBNY database of listings, and has a bit of a more robust of a UI, compared to Streeteasy.

They currently support listings from:
Brown Harris Stevens
CitiHabitats
Corcoran
CharlesRutenberg

Halstead
Heddings

NYTimes

OLR

Prudential Elliman

Stribling

Sotheby's

Streeteasy

Trulia

Warburg

 

ForRent.com partners with RentWiki.com to increase consumer engagement and encourage feedback
Renters can now provide neighborhood feedback on leading apartment listing website

   For Rent Media Solutions™, a leading resource for apartment searches nationwide and operator of ForRent.com, a division of Dominion Enterprises, announces its exclusive partnership with RentWiki.com. The partnership introduces user-generated content to the leading multi-housing website.

“Consumers trust the unbiased opinion of other consumers,” said Brock MacLean, senior vice president of national sales and development. “According to a September 2010 study from the Pew Research Center, nearly one-fourth of U.S. adults say they have posted comments or reviews online about the products or services they buy. We embrace the opportunity this exclusive RentWiki partnership presents us to incorporate user-generated content into our site. This creates another platform for renters to communicate with each other. It also lets property managers monitor what is being said about the neighborhood around them.”

This functionality will also help increase visibility for nearby properties. Information from Neighborhood Wiki, one of RentWiki’s distinct types of user-generated content, is contributed by people who live in that particular area. Neighborhood Wiki allows current residents to post comments, and includes neighborhood information like an overview and pros and cons—as seen in the Dunwoody Reviews within the Greater Atlanta metro.

“The communications landscape is changing and RentWiki understands that social media is playing a major role in online communications,” said Robert Turnbull, co-founder and president of RentWiki.com. “RentWiki.com and ForRent.com are both well-known names among renters and property managers alike. We value the trust gained by renters and, through this partnership, welcome the opportunity to share their neighborhood feedback on ForRent.com.”

 

Ubiquitous listing info online: ubiquitously confusing

SEATTLE and SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Zillow.com® and Yahoo!® Real Estate (http://realestate.yahoo.com) today launched an exclusive partnership that brings together the two sites and creates the largest real estate network on the web, according to comScore® Media Metrix®(1) Zillow's sales force now sells local advertising across both sites, and the 4 million for-sale listings on Zillow now also appear on Yahoo! Real Estate. Zillow® and Yahoo! Real Estate announced plans for the partnership in July 2010.

 

I was just reading John Heithaus, Chief Marketing Officer, of MRIS blog post titled; Reality Check Ahead: Data Mining and the Implication for Real Estate Professionals. He does a great job of outlining the implications of syndication has upon the real estate business.

Unfortunately it seems nobody cares.

To me, and others, it’s clear that the risks of syndication far out weigh the rewards. Yet brokers continue to sign agreements they never read with fine print they never see. Granted there are some best practices to follow, such as making sure the syndicator’s site has much less information than yours, and to make sure you understand what rights to the data you are giving away.

But, with sites like Facebook and Google people have become accustom to surrendering their personal/business data for “free” products and services.

The frustration is that many MLS professionals understand the dangers of listing syndication but are powerless to dissuade their board members to stop, look and listen. Bob Hale at the recent Inman Connect conference did an excelent job of listing off the battles that MLS/Real Estate Industry has lost in recent years, citing “agent ratings” as the latest defeat. And if Bob Hale can’t get anything done? Can anyone???