Washington, D.C.-area brokerage company, Avery-Hess, Realtors recently launched a new quality version of their website, 14 months in the making, that features innovations aplenty.
For example, in an effort to capture the lifestyle character of a potential neighborhood, one of the driving factors for the redesign, Avery-Hess has incorporated Yelp reviews of neighborhood establishments to their listings to give prospective homebuyers an idea of what a neighborhood is like.
"We want people to get a feel for what life would be like in the community they’re searching in," said Kristin Maynard, Avery-Hess’s marketing manager. A listing’s Walk Score, a proprietary estimate of a neighborhood’s walkability, is also prominently displayed.
To address the specific needs and wants of the area the company services, Avery-Hess also updated their Metro Line search function (a large portion of those in their service area commute via the Metro Line, D.C.’s commuter rail system, to work and back) to show properties ranging from a quarter of mile to three miles out from a certain stop.
Search by Metro Line stop is one of four search functions the new site features. They are: property search, metro line search, and new to this relaunch, open houses search and foreclosures search.
The streamlined, well-thought-out site was built from a strong dedication to quality, said Maynard in an interview with Inman News’s media guru Katie Lance. Maynard explained some of the background behind the development of the new site, which included a focus on quality video, presenting market trends in search areas, and making the site accessible to sellers, who make up about 50 percent of their clientele.
