A new real estate marketing platform is consolidating listings of homes for sale by owners, agents, builders and bank foreclosure. AmericasHomeShowcase.com has been tested in Dayton and Cincinnati, Ohio, and in Phoenix, Ariz. The platform is designed to combine a network of state and local home showcase Web sites that offer free and enhanced advertising opportunities for parties that sell real estate or are otherwise involved in the real estate industry.
The project manager, Steven Stackman, said his goal is to expand the Web site into a national system for listing homes and providing information to home buyers and sellers. All major metropolitan areas are expected to be represented on the platform by the end of the year, said Stackman, who has worked in the real estate industry for two decades.
By partnering with local real estate industry professionals, Stackman said the site will have a local focus even if it expands nationally. “Although the real estate industry is regulated by many federal and state laws, it is equally driven by local customs,” Stackman said. “What may be standard practice in one area may be unheard of in another.”
AmericasHomeShowcase.com is a division of Knight Multimedia, an Internet presence and marketing company based in Dayton, Ohio, and established in 1997. The site, as designed, is not affiliated with any one real estate company or type of seller.
Properties can be advertised for free, and each property ad can consist of up to 10 photos, an unlimited text description of the property, a custom mortgage payment calculator, directional maps by Yahoo! maps, a view counter to see how many visitors have seen the advertisement, and a spam-free mail form for potential buyers to contact the seller, among other features. Affiliate partners can earn $1 for every confirmed sign-up for free real estate advertising and up to $3 per sign-up based on volume.
Stackman notes in an announcement about the site that many Web sites focus on a specific type of property for sale and “are national in scope but fail to recognize, and assist with, the differences in customs of buying and selling a home in each local market.” It will take an estimated five days from the time a local partnership is created to set up and integrate local home showcase Web sites, according to the announcement.
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